Overview
Kahneman describes the experiments that were used to better understand how we exercise judgment and make choices. For this week, we are going to be cognitive scientists. Choose one of the following three experiments and conduct it yourself (you are the experimenter). I would recommend a sample size of at least 5, but more is always better. For those of you with teenage children, you might want to enlist them and some of their friends, they are likely to be less suspicious of your motives. For everyone else; friends, spouses, work colleagues, all are fair game. For the more adventurous among you, you might want to have more than one group, a control group and then another group that does the experiment at a bar while you are drinking, or perhaps have all engineers in one group and non-engineers in another. How simple or complex you make your experiment is up to you. But be sure you take good notes, and collect good data (if you do it in a bar, you might want a "designated note take" who refrains from drinking to ensure the accuracy of your lab notes and to drive everyone else home).
The Experiments - Choose only 1:
- Figure 2 on page 25 that illustrates the conflict between System 1 and System 2.
- The Lady Macbeth Effect - page 56
- The Cognitive Reflection Test - described on page 65 (there are three puzzles in this test, the first puzzle is described on page 44 and the 2nd and 3rd puzzles are described on page 65).
make sure to come up with a title/thesis statement and include sources