Two dimensions of rationality (Two forms of consistency)
Epistemic Rationality: The consistency of judgments and beliefs
Examples:
Wason 4-card problem
Linda problem
Instrumental Rationality: The consistency of behavior with goals and desires
Instrumental Rationality
A Medical Decision
Mortality rates: Majority of patients, physicians, and college students choose radiation
Survival rates: Now the choice is for surgery
The data are, of course, identical.
Is the contradiction a form of irrationality?
The Irrelevance of the Past: Arkes & Blumer (1985)
Season tickets to the university’s theater productions
Price of tickets was $15, $13, or $8.
Prices determined randomly for experimental subjects
Dependent variable: How many plays did each person attend
Honoring of Sunk Costs
Pay more, more likely to attend
The endowment effect is a related phenomenon
Is this behavior irrational?
Two Systems of Reasoning
System 1: Rapid, parallel, automatic, carried out without conscious awareness. Old in evolutionary terms
System 2: Slow, sequential, deliberate, inhibits the effects of System 1.
How does this explain the inconsistency of preferences, the honoring of sunk costs, and the endowment effect?
Two Versions of Rationality
For early humans, evolution may have provided problem specific solutions, leading to the development of System 1 reasoning
This has led some authors to deny that human reasoning is irrational
With the development of human culture there is a growing need for the context-free, generalized problem solving of System 2
Long-leash evolution
Stanovich & West (2000)
“The more we understand about evolutionary mechanisms, the more awed appreciation we have for them. But at the same time, it is not inconsistent … to be horrified at the fact that a multi-million dollar advertising advertizing industry is in part predicated on creating stimuli that will trigger System 1 heuristics that many of us will not have the cognitive energy or cognitive disposition to override. … It is no consolation that the heuristics so triggered were evolutionarily adaptive in their day”.
The Role of Two Systems in Cognitive Science
Where do these ideas fit within the broader context of cognitive science?
How might these ideas influence, or be explained by, physical symbol systems?
How might these ideas influence, or be explained by, neural network models?
How does dual process theory fit with the massive modularity hypothesis and the domain-general process hypothesis?
Where do the two systems fit within ACT?
Two Systems and the Three Levels of Theory
Where do these ideas fit within Marr’s and Stanovich’s frameworks for cognitive theories?
Where does the concept of rationality fit?
Two individual difference dimensions: Cognitive capacity, Thinking dispositions
Where do these fit?