Course Description
Theory and research on topics in judgment and decision-making, including heuristics-and-biases, rational decision theory, evolutionary approaches, causal judgment and applications to medicine, law, economics, social psychology, and everyday decisions. Emphasis is placed on how behavior compares with rational models.
Athena Title
JUDG/DEC-MAKING
Prerequisite
Permission of department
Semester Course Offered
Not offered on a regular basis.
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
The course is intended to provide a comprehensive introduction to the field of judgment and decision making, which is a sub-specialty of cognitive psychology. At the conclusion, students will be conversant with the major topics of rational decision theory, the heuristics-and-biases approach to psychology, and their major rivals. Performance will be assessed on the basis of three course requirements: 1. Class discussions will be led in most cases by students. All students will be required to lead an equal number of class discussions. 2. When not leading discussion, students are required to contribute to the discussion, both by directly participating in the discussion and by providing possible discussion questions to the discussion leader in advance. 3. Each student will be required to write a scholarly term paper on a topic of judgment and decision making.
Topical Outline
The following topic areas will be covered in the course: 1. Introduction to heuristics and biases 2. Heuristics and biases 3. Anti-Heuristics and biases 4. Heuristics and small biases 5. Bayesian reasoning and base-rate neglect 6. Recent developments in bayesian reasoning 7. Causal judgment 8. Judgment of personal causality 9. Overconfidence 10. Hypothesis testing 11. Conditional reasoning: the selection task 12. Judgment after the fact 13. Belief updating
Syllabus