Thinking and reasoning

Christopher Sterling

Complete Psychology published by Hodder Education

Problem solving overview

Problem solving finding a method of getting from where you are to where you want to be. Two kinds of problem: Well-defined problems, e.g. anagrams, crosswords
You (1) have all the information you need and (2) know what has to be done. The problem is doing it

Ill-defined problems some aspect of the problem is not well-defined

Most real-life problems are ill-defined.

Christopher Sterling

Complete Psychology published by Hodder Education

Behaviourist approach
Behaviourist approaches to problem solving: Reproductive strategies (Hull, 1920): where possible the problem solver reproduces (parts of) old solutions, e.g. making a cold car start; writing an essay Trial-and-error strategy (Thorndike, 1911): when old solutions wont work, problem solver (1) makes random attempts which (2) lead to correct action by chance which leads to (3) learning the correct action
e.g. cat escaping from cage.
Christopher Sterling Complete Psychology published by Hodder Education

Gestalt approach
Emphasis on: Productive strategies past experience may certainly help solve many problems but some situations demand a new solution. These are arrived at through a process of insight. Insight involves re-configuring or restructuring the problem
Example of Sultan the chimpanzee reaching suspended food by climbing on boxes.

Christopher Sterling

Complete Psychology published by Hodder Education

Gestalt approach
Characteristics of thinking which are barriers to success: 1. Functional fixedness
The pendulum problem. Two strings hanging from the ceiling have to be tied together but solver cant reach both at the same time. Room contains objects such as paintbrush, hammer, can of paint, nails. How can problem be solved? The candle problem (Duncker, 1926, 1945)
Complete Psychology published by Hodder Education

Christopher Sterling

Gestalt approach
2. Mental set: learn a particular way of solving a problem which often produces success, but continue to use it even when inappropriate
Luchins (1942, 1959) water jars problem Problems 16 can be solved by formula b-a-2c Participants continue to use this solution to attempt all the other problems, even when wrong or when better solutions exist. They acquire a mental set for solving water jar problems which they find difficult to abandon.
Complete Psychology published by Hodder Education

Christopher Sterling

Approaches
Behaviourist objections to insight: What psychological processes are occurring during insight? Why and how does restructuring occur? Might just as well call insight aha Epstein (1984) showed that pigeons could solve Sultans problem if theyd been previously trained to (1) move a box to correct location and (2) climb the box.
Christopher Sterling Complete Psychology published by Hodder Education

Analogy
Analogy: problem solver tries to solve problem on the basis of its similarity to another problem which s/he knows how to solve Glick and Holyoak (1983) does knowing how to solve the fortress problem help solve the radiation problem? Radiation problem: a person has a malignant tumour in middle of their body. How can you radiate this to kill it without killing healthy tissue? The fortress problem: a good king wants to attack a tyrant in his fortress, but roads to the fortress are mined large numbers of troops would be killed but small numbers could get through. How can the good king invade the fortress?
Christopher Sterling Complete Psychology published by Hodder Education

Analogy
Results: 10% solved the radiation problem without help 30% solved problem after exposure to fortress problem and its solution (only 20% more) 75% solved problem after solving fortress problem and being told it would help in solving radiation problem 25% never saw any connection between the two problems. Analogies may not be that helpful in solving problems. The relationship between two problems doesnt seem to be that evident to people, certainly not spontaneous.
Christopher Sterling Complete Psychology published by Hodder Education

General problem solver

The general problem solver (Newell and Simon, 1963): Solving a problem consists of a number of states: initial state, intermediate states, end state Solver moves through these states using appropriate physical or mental operations Describes: maze finding; proving a theorem; solving an anagram; winning at chess; finding the partner of your dreams; becoming prime minister But, what are these operations? How are they acquired? How do we know when to apply them?

Christopher Sterling

Complete Psychology published by Hodder Education

General problem solver

Prior experience and formal instruction play a role:
Learn rules of game Acquire heuristics (rules of thumb) which provide guidelines or strategies Meansend analysis is a common heuristic involves breaking problem down into subgoals. Achieving each subgoal may also involve using a heuristic

Consider winning at chess:

There are rules which specify each pieces movements learn these formally Playing involves achieving subgoals, each of which is a heuristic in its own right, e.g. control the centre of the board, protect the king, get the opponents queen asap, etc.

Christopher Sterling

Complete Psychology published by Hodder Education

Concept learning
Concepts are mental representations of classes of objects: Table concept consists of all things considered to be a table Animal concept consists of all things considered to be an animal. Logical concepts are identified by clear and unambiguous rules, e.g. a square has four equal sides and all angles are 90 degrees. Natural concepts: there are no clear rules which identify instances, e.g. boundaries between animals are fuzzy compare cats, pekes, Alsatians, wolves. How are concepts learned? The type of concept may well determine how its learned.

