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Biased but in doubt: conflict and decision confidence
Wim De Neys1, Sofie Cromheeke, Magda Osman
1Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, University of Toulouse, Toulouse, France. wim.deneys@univ-tlse2.fr
Plos One
|February 2, 2011
Summary
People detect conflicts between intuition and logic in reasoning tasks, as shown by decreased confidence. This bias awareness develops with age, impacting human rationality.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Decision Science
- Behavioral Economics
Background:
- Human reasoning is susceptible to intuitive heuristics, leading to cognitive biases.
- A key debate questions if biases stem from failing to detect intuition-norm conflicts or failing to discard intuitions.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate whether cognitive biases in reasoning arise from conflict detection or intuition rejection.
- To use decision confidence as a measure of conflict detection in human reasoning.
Main Methods:
- Participants solved base-rate and conjunction fallacy problems with potentially conflicting intuitive and normative responses.
- Decision confidence was measured as a nonverbal index of conflict detection.
Main Results:
- Reasoners exhibited decreased confidence when their intuitive response conflicted with the normative answer.
- This suggests an acknowledgment that intuitive answers may not be fully warranted.
- Younger reasoners lacked this confidence decrease, indicating developing bias awareness.
Conclusions:
- Human rationality involves detecting conflicts between intuitive heuristics and normative principles.
- Bias awareness, crucial for rational decision-making, develops over time.
- Findings contribute to the ongoing debate on the nature of human rationality.
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