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Related Concept Videos

Unrealistic Optimism Bias01:30

Unrealistic Optimism Bias

Unrealistic optimism bias is the tendency to overestimate the likelihood of positive outcomes. This cognitive bias makes individuals believe they are less likely to experience failures, setbacks, or risks and more likely to succeed than others. For example, people may assume they are less prone to health issues, accidents, or financial struggles than their peers, even when they share similar risk factors.One key component of this bias is the above-average effect, where individuals perceive...
The Availability Heuristic01:08

The Availability Heuristic

A heuristic is a general problem-solving framework (Tversky & Kahneman, 1974). You can think of these as mental shortcuts that are used to solve problems. Different types of heuristics are used in different types of situations, and the impulse to use a heuristic occurs when one of five conditions is met (Pratkanis, 1989):
The Anchoring-and-Adjustment Heuristic01:25

The Anchoring-and-Adjustment Heuristic

In order to make good decisions, we use our knowledge and our reasoning. Often, this knowledge and reasoning is sound and solid. However, sometimes, we are swayed by biases or by others manipulating a situation. For example, let’s say you and three friends wanted to rent a house and had a combined target budget of $1,600. The realtor shows you only very run-down houses for $1,600 and then shows you a very nice house for $2,000. Might you ask each person to pay more in rent to get the $2,000...
The Representativeness Heuristic02:13

The Representativeness Heuristic

The representative heuristic describes a biased way of thinking, in which you unintentionally stereotype someone or something. For example, you may assume that your professors spend their free time reading books and engaging in intellectual conversation, because the idea of them spending their time playing volleyball or visiting an amusement park does not fit in with your stereotypes of professors.
Hindsight Biases01:12

Hindsight Biases

Hindsight bias leads you to believe that the event you just experienced was predictable, even though it really wasn’t. In other words, you knew all along that things would turn out the way they did. Can you relate this to the phrase "Hindsight is 20/20" now?
Optimal Foraging00:48

Optimal Foraging

How animals obtain and eat their food is called foraging behavior. Foraging can include searching for plants and hunting for prey and depends on the species and environment.

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 1, 2026

The Joint Effect of Social Comparison and Social Distance on Evaluation of Intertemporal Choice Outcomes in Event-related Potential Studies
08:24

The Joint Effect of Social Comparison and Social Distance on Evaluation of Intertemporal Choice Outcomes in Event-related Potential Studies

Published on: August 25, 2023

Overestimating resource value and its effects on fighting decisions.

Lee Alan Dugatkin1, Aaron David Dugatkin

  • 1Department of Biology, University of Louisville, Louisville, Kentucky, United States of America. lee.dugatkin@louisville.edu

Plos One
|May 24, 2011
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Animals may overestimate food value when deciding whether to fight, especially when hungry. This strategy appears favored by natural selection in behavioral ecology simulations.

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Jun 1, 2026

The Joint Effect of Social Comparison and Social Distance on Evaluation of Intertemporal Choice Outcomes in Event-related Potential Studies
08:24

The Joint Effect of Social Comparison and Social Distance on Evaluation of Intertemporal Choice Outcomes in Event-related Potential Studies

Published on: August 25, 2023

Area of Science:

  • Behavioral Ecology
  • Evolutionary Game Theory
  • Animal Behavior

Background:

  • Animals engage in strategic decision-making during resource competition.
  • The evolution of resource assessment strategies, specifically over- or underestimation of value, remains under-examined.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the evolutionary dynamics of overestimating or underestimating resource (food) value.
  • To determine how an individual's hunger level influences the evolution of these estimation strategies.

Main Methods:

  • A computer simulation was employed to model the evolution of seven distinct food value estimation strategies.
  • Strategies were competed against each other and against a default 'never over/underestimate' strategy under varying population frequencies.

Main Results:

  • The strategies 'always overestimate food value' and 'overestimate food value when hungry' demonstrated significant success in simulations.
  • These successful strategies outperformed others even when rare and competing against a dominant default strategy.

Conclusions:

  • Overestimating food value, particularly when hungry, is a strategy favored by natural selection in resource competition.
  • These findings offer insights into the evolution of decision-making processes in animal behavior.