Christopher Sterling

Complete Psychology published by Hodder Education

Concept learning
Associative learning: Hull (1920) argued that concepts are acquired through associative learning; members of the category become associated with each other (and with their name) Experiment using Chinese characters; participants had to learn which patterns were members of the category (those containing the radical) and which werent (those that didnt) Took participants many, many trials but even then couldnt explicitly distinguish members from nonmembers Consistent with building up of associations over a period of time.
Christopher Sterling Complete Psychology published by Hodder Education

Concept Learning
Hypothesis testing. Bruner et al. (1956): concepts are learned by forming and then testing hypotheses about what the concept is Experiment using multidimensional stimuli; participants had to learn which are members of the category (identified by a rule) and which arent (those not conforming to rule) Participants formed hypothesis about what the rule might be after a few stimuli and then tested the rule on further stimuli if hypothesis was wrong they changed the hypothesis Bower & Trabasso (1964) found that until the participant got the rule they were guessing (50% correct). Once they got the rule, they jumped to 100% correct. This pattern of responding Christopherconsistent with Complete Psychology published by Hodder Education is not Sterling building associations

Concept learning
How are concepts learned? Anderson (1995) argues that a single theory may not be enough to explain how concepts are learned: Fuzzy concepts (e.g. dog) may be learned predominantly by association (exclude instances where specialist knowledge applies, e.g. why whales are mammals; why bats are mammals) Logical concepts may be learned predominantly by hypothesis testing.

Christopher Sterling

Complete Psychology published by Hodder Education

Judgements
Judgements involve drawing a conclusion from a combination of knowledge and observation:
Is this person Ive just met someone I can trust to look after my bag? Yes, I think so. Hes got an honest face and plays cricket.

Takes the form of a subjective probability, often based on partial or incorrect information or flawed reasoning and prejudices. Should be based on logical thinking or an objective calculation of probabilities. But is often based on heuristics (rules of thumb) and non-relevant information.
Christopher Sterling Complete Psychology published by Hodder Education

Judgement
Base rate information. Two questions: 1. Can people use objective, statistical (base rate) information to come to an informed judgement? 2. Do people use objective, statistical (base rate) information to come to an informed judgement?

Christopher Sterling

Complete Psychology published by Hodder Education

Judgement
The representativeness heuristic We base our judgement more on subjective impressions of how representative an instance is of a particular category than on objective information Lawyers and engineers problem (Kahneman and Tversky, 1973).

Christopher Sterling

Complete Psychology published by Hodder Education

Judgement
The availability heuristic (Tversky and Kahneman, 1974): judgement is made on the basis of available information, e.g. recent memories: The frequency of letters in the English language was studied. In typical texts the relative frequency of letters in the first and third position was tallied
Is R more likely to appear in the first or third position?

Doctors are more likely to make a diagnosis of heart disease if they have recently seen and diagnosed several cases of heart disease than if they havent (Weber et al., 1993). Base rate information is swamped by these experiences.
Christopher Sterling Complete Psychology published by Hodder Education

Judgement
Gamblers fallacy the belief that if an event hasnt happened for a while it must happen soon because of the law of averages. Illusory correlation the perception that associations and causeeffect relationships exist when the evidence is flimsy or nonexistent, e.g. correlation between positive characteristics and political party we support and between negative characteristics and political party we dislike.
Christopher Sterling Complete Psychology published by Hodder Education

Decision making
Expected utility theory:
Calculated by multiplying the value of an alternative (how much money will this bring me? how happy will it make me?) by the likelihood of it happening (very unlikely; quite likely): You have a pound to spend on the lottery. You can spend it on a lottery which has one prize of 10 million, or on one which has 100 prizes of 100,000 pounds. Which lottery ticket do you buy? You are at a party. You see two people. One is mildly attractive and sending you a clear come on. The other is stunning and gave you a brief smile when your eyes met. Who do you approach? Theory seems to apply when presented with two simple choices, but most life decisions are more complex. There may be more than one alternative and other constraints may apply, e.g. how did you make the decision to come to university?

Christopher Sterling

Complete Psychology published by Hodder Education

Decision making
One reason why expected utility theory may not give accurate predictions is because of biases. Kahneman and Tversky looked at how people manage risk taking and uncertainty (prospect theory) and found biases in reasoning. Risk aversion. In certain circumstances people make decisions to avoid risk (specifically loss), e.g.:
Get 1000 with certainty or a 50% chance of getting 2500 people tend to chose certainty and avoid the risky option Treating 100 people for a disease. Vaccine A will definitely save 30 people but the others will die. Vaccine B may (30% chance) save everyone, but there is a 70% chance everyone will die. Which vaccine? Loss aversion is synonymous with risk aversion; see also sunk cost effect.
Christopher Sterling Complete Psychology published by Hodder Education

Decision making
Risk seeking. In other circumstances people make decisions that seek risk:
Lose 1000 with certainty or have a 50:50 chance of losing nothing or 2500. People chose the risky option Treating 100 people for disease. If vaccine C is used, 70 people will die. If vaccine D is used, there is a 30% chance no one will die and a 70% chance everyone will die. Which vaccine?

Whether we choose risk aversion or risk seeking depends, amongst other things, on how the choices are framed:
Decision making is susceptible to biases in reasoning, e.g. it doesnt always follow mathematical or rational principles.

Christopher Sterling

Complete Psychology published by Hodder Education