Is probability matching smart? Associations between probabilistic choices and cognitive ability

In three experiments involving over 1,500 university students (n=1,557) and two different probabilistic choice tasks, we found that the utility-maximizing strategy of choosing the most probable alternative was not the majority response. In a story problem version of a probabilistic choice task in which participants chose from among five different strategies, the maximizing response and the probabilitymatching response were each selected by a similar number of students (roughly 35% of the sample selected each). In a more continuous, or trial-by-trial, task, the utility-maximizing response was chosen by only one half as many students as the probability-matching response. More important, in both versions of the task, the participants preferring the utility-maximizing response were significantly higher in cognitive ability than were the participants showing a probability-matching tendency. Critiques of the traditional interpretation of probability matching as nonoptimal may well help explain why some humans are drawn to the nonmaximizing behavior of probability matching, but the traditional heuristics and biases interpretation can most easily accommodate the finding that participants high in computational ability are more likely to carry out the rule-based cognitive procedures that lead to maximizing behavior.

[1]  S. Fiske,et al.  The Handbook of Social Psychology , 1935 .

[2]  Z. J. Ulehla,et al.  SEQUENTIAL PATTERNS AND MAXIMIZING. , 1965, Journal of experimental psychology.

[3]  A. Tversky,et al.  Information versus reward in binary choices. , 1966, Journal of experimental psychology.

[4]  M. Fiorina.  A note on probability matching and rational choice , 1971 .

[5]  A. Tversky,et al.  Subjective Probability: A Judgment of Representativeness , 1972 .

[6]  A. Tversky,et al.  Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases , 1974, Science.

[7]  A. Tversky,et al.  Judgment under uncertainty: Frontmatter , 1982 .

[8]  W. S. Cooper,et al.  Adaptive "coin-flipping": a decision-theoretic examination of natural selection for random individual variation. , 1982, Journal of theoretical biology.

[9]  A. Tversky,et al.  Judgment under uncertainty: Availability , 1982 .

[10]  David H. Krantz,et al.  Inductive reasoning: Competence or skill? , 1983, Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

[11]  W. Wagenaar,et al.  On the psychology of playing blackjack: Normative and descriptive considerations with implications for decision theory , 1985 .

[12]  Willis F. Overton,et al.  Reasoning about certainty and uncertainty in concrete, causal, and propositional contexts. , 1986 .

[13]  J. Baron.  Thinking and Deciding , 2023 .

[14]  W. S. Cooper.  How evolutionary biology challenges the classical theory of rational choice , 1989 .

[15]  John R. Anderson.  The Adaptive Character of Thought , 1990 .

[16]  John R. Anderson.  Is human cognition adaptive? , 1991, Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

[17]  Keith E. Stanovich,et al.  The Incidental Acquisition of Information from Reading , 1991 .

[18]  L. Cosmides,et al.  Cognitive adaptations for social exchange. , 1992 .

[19]  L. Cosmides,et al.  Beyond intuition and instinct blindness: toward an evolutionarily rigorous cognitive science , 1994, Cognition.

[20]  P. Comon.  a Probabilistic Approach , 1995 .

[21]  G. Gigerenzer.  On Narrow Norms and Vague Heuristics: A Reply to Kahneman and Tversky (1996) , 1996 .

[22]  L. Cosmides,et al.  Are humans good intuitive statisticians after all? Rethinking some conclusions from the literature on judgment under uncertainty , 1996, Cognition.

[23]  Jonathan Evans,et al.  Rationality and reasoning , 1996 .

[24]  U. Staudinger,et al.  Interactive minds : life-span perspectives on the social foundation of cognition , 1996 .

[25]  G. Gigerenzer.  Rationality : why social context matters , 1996 .

[26]  Iddo Gal,et al.  Understanding Repeated Simple Choices , 1996 .

[27]  S. Chipman.  Still far too sexy a topic , 1996, Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

[28]  David C. Geary,et al.  Sexual selection and sex differences in mathematical abilities , 1996, Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

[29]  B. Skyrms.  Evolution of the social contract , 1996 .

[30]  Keith E. Stanovich,et al.  Individual differences in rational thought. , 1998 .

[31]  Gary L. Brase,et al.  Individuation , Counting , and Statistical Inference : The Role of Frequency and Whole-Object Representations in Judgment Under Uncertainty , 1998 .

[32]  R. Dawes.  Behavioral decision making and judgment. , 1998 .

[33]  Keith E. Stanovich,et al.  Who uses base rates andP(D/∼H)? An analysis of individual differences , 1998 .

[34]  D. Kimura.  Sex and cognition , 1999 .

[35]  Keith E. Stanovich,et al.  Discrepancies Between Normative and Descriptive Models of Decision Making and the Understanding/Acceptance Principle , 1999, Cognitive Psychology.

[36]  L. Cosmides,et al.  When and why do people avoid unknown probabilities in decisions under uncertainty? Testing some predictions from optimal foraging theory , 1999, Cognition.

[37]  Randall W Engle,et al.  Working memory, short-term memory, and general fluid intelligence: a latent-variable approach. , 1999, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[38]  P M Todd,et al.  Précis of Simple heuristics that make us smart , 2000, Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

[39]  A. Tversky,et al.  Choices, Values, and Frames , 2000 .

[40]  J. Baron.  Thinking and deciding, 3rd ed. , 2000 .

[41]  K. Stanovich,et al.  Heuristics and Biases: Individual Differences in Reasoning: Implications for the Rationality Debate? , 2002 .

[42]  N Chater,et al.  Human rationality and the psychology of reasoning: where do we go from here? , 2001, British journal of psychology.

[43]  N. Chater,et al.  The probabilistic approach to human reasoning , 2001, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[44]  D. Kahneman,et al.  Representativeness revisited: Attribute substitution in intuitive judgment. , 2002 .

[45]  D. Shanks,et al.  A Re-examination of Probability Matching and Rational Choice , 2002 .

[46]  A. Efland,et al.  Art and cognition , 2002 .

[47]  D. Kahneman,et al.  Heuristics and Biases: The Psychology of Intuitive Judgment , 2002 .

[48]  K. Stanovich,et al.  Heuristic and analytic processing: age trends and associations with cognitive ability and cognitive styles. , 2002, Journal of experimental child psychology.

[49]  D. Kahneman,et al.  Heuristics and Biases: List of Contributors , 2002 .

[50]  Edmund Fantino,et al.  Probability matching: encouraging optimal responding in humans. , 2002, Canadian journal of experimental psychology = Revue canadienne de psychologie experimentale.

[51]  Adam Gifford,et al.  The Evolution of the Social Contract , 2002 .

[52]  Alan Dix,et al.  About reasoning and thinking , 2003 .

[53]  Nick Chater,et al.  The Rational Analysis Of Mind And Behavior , 2000, Synthese.

[54]  Imre Hronszky,et al.  Rationality in an Uncertain World , 2005 .