Focusing effect in psychology

What caused the leak? 2023
Geoffrey W. Sutton & Bing AI

The focusing effect is a cognitive bias characterized by over-emphasizing selected details and not others, which can lead to errors in judgment if other relevant details are ignored.

Seek critical feedback from others to help identify important details we may ignore when engaged in personal project alone or with a team of likeminded co-workers.

Geoffrey W. Sutton, PhD is Emeritus Professor of Psychology. He retired from a clinical practice and was credentialed in clinical neuropsychology and psychopharmacology. His website is  www.suttong.com

 

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Pseudocertainty effect in psychology

The pseudocertainty effect refers to a false conclusion of certainty based on decisions in a later stage of a multistage decision-making process when the outcome is uncertain. The problem occurs when people ignore an outcome at an earlier stage.

The effect is attributed to Nobel Prize winning psychological scientist, Daniel Kahneman who worked with Amos Tversky on decision-making.

Kahneman is the author of the highly acclaimed book, Thinking, Fast and Slow.

Geoffrey W. Sutton, PhD is Emeritus Professor of Psychology. He retired from a clinical practice and was credentialed in clinical neuropsychology and psychopharmacology. His website is  www.suttong.com

 

See Geoffrey Sutton’s books on   AMAZON       or  GOOGLE STORE

Follow on    FACEBOOK   Geoff W. Sutton    

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ambiguity effect in psychology

The ambiguity effect is a psychological phenomenon that occurs when people avoid options with uncertain outcomes in favor of options with known outcomes, even if the uncertain option might have a higher expected value. This effect is often seen in decision-making, where people tend to avoid choices with uncertain outcomes, even if those options could lead to greater potential rewards.

One study by Hsee and Weber (1997) demonstrated the ambiguity effect by asking participants to choose between two lotteries. One lottery had a higher probability of winning a smaller prize, while the other lottery had a lower probability of winning a larger prize. When the probabilities were certain, participants tended to choose the lottery with the higher expected value. However, when the probabilities were uncertain, participants tended to avoid the ambiguous option and chose the lottery with the lower expected value but with known probabilities.

The ambiguity effect has been attributed to the fact that people often experience discomfort when they are uncertain about the outcomes of their decisions. As a result, they may avoid uncertain options and choose more familiar options, even if those options have lower expected value.

Overall, the ambiguity effect highlights the importance of understanding how people make decisions in uncertain situations and how they perceive risk and uncertainty.

Reference:

Hsee, C. K., & Weber, E. U. (1997). A fundamental prediction error: Self‐others discrepancies in risk preference. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 126(1), 45-53. doi: 10.1037/0096-3445.126.1.45

Geoffrey W. Sutton, PhD is Emeritus Professor of Psychology. He retired from a clinical practice and was credentialed in clinical neuropsychology and psychopharmacology. His website is  www.suttong.com

 

See Geoffrey Sutton’s books on   AMAZON       or  GOOGLE STORE

Follow on    FACEBOOK   Geoff W. Sutton    

   TWITTER  @Geoff.W.Sutton    

You can read many published articles at no charge:

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Dr. Sutton’s posts are for educational purposes only. See a licensed mental health provider for diagnoses, treatment, and consultation.

 

perpetual beta in psychology

Perpetual beta as a psychology concept refers to decision-making processes that allow for constant updating as new information becomes available.

The perpetual beta approach contrasts with creating a prediction model illustrating the relationship among the variables as a one-time stable model.

The beta concept is taken from computer software products that release software in a beta or testing phase then update the software based on feedback.

The psychology concept is attributed to Tetlock and Gardner.

Possible applications

The application to a wide range of businesses is obvious as they need to be concerned about providing viable products and services in the future.

Clinicians may find the concept useful in helping individuals update their modes of interacting with people or dealing with life situations. In a sense, we all have working models about how to deal with people and events but we may not be analysing and using new information to determine how well our ideas are working.

Reference

Tetlock, P. E., & Gardner, D. (2016). Superforecasting: The art and science of prediction. Random House.

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forensic confirmation bias

 In studies of forensic evidence, biasing information can lead analysts to ignore relevant evidence and lead to erroneous conclusions.

Reference example

Kassin, S. M., Dror, I. E., & Kukucka, J. (2013). The forensic confirmation bias: Problems, perspectives, and proposed solutions. Journal of applied research in memory and cognition, 2(1), 42-52.

bias blind spot

 The common finding that people have difficulty recognizing their own biases.

confidence heuristic

 The confidence heuristic is the finding that in a group, the views of confident people are accorded more weight than others regardless of the quality of the evidence supporting their views.

