How We Decide Jonah Lehrer

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How We DecideJonah Lehrer
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• Important question when to use rationality vs.
  intuition

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• Reason vs. emotion false dichotomy
• decisions DEPEND on emotion
• case history tumor in orbitofrontal cortex
• OFC connects primitive brain to conscious
  thought

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• Feelings guide our choices
• rational thoughts tend to come AFTER decision has
  been made
• LeDoux feelings summary of unconscious info
  processing
• consciousness a small part of what brain does

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• metacognition only in humans (??)
• done by newer parts of brain still have a lot
  of bugs
• older parts of brain debugged much longer

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• dopaminepleasure centers helps regulate all
  emotions helps us decide
• Shultz prediction neurons
• if expectation confirmed increased firing rate
  of dopamine neurons

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• if expectation disconfirmed decreased firing
  rate of dopamine neurons prediction error
  signal
• also if expectation disconfirmed--anterior
  cingulate cortex (ACC)error-related negativity
  signal (oh, shit circuit)
• unexpected result focuses attention
• ACC remembers feedback and adjusts expectations

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Artificial Intelligence

• Deep Bluechess. rigid, cant learn from
  experience
• Tesaurobackgammon. learn from playing games
  (similar to tic-tac-toe matchbox computer)
• program predicts moves and refines predictions
  over thousands of games

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Artificial Intelligence

• similar programs used for high rise elevators,
  flight schedules
• program finds optimal solution itself

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Iowa Gambling Task

• two types of card decks
• one high risk, one conservative
• conservative has higher long-term payoff
• 10 cards GSR increase for risky deck
• 50 cards start choosing conservative deck more
  often
• 80 cards can explain deck preference

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Deliberate Practice

• best for improving decisions
• focus on mistakes, not successes
• self criticism is the secret to self
  improvement
• Dunningincompetence need to use external
  feedback
• Dweck studies

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When do emotions mislead us?

• gambling anticipation of reward excites
  dopamine system (note Parkinsons ex.)
• unpredictable rewardstend not to adapt
• incorrect beliefs cause incorrect expecations
  actions
• e.g., hot hand in basketball
• e.g., finding patterns that are not there (T maze
  ex.)

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emotions misleading us

• e.g., stock chartists
• Deal or No Dealbase decisions on how deal
  feels instead of rational analysis
• can work, but can mislead when emotions too
  strong (e.g., overreact to previous bad choice)

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emotions misleading us

• framing loss aversion
• credit cardsless emotional attachment than
  actual money
• small vs. large expenditures stronger emotional
  response to large, but numerous small ones add up
  to more

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emotions misleading us

• adjustable loans
• smaller payment NOW midbrain emotion areas
• larger payment LATER prefrontal cortex for
  rational planning
• decision based on which is more active brain area

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emotions misleading us

• Evolutionary psych mismatch hypothesis
• our emotions evolved to solve adaptive problems
  in our evolutionary past they may not be
  well-suited to decisions we make in modern life
  (as described by Loewenstein)

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Nudge

• Thaler we should design choice programs to make
  good decisions more likely
• e.g., his save more tomorrow program ask
  employees to opt into savings plan that will
  start in a few months
• opt-out vs. opt-in programs

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Self Control

• ability to delay gratificationa consistent
  personality trait
• depends on prefrontal cortex controlling emotion
  centers
• experts better able to control emotions in
  emergency situations (deliberate calm)

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When to think less

• skilled athletes do better with less conscious
  control e.g., golf studies
• (note Van de Velde description not completely
  accurate!!)
• poster study justify choice leads to less
  happiness with chosen poster why?

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When to think less

• too much analysisfocus on variables that dont
  matter
• poster we are happy with should be based on
  emotion, not logic

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When to think less

• wine tasting if know brand or price, it affects
  our rating
• should choose blind to get what we actually like
  best

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ways we are bad at math

• serving sizes affect how much we eat drink
• how far would you drive to save 15?
• Ariely study Social Security nos.

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too much information

• more infodiminishing returns, then negative
  returns
• better to focus on few most important factors
• adding low quality info hurts

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too much info

• MRI and back pain study
• 2/3 of asymptomatic people had MRI that looked
  like a problem
• doctors aware of this study still wanted MRI for
  their patients

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Moral Decisions

• are based on emotions
• reasons (rationality) comes later
• siblings example
• personal vs. impersonal decisions trolley
  examples
• animal examples of fairness sensitivity

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games and fairness

• ultimatum game
• dictator game
• most people make fair offer to a person

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brain and decisions

• Becharabrain areas compete for control
• competition is mostly unconscious
• Knutson Loewenstein studyconsumer choice
• nucleus accumbensdopamine pathways
• insulaaversion
• prefrontal cortexrational analysis

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Knutson Loewenstein study

• could predict choice by which area most active

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what if deadlocked?

• not always best to force a decision
• better to tolerate uncertainty, gather more
  information (unless not to decide is to decide)

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existing beliefs

• confirmation biasavoid info that contradicts
  existing beliefs seek confirming info
• study evaluate contradictions by Bush Kerry

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existing beliefs

• self delusion feels good because we enjoy
  feeling certain
• another author overconfidence is worst
  cognitive bias
• professional pundits studypredictions worse than
  chance most famous were worst predictors

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existing beliefs

• ideologies can make people disregard
  contradictory info
• prisoners of their preconceptions
• real experts learn from dissonant data

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playing poker

• rational approachknow odds, keep track of cards
• emotiona feel for when to bluff, when to fold,
  etc.
• experienceknow when to rely on math and when to
  go with feel
• use conscious mind to learn, and intuition to
  make choices