Any number that you are asked to consider as a possible solution to an estimation problem will induce an anchoring effect.
Two different mechanisms produce anchoring effects – one for each system. There is a form of anchoring that occurs in a deliberate process of adjustment, an operation of System 2. And there is anchoring that occurs by a priming effect, an automatic manifestation of System 1.
The lesson is clear: estimates of causes of death are warped by media coverage. The coverage is itself biased toward novelty and poignancy. The media do not just shape what the public is interested.
Confidence is a feeling, which reflects the coherence of the information and the cognitive ease of processing it.
I smiled and said nothing. But I thought, “Well, I took it away from you this morning. If your success was due mostly to chance, how much credit are you entitled to take for it?
Suggestion and anchoring are both explained by the same automatic operation of System 1.
System noise is inconsistency, and inconsistency damages the credibility of the system.
In a paper titled “Trading Is Hazardous to Your Wealth,” they showed that, on average, the most active traders had the poorest results, while the investors who traded the least earned the highest returns.
Judgments are both less noisy and less biased when those who make them are well trained, are more intelligent, and have the right cognitive style.
Despite all the evidence in favor of mechanical and algorithmic prediction methods, and despite the rational calculus that clearly shows the value of incremental improvements in predictive accuracy, many decision makers will reject decision-making approaches that deprive them of the ability to exercise their intuition.
What we learn from the past is to maximize the qualities of our future memories, not necessarily of our future experience. This is the tyranny of the remembering self.
You seem to be devoting your entire vacation to the construction of memories. Perhaps you should put away the camera and enjoy the moment, even if it is not very memorable?
The more extreme the original score, the more regression we expect, because an extremely good score suggests a very lucky day. The regressive prediction is reasonable, but its accuracy is not guaranteed.
Meehl discovered that clinicians and other professionals are distressingly weak in what they often see as their unique strength: the ability to integrate information.
Beyond the satiation level of income, you can buy more pleasurable experiences, but you will lose some of your ability to enjoy the less expensive ones.
They found that putting the participants in a good mood before the test by having them think happy thoughts more than doubled accuracy. An even more striking result is that unhappy subjects were completely incapable of performing the intuitive task accurately; their guesses were no better than random. Mood evidently affects the operation of System 1: when we are uncomfortable and unhappy, we lose touch with our intuition.
We will not learn to understand regression from experience. Even when a regression is identified, as we saw in the story of the flight instructors, it will be given a causal interpretation that is almost always wrong.
The psychologist Paul Slovic has proposed an affect heuristic in which people let their likes and dislikes determine their beliefs about the world.
Self-criticism is one of the functions of System 2. In the context of attitudes, however, System 2 is more of an apologist for the emotions of System 1 than a critic of those emotions – an endorser rather than an enforcer.
Most impressions and thoughts arise in your conscious experience without your knowing how they got there.