Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why the Most Important Idea in Behavioral Decision Making Is a Fallacy

blogs.scientificamerican.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–19 of 19 posts

Re: Why the Most Important Idea in Behavioral Decision Making Is a Fallacy

#11

Post by dredmorbius »

perl4ever wrote: post #9
dredmorbius wrote: post #8

There are a number of related psychological and behavioural concepts which strike me as modestly-useful but wide-of-the-mark. The Marshmallow Test -- an assessment of short-term vs. long-term trade-offs -- is one such case. It seems that the outcomes are far more reasonably explained by whether an individual has been exposed to a high-trust or low-trust environment, one in which promises are kept or broken. That is,…

"The Marshmallow Test -- an assessment of short-term vs. long-term trade-offs -- is one such case." The problem with psychological research is that researchers assume they have thought of everything that could possibly occur to a subject, and that subjects take everything they are told at face value whenever necessary for the validity of an experiment.

I've lived long enough to see many of my own "obvious but lay objections" become mainstream.

In multiple fields, not just psychology. That's problematic. If mildly reassuring.

(Though suspicion is not experimentally validated refutation.)

Re: Why the Most Important Idea in Behavioral Decision Making Is a Fallacy

#12

Post by lonelappde »

dredmorbius wrote: post #8

There are a number of related psychological and behavioural concepts which strike me as modestly-useful but wide-of-the-mark. The Marshmallow Test -- an assessment of short-term vs. long-term trade-offs -- is one such case. It seems that the outcomes are far more reasonably explained by whether an individual has been exposed to a high-trust or low-trust environment, one in which promises are kept or broken. That is,…

The science on the marshmallow test converged on your guess years ago

https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2018/06/marshmall...

Re: Why the Most Important Idea in Behavioral Decision Making Is a Fallacy

#13

Post by lonelappde »

perl4ever wrote: post #10
benchaney wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Insurance is about risk aversion (which is reasonable in some cases), not loss aversion (which is completely irrational)

I'm not sure of the difference, but before I go look for educational material on how these phrases are used, obviously(?) risk is an abstract idea that we can never actually measure or demonstrate even in retrospect, whereas losses are a fact of life that everyone experiences. So it sounds very odd on the face of it to say loss aversion is irrational and risk aversion is not. Would you say that evolution is fundament…

Loss aversion refers to a preference for "not getting something you don't have" over "losing something you do have", even when the thing you don't gain is worth more.

It's nearly wholly irrational.

Re: Why the Most Important Idea in Behavioral Decision Making Is a Fallacy

#15

Post by mtVessel »

I don't understand the author's claim that the sunk-cost fallacy has nothing to do with loss aversion because, "...[loss aversion] requires a comparison be made between losses and gains." Any consideration of sunk costs is an implicit comparison against what might be gained by investing one's resources differently.

Re: Why the Most Important Idea in Behavioral Decision Making Is a Fallacy

#16

Post by dredmorbius »

lonelappde wrote: post #12
dredmorbius wrote: post #8

There are a number of related psychological and behavioural concepts which strike me as modestly-useful but wide-of-the-mark. The Marshmallow Test -- an assessment of short-term vs. long-term trade-offs -- is one such case. It seems that the outcomes are far more reasonably explained by whether an individual has been exposed to a high-trust or low-trust environment, one in which promises are kept or broken. That is,…

The science on the marshmallow test converged on your guess years ago https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2018/06/marshmall...

Right, I'm aware of that though I may not have communicated the point effectively.

My read, and present understanding, is that the marshmallow test measures affluence-induced trust more than willpower.

(Though I suspect other factors continue to be at play, including environmental factors affecting cognitive development through chemical and behavioural dynamics, probably others as well. Complex system is complex.)

Re: Why the Most Important Idea in Behavioral Decision Making Is a Fallacy

#17

Post by perl4ever »

lonelappde wrote: post #13
perl4ever wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure of the difference, but before I go look for educational material on how these phrases are used, obviously(?) risk is an abstract idea that we can never actually measure or demonstrate even in retrospect, whereas losses are a fact of life that everyone experiences. So it sounds very odd on the face of it to say loss aversion is irrational and risk aversion is not. Would you say that evolution is fundament…

Loss aversion refers to a preference for "not getting something you don't have" over "losing something you do have", even when the thing you don't gain is worth more. It's nearly wholly irrational.

Worth more? Who considers value to be an objective thing? Certainly not any economist I've ever heard of. How could you have trade at all if value was objective?

Re: Why the Most Important Idea in Behavioral Decision Making Is a Fallacy

#18

Post by sfink »

I can't trust anything in this article when its counterexamples are bogus and it doesn't cite evidence for its position.

Paying a higher price is not a loss. Loss is when you have something and lose it. Paying more money in exchange for a product is something else.

"You will lose out if you don't buy our product" is not a loss. It is lack of a gain, which is psychologically very different.

People's ratings of a $10 loss may not correlate very well with people's actions when faced with a $10 loss.

With this many basic errors, I can't make out whether the author's strawman has any substance or not. The author is hung up on things that could be logically equated to losses, which is bizarrely irrelevant when the effect under question is specifically about how people's actual behavior differs from logical behavior.

Re: Why the Most Important Idea in Behavioral Decision Making Is a Fallacy

#19

Post by Excel_Wizard »

dredmorbius wrote: post #8

There are a number of related psychological and behavioural concepts which strike me as modestly-useful but wide-of-the-mark. The Marshmallow Test -- an assessment of short-term vs. long-term trade-offs -- is one such case. It seems that the outcomes are far more reasonably explained by whether an individual has been exposed to a high-trust or low-trust environment, one in which promises are kept or broken. That is,…

Your explanation of the marshmallow test does not contradict the common interpretation of it. Your explanation proposes a mechanism for why the test subjects differ during the test. The common interpretation only explains that the tested difference is correlated with future outcomes.
Post reply on HN