Blog Archives - Stephen Knighten

Useless Information in Decision Making

12/22/2014

I stumbled on an old article On The Pursuit and Misuse of Useless Information. The title lays it out pretty clearly. In ambiguous situations, participants pursued information that would not have impacted decisions of those who knew the information at the outset.

Further, when the information that was received is "good news" (better than expected at the outset), participants treated it as better than people who received the same "good news" information from the beginning. "Bad news" was also more heavily penalized.

A extension of this could be: what about when the pursuit of information is costly? How do people weigh gathering more information/waiting vs. risk when it diminishes their rewards? I'm sure this has been tackled at some point.

Thinking Fast and Slow

12/5/2014

Finally finished Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman! While this was a really challenging read (well over 400 pages and took me 6 months to finish), I thought it was a really insightful book. It outlines a very intriguing framework for understanding decision-making and includes details on the research that underlies that insight.

I think the part that stands out most to me is the substitution heuristic. Without thinking, we can easily substitute harder questions for easier questions. Example given: is someone who participates in social justice groups more likely to be a "feminist bank teller" or a "bank teller?" Consistently people choose "feminist bank teller" because it fits with the narrative and we've substitution "likelihood" for "fit." It definitely puts me on notice for when I'm substituting for easier questions.

I'll probably have a few posts on Thinking Fast and Slow as I think through the different implications.