Making use of relevant knowledge in probabilistic reasoning: The role of cognitive capacity and mental effort

Biases and awareness in numerical judgments: Dual processes in development Decades of research emphasizes that people are often poor decision-makers. Regardless of their cognitive abilities, their decisions, particularly numerical judgments, are likely to be biased because of the use of intuitive heuristics. As Milkman, Chugh and Bazerman (2009) pointed out, we have little understanding of how to help people overcome their many biases and make optimally probabilistic judgments. Dual-process theories, which postulate the existence of two distinct reasoning processes that operate in parallel, have been used to explain adults’ suboptimal decision-making performance and to identify conditions which promote optimal performance. Dual-process theories have important implications for understanding cognitive development and developmental studies have provided a unique perspective on the nature, development, and coordination of the multi-component processes composing these models of decision making (Klaczynski, Byrnes, & Jacobs, 2001). In this symposium, new findings are presented regarding factors affecting the development of optimal reasoning about probabilities from a dual-process perspective. Paper 1 reveals that optimal reasoning about ratios can be promoted by consciously and unconsciously eliciting analytic processing in participants, although such effects are shown to be influenced by metacognitive abilities. Paper 2 examines how context influences insight for the optimal response regardless of the probability ratio, and how it generates different age-related biases. Paper 3 demonstrates how 12-year olds, but not 8-year olds, can detect that their intuitive judgments are questionable (conflict with probabilistic norms) as well as adults do. Finally, Paper 4 shows how training benefits both children and adults, but instructions to reason logically benefits higher-capacity students more. In lieu of a discussant, the participants will focus on the data from the symposium regarding the interactions among training, instructions, and context in the development of probabilistic reasoning; differences between recognition and expression of competence; and effects of awareness of biases. This discussion will highlight commonalities and differences in dual process accounts of the development of decision making.