Politicians may garner many followers when they project a sense of confidence in the policies or plans they propose even if they are unrealistic or unlikely to be supported by lawmakers.

respect-expert

 In psychological studies about decision-making and persuasion, a respect-expert is a person who has the credentials expected of experts in a given profession or society.

Examples in western cultures often include university degrees, professional certifications, or government issues licenses.

present bias in psychology

 The present bias is a tendency to heavily ignore possible future outcomes when making a decision. That is, present bias is evident when people focus on the present and recent past when making decisions.

illusion of agreement in psychology

 The illusion of agreement is a finding that people tend to assume others agree with their conclusion when they are unable to think about plausible alternatives.

affect heuristic

 The affect heuristic is a reliance on feelings in decision-making.

An example of the affect heuristic is a group's support for hiring a leader based on a variety of good feelings or a "gut reaction" rather than a systematic analysis of factors predictive or successful leadership.

A summary of the affect heuristic can be found in the work of Paul Slovic and his colleagues (2002).

Reference

Slovic, P., Finucane, M., Peters, E., & MacGregor, D. G. (2002). The affect heuristic. In T. Gilovich, D. Griffin, & D. Kahneman (Eds.), Heuristics and biases: The psychology of intuitive judgment (pp. 397–420). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511808098.025

conclusion bias in psychology

 Conclusion bias occurs when a particular outcome is favored and the careful analysis of evidence gathering is ignored in favor of available supportive evidence.

scope insensitivity in psychology

 

Scope insensitivity is a cognitive bias found in decision-makers who avoid considering selective variables when forming a judgment or making a prediction.

Geoffrey W. Sutton, PhD is Emeritus Professor of Psychology. He retired from a clinical practice and was credentialed in clinical neuropsychology and psychopharmacology. His website is  www.suttong.com

 

See Geoffrey Sutton’s books on   AMAZON       or  GOOGLE STORE

Follow on    FACEBOOK   Geoff W. Sutton    

   TWITTER  @Geoff.W.Sutton    

You can read many published articles at no charge:

  Academia   Geoff W Sutton     ResearchGate   Geoffrey W Sutton 

 

Dr. Sutton’s posts are for educational purposes only. See a licensed mental health provider for diagnoses, treatment, and consultation.

planning fallacy- psychology

 The planning fallacy is a psychological bias based on findings that estimates of project completion time are usually lower than the actual time it takes to complete a project.

causal thinking fallacy in psychology

 Causal thinking is a common feature of human minds that assumes an outcome is easily explained by prior events without evidence that prior events were part of a causal chain.

For example, a massive selloff in financial markets may be considered by some pundits to have been highly predictable based on factors in the preceding months.

People weave together events to create a causal story to "understand" an outcome. When the explanation makes sense, the search for additional "causes" ends.

denial of ignorance - psychology concept

 The denial of ignorance is an attitude found among highly confident people who believe in the certainty of their judgments despite the lack of supportive evidence.

algorithm aversion

 Algorithm aversion is the tendency of people to distrust algorithms when making decisions. Although many might be willing to give an algorithm a chance, they tend to stop using them when a mistake is evident.

broken-leg principle in psychology

 

The concept of a broken-leg principle refers to statistical models that clarify when the model is valid and when it is not.

An example, could be the likely prediction that a person will attend an event unless they have a broken leg or some other accident, which nullifies the prediction.

Researchers do well to clarify the conditions under which their models are valid and when their models should not be applied.

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Mindless consistency

Mindless consistency is the routine application of a simple rule when making decisions.




The source for the concept may be a 2020 article by Yu and Kuncel

Reference

Yu, Martin C. and Kuncel, Nathan R. (2020) "Pushing the Limits for Judgmental Consistency: Comparing Random Weighting Schemes with Expert Judgments," Personnel Assessment and Decisions: Number 6 : Iss. 2 , Article 2.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.25035/pad.2020.02.002

illusion of validity a psychology concept

 The illusion of validity occurs when people overestimate the quality of their judgments.

The limited quality of human judgments was established in the 1950s based on research by Paul Meehl at the University of Minnesota.

Reference

Meehl, P. E. (2013). Clinical versus statistical prediction: A theoretical analysis and a review of the evidence.  Brattleboro, VT: Echo Point Books.    AMAZON

I write about psychology - please see my website suttong.com