Open thread, Dec. 29, 2014 - Jan 04, 2015

MrMind

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If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

Notes for future OT posters:

1. Please add the 'open_thread' tag.

2. Check if there is an active Open Thread before posting a new one. (Immediately before; refresh the list-of-threads page before posting.)

3. Open Threads should be posted in Discussion, and not Main.

4. Open Threads should start on Monday, and end on Sunday.

You notice that this is the kind of case where your ability to make a correct decision is likely to suffer from the hindsight bias. Hence you try to eschew your intuitive reasoning, opting to use deliberate reasoning instead.

And that doesn't work for most people. From Elizers article on the Hindsight bias:

Kamin and Rachlinski (1995) asked two groups to estimate the probability of flood damage caused by blockage of a city-owned drawbridge. The control group was told only the background information known to the city when it decided not to hire a bridge watcher. The experimental group was given this information, plus the fact that a flood had actually occurred. Instructions stated the city was negligent if the foreseeable probability of flooding was greater than 10%. 76% of the control group concluded the flood was so unlikely that no precautions were necessary; 57% of the experimental group concluded the flood was so likely that failure to take precautions was legally negligent. A third experimental group was told the outcome and also explicitly instructed to avoid hindsight bias, which made no difference: 56% concluded the city was legally negligent

You can't escape the bias by simply making a decision to go to system II.

For similar reasons, while they do not avoid biases altogether, trials by court are strongly preferable to trials by a mob or trials by media as the latter usually do not even attempt to curb their biases, whereas the structure of the former encourages using the type of thinking that employs System 2.

I think you confuse cognitive bias with bias interests. A journalist who writes an article does think about the issue with system II. It's just that a fair trial isn't his goal.

That's not hindsight bias. Having a flood is Bayseian evidence in favor of the correct estimate of flooding having been high (and therefore in favor of negligence).

3Sarunas12y

System 2 is not enough. But if there is a straw of hope to mitigate the bias in a particular situation where finding a correct solution is important, the only chance to find it is to search for it using your System 2. Suppose have to decide the foreseeable probability of flooding, you know about hindsight bias and you actually care about finding the correct estimate. How should you proceed? Perhaps you have to devise a method that you will use to make estimation in advance of looking at the date. Or perhaps you will make a decision to obtain data from various cities in the same region and use logistic regression to make an estimate. Or perhaps you will use some other estimator. What I am trying to say is that all these methods of deliberate reasoning (decision making algorithms, statistical analysis, etc.) are executed by System 2 and not System 1. I am not trying to say that System 2 guarantees that we will avoid bias. Firstly, in my understanding, System 2 and System 1 aren't separate systems, they are merely two ends of the continuum. Secondly, just because an algorithm is executed by System 2 doesn't mean that that algorithm is good. As I have said, System 2 seems to be close to necessary, but obviously it is not sufficient (for example, rolling a dice to "determine" the probability of flooding doesn't rely on intuition). Algorithms that are executed by System 2 are usually somewhat more transparent, therefore it is easier to detect their mistakes and biases. This means that it is easier to fix them. Thus there is a chance that at least some of those algorithms are good enough to be good estimators and avoid biases. Transparency is what makes System 2 preferable to System 1 in this particular situation. In other types of situations or other types of questions, as dthunt noted, feedback loops can be useful to train your intuition to achieve greater accuracy even though intuitive reasoning itself is not necessarily transparent.