Attribute substitution
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Attribute substitution is a psychological process thought to underlie a number of
The theory of attribute substitution unifies a number of separate explanations of reasoning errors in terms of
History
In a 1974 paper, psychologists Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman argued that a broad family of biases (systematic errors in judgment and decision) were explainable in terms of a few heuristics (information-processing shortcuts), including availability and representativeness.
In 1975, psychologist Stanley Smith Stevens proposed that the strength of a stimulus (e.g., the brightness of a light, the severity of a crime) is encoded neurally in a way that is independent of modality.[citation needed] Kahneman and Frederick built on this idea, arguing that the target attribute and heuristic attribute could be unrelated.[2]
In a 2002 revision of the theory, Kahneman and Shane Frederick proposed attribute substitution as a process underlying these and other effects.[2]
Conditions
[P]eople are not accustomed to thinking hard, and are often content to trust a plausible judgment that comes to mind.
Daniel Kahneman, American Economic Review 93 (5) December 2003, p. 1450
Kahneman and Frederick propose three conditions for attribute substitution:[2]
- The target attribute is relatively inaccessible. Substitution is not expected to take place in answering factual questions that can be retrieved directly from memory ("What is your birthday?") or about current experience ("Do you feel thirsty now?).
- An associated attribute is highly accessible. This might be because it is evaluated automatically in normal perception or because it has been primed. For example, someone who has been thinking about their love life who is then asked about their happiness might substitute how happy they are with their love life rather than answer the question as asked.
- The substitution is not detected and corrected by the reflective system. For example, when asked "A bat and a ball together cost $1.10. The bat costs $1 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?" many subjects incorrectly answer $0.10.[4] An explanation in terms of attribute substitution is that, rather than work out the sum, subjects parse the sum of $1.10 into a large amount and a small amount, which is easy to do. Whether they feel that is the right answer will depend on whether they check the calculation with their reflective system.
Examples
Optical illusions
Attribute substitution explains the persistence of some illusions. For example, when subjects judge the size of two figures in a perspective picture, their apparent sizes can be distorted by the 3D context, making a convincing optical illusion. The theory states that the three-dimensional size of the figure (which is accessible because it is automatically computed by the visual system) is substituted for its two-dimensional size on the page. Experienced painters and photographers are less susceptible to this illusion, because the two-dimensional size is more accessible to their perception.[4]
Valuing insurance
Kahneman gives an example where some Americans were offered insurance against their own death in a terrorist attack while on a trip to Europe, while another group were offered insurance that would cover death of any kind on the trip. The former group were willing to pay more even though "death of any kind" includes "death in a terrorist attack", Kahneman suggests that the attribute of fear is being substituted for a calculation of the total risks of travel.[5] Fear of terrorism for these subjects was stronger than a general fear of dying on a foreign trip.
Stereotypes
Morality and fairness
The beautiful-is-familiar effect
Monin reports a series of experiments in which subjects, looking at photographs of faces, have to judge whether they have seen those faces before. It is repeatedly found that attractive faces are more likely to be mistakenly labeled as familiar.[8] Monin interprets this result in terms of attribute substitution. The heuristic attribute in this case is a "warm glow"; a positive feeling towards someone that might either be due to their being familiar or being attractive. This interpretation has been criticised, because not all the variance in the familiarity data is accounted for by attractiveness.[3]
Evidence
The most direct evidence, according to Kahneman,
See also
- Bounded rationality
- Inattentional blindness
- Labeling theory
- List of cognitive biases
- Neglect of probability
- Self-deception
References
- ^ ISBN 978-1-84169-588-4.
- ^ OCLC 47364085.
- ^ PMID 18298269.
- ^ ISSN 0002-8282.
- ^ Kahneman, Daniel (2007). "Short Course in Thinking About Thinking". Edge.org. Edge Foundation. Retrieved 2009-06-03.
- S2CID 231738548.
- ^ Sunstein, Cass R. (2009). "Some Effects of Moral Indignation on Law" (PDF). Vermont Law Review. 33 (3). Vermont Law School: 405–434. Archived from the original on 2011-06-10. Retrieved 2009-09-15.
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: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link) - ISSN 0278-016X. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2016-05-27. Retrieved 2009-06-01.
- ISSN 0033-295X.
Further reading
- Kahneman, Daniel; Frederick, Shane (2004). "Attribute Substitution in Intuitive Judgment". In Mie Augier; James G. March (eds.). Models of a man: essays in memory of Herbert A. Simon. MIT Press. pp. 411–432. OCLC 52257877.
- Kahneman, Daniel; Frederick, Shane (2005). "A Model of Heuristic Judgment" (PDF). In Keith James Holyoak; Robert G. Morrison (eds.). The Cambridge Handbook of Thinking and Reasoning. Cambridge University Press. pp. 267–294. OCLC 56011371. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2018-07-13.
- Kahneman, Daniel (December 8, 2002). "Maps of Bounded Rationality: A Perspective on Intuitive Judgement and Choice (Nobel Prize Lecture)". NobelPrize.org. The Nobel Foundation. Retrieved 2009-06-13.
- Kahneman, Daniel (July 22, 2007). "Short Course in Thinking about Thinking". Edge.org. Edge Foundation. Retrieved 2009-06-13.
- Sinnott-Armstrong, Walter; Young, Liane; Cushman, Fiery (2010). "Moral Intuitions". In J. Doris; G. Harman; S. Nichols; J. Prinz; W. Sinnott-Armstrong; S. Stich (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Moral Psychology. Oxford University Press. pp. 246–272. ISBN 9780199582143.
- De Neys, Wim; Rossi, Sandrine; Houdé, Olivier (2013). "Bats, balls, and substitution sensitivity: Cognitive misers are no happy fools". Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. 20 (2): 269–273. PMID 23417270.
- Frederick, Shane (2005). "Cognitive Reflection and Decision Making". Journal of Economic Perspectives. 19 (4): 25–42. .