COG 100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Representativeness Heuristic, Inductive Reasoning, Sample Size Determination
5 May 2018
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Precedence effect is the order in which you receive info. Studies have shown that info is
more valued by the order it comes in and serves as a bedrock and everything builds off it. An
example is the rock climbing clerk. When told she rock climbs first they said she was
feminist. When told she was a clerk they said she was traditional. What is being told first
subconsciously seemed more important. Its logical because if you value the info given first
more and so does the other person then it is in fact more valuable and more logical to talk in
that manner.
● Lecture 11/14
○ Precedence Effect:
■ Order in which you receive information
● Whatever gets in first on a claim or idea, influences the most
■ Experiment:
● Tell subjects a list with different order of items for each subject
(or something?)
● Result: subjects valued the first item regardless of what it is for
each person
■ What comes in first get more evidential weight
○ Example of Precedence Effect
● Lecture 11/28
○ Example:
■ A story is given about a woman who is a file clerk and is a rock
climbing
● Where the detail about rock climbing is placed (first or last)
indicated how each subject group would reply
○ In other words, if the woman being a rock climber is the
first detail, then the subject group replied she was
probably a feminist when asked
○ The other group replied that she was more of a
“traditional” woman when given the story of a woman
being a file clerk first.
○ Other example:
■ Scientist taking in that the rocks she collected has more valuable
information than ones collected later
● But heuristic doesn’t actually work that way for this example
because it isn’t a communication issue; the rocks are not
communicating with her
○ Precedence effect and belief inertia works with conversation
■ In a news story, in conversation, people will be inclined to get the most
important stuff out first and then fill in details
7. Explain the representativeness heuristic and explain how/why it might work as a
(moderately) effective method of inductive reasoning. Give some examples to illustrate.
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Precedence effect is the order in which you receive info. Studies have shown that info is more valued by the order it comes in and serves as a bedrock and everything builds off it. When told she rock climbs first they said she was feminist. When told she was a clerk they said she was traditional. What is being told first subconsciously seemed more important. Its logical because if you value the info given first more and so does the other person then it is in fact more valuable and more logical to talk in that manner. Whatever gets in first on a claim or idea, influences the most. Tell subjects a list with different order of items for each subject (or something?) Result: subjects valued the first item regardless of what it is for each person. What comes in first get more evidential weight.
