Decision and experience:why don't we choose what makes us happy

1. Decision and experience:why don't we choose what makes us happy Author : Christopher K. Hseeand Reid Hastie Source : Trends in Cognitive SciencesVolume 10, Issue 1, January 2006, Pages 31-37 指導教授：戴敏育老師 報告者:淡江大學資訊管理系碩士班 吳至偉 698630497 日期：2011/10/21

2. outline • Introduction • Failures to predict future experience accurately • Failures to follow predictions • Summary

3. Introduction • Fundamental assumption of classic economic theory • People are able to identify and choose what is best for them • Are people really able to choose what is best for them? • Recent findings from behavioral-decision research • People are not always able to choose what yields the greatest happiness or best experience

5. Failures to predict future experience accurately • Behavioral-decision researchers have identified several systematic biases • Impact bias • Projection bias • Distinction bias • Memory bias • Belief bias

6. Impact bias • People often overestimate the impact of an affective event • One cause of this impact bias is focalism • predictors pay too much attention to the central event and overlook context events • Another cause of impact bias is immune neglect • after an emotion-evoking event happens, people tend to rationalize or make sense of it

7. Projection bias • People making predictions and people experiencing are often in different arousal states • Projection bias occurs not only when experiencers are others • Projection bias can lead to choices that one will regret

8. Distinction bias • Distinction bias occurs because predictors and experiencers are in different evaluation modes(single or joint-evaluation) • Distinction bias can also lead to non-optimal choices

9. Memory bias • Predictions of future experiences are often based on memories of related past experiences • memory is fallible and introduces systematic biases into evaluations • A classic experiment by Kahneman and co-authors

10. Belief bias • A guide of hedonic forecasts is people’s lay theories of what makes them happy or unhappy • One common belief is more choice options are always better

12. Failures to follow predictions • Decision- makers need to act on their predictions • Decision- makers variously choose the option that has these characters • Impulsivity • rule-based choice • lay rationalism • medium maximization

13. Impulsivity • A major cause of sub-optimal decisions is impulsivity • The choice of an immediately gratifying option at the cost of long-term happiness • overeating, avoiding medical exams, taking drugs, and squandering savings

14. Rule-based decisions • Decision-makers sometimes base their choices on rules for good behavior rather than predicted experience • Some examples of decision rules • seek variety • don’t waste

15. Lay rationalism • Decision-makers strive to be rational • the desire for rationality can lead to less rational decisions • Three specific manifestations of lay rationalism • lay economism • lay scientism • lay functionalism

16. Medium maximization • Often when people exert effort to obtain a desired outcome, the immediate reward they receive is not the outcome itself, but a medium • people work harder and harder to accumulate more and more wealth, but are not in fact happier

18. Summary • For decades, behavioral-decision researchers have studied inconsistencies in choices, demonstrating • In recent years, decision researchers have studied directly when decisions are sub-optimal • two general reasons for the failure • prediction biases • failures to follow predictions

19. Summary • Many social policies(free choice of health providers, retirement plans)are built upon the assumptions that people know their own preferences and that what people choose must be in their best interests • The behavioral-decision-research findings we have reviewed here cast doubt on these assumptions

20. Decision and experience:why don't we choose what makes us happy 報告者:淡江大學資訊管理系碩士班 吳至偉 698630497 Q&A