Decision Making

Cognitive spendthrifts: How human biases may stem from more complicated–not simple–processing

Picture yourself sitting in front of a seemingly endless stack of exams to grade, full of open-ended questions, with responses demonstrating varying levels of understanding. Now imagine your joy when you flip open an exam with a first response that just gets it. An exceptional answer that demonstrates a true mastery of the material. Did […]

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Feel my rage! Studying reactive aggression

Have you ever seen someone who, after being wronged, seems more concerned about a way to get revenge than in stopping to think about what happened and whether revenge is even worth it? Reacting to aggressions without thinking can lead to bad consequences, ranging from relatively mild, such as a heated discussion where impoliteness escalates […]

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Decisions, decisions: How gender shapes choices

Are your decisions tied to your gender? Prior research has shown gender differences in financial and career-related decisions, like choosing what to invest in or entrepreneurship. Research has suggested that this may be related to the greater risk sensitivity in women compared to men. But is this true in all situations? “Do men and women […]

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How rats reason: A demonstration of the conjunction fallacy in a nonhuman species

Which of these is more common in the English language: A) words that end in “ing” B) words with “n” as the second to last letter? It might be tempting to pick A. There are lots of verbs that come easily to mind that end in “ing” (racing, baking, typing, etc.)—not to mention nouns like […]

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The cognitive psychologists are coming! #psynom22

November is here. The leaves changed from green into vibrant yellows, oranges, and reds and carpeted the streets. The air chilled, so my winter clothes reappeared, replacing my summer clothes, as I braced myself for the colder months ahead. Root vegetables supplanted fresh salads on my menus. For me, an American in the UK, November […]

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I don’t have time for this… unless it could take more time

Einstein’s theory of special relativity suggests that time passes at a different rate depending on the speed of your movement. Time is relative and depends on one’s movement. However, a certain amount of time can still feel really different to each of us, even when we are not traveling near the speed of light (like […]

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Commitment issues: We only want to learn about novel objects, not be stuck with them

The first time I stepped foot into a Whole Foods Market (a fancy, pricey grocery chain), I was amazed by the produce section replete with exotic fruits that I had never seen before: rambutan, cherimoya, horned melon, and most bizarrely, in this Westerner’s humble opinion, Buddha’s hand (see below left). Standing in the aisle, I […]

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An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure: Using inoculation to prevent belief in Islamophobic and radical-Islamist disinformation

Doctor’s visit, shot, Band-Aid, and a lollipop. It’s a familiar scene from many a childhood vaccination. But what if inoculations could prevent more than just disease? Stephan Lewandowsky and Mushin Yesilada (pictured below) investigated just that in a recent experiment published in Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications, a Psychonomic Society journal. In a large online […]

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What do space invaders and sequential foraging have in common? Your heart.

Have you ever played a video game where the first few levels are relatively easy and slow, but as you progress, the game becomes harder and faster? Years back, I played Tetris, Frogger, PacMan, Space Invaders, Centipede, etc. I can remember my 10-year-old self (or my 22-year-old graduate student self) working so hard to beat the […]

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