Psychology 4991G-001
Special Topics in Psychology: Decision Making in the Social World
If there is a discrepancy between the outline posted below and the outline posted on the OWL course website, the latter shall prevail.
Instructor: Erin Heerey
Prerequisites: Psychology 2820E, or both Psychology 2800E and 2810, and one of Psychology 2220A/B, 2410A/B, 2221A/B, Neuroscience 2000; Registration in 3rd or 4th year Honours Specialization in Psychology or Honours Specialization in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience. Other Psychology students and Psychology Special Students who receive 75% in the prerequisite courses may enrol in this course.
Format: Two hours lecture; one hour discussion
Brief Overview: The nature and process of human decision-making is a major branch of a number of disciplines including economics, law, medicine, business and cognitive psychology/neuroscience. This work has taught us much about the neurocognitive architecture of decision-making and the processes, heuristics and biases that shape people’s choices. However, many of our decisions are made in social contexts, meaning that they are influenced by interpersonal as well as intrapersonal factors. The goal of this course is to explore how interpersonal factors shape the landscape of decision space, enhance or detract from the quality of a decision process, and how social factors interact with personal factors to affect people’s choices. We will consider different sorts of decision models (e.g., normative, prescriptive, and descriptive) and examine evidence from a broad range of sources including observations of choice behaviour, cognitive models, and neural firing in the brain. We will conduct some of our own experiments in the context of the class to develop a firsthand perspective on the nature of social decision-making.
Course Goals: The goal of this course is to help students understand how social influences alter decision-making processes at a number of levels. Learning outcomes for the course are:
1. To understand how people make decisions and how social contexts influence this process
2. To develop the ability to critically examine decision and social influence research
3. To recognize the limits of research conclusions in the context of methodological practices
4. To learn to communicate/articulate opinions and engender debate in both scholarly and lay contexts
5. To apply knowledge/evidence from the course to build persuasive arguments
Evaluation:
Exam 1 (Multiple choice/short essay exam) 20%
Exam 2 (Multiple choice/short essay exam) 20%
Weekly Blog Postings 30%
Weekly Blog Commentaries 15%
Class Participation 15%
Exams
Both exams will include 40 multiple-choice questions and will be administered during the lecture (see schedule below). The exams will also include a short take-home essay (500 word maximum) in which you, for example, critique one of a selection of relevant papers using the information you have learned in the class (and elsewhere) or read a description of an experimental method and speculate about the outcome of that experiment based on what you have learned during the term. Information and marking criteria for these papers will be provided in advance. The take-home essay is (obviously) “open book,” meaning that you may use information from the readings, lecture notes, internet, etc., as you write. The multiple- choice portion of the exam will be taken in class. You will have the full class period to do the exam (110 minutes). You may bring one sheet of paper (letter sized; you may use both sides) with any notes you wish written/printed on it to help jog your memory for the course information. The multiple-choice questions (which will not be drawn from any test bank) are designed to test your understanding of the course material at a deep level. That is, a study strategy involving rote memorization of material will not help you to get a high grade on the exam. Rather, you should conceptualize each item as an individual decision and approach it from the background of the course material. Focusing your revision of the course material on understanding the concepts and information we discuss and the relationships between topics will help you to make the best decisions on the exam.
Blogs/Commentaries
Posting and commentaries will be required on a weekly basis (starting in week 2 with no requirement for posting during weeks with exams or the reading week). You can think about each blog post you write as a “thought paper” on the topic for that week (your blog each week should be 200 to 600 words – this number is quite flexible). Your blog may therefore comment on, criticise or otherwise expand upon the ideas we work on each week. The main reading(s) for each week will include a series of thought questions. You may use one or more of these to help direct your thoughts, or you may take your blog post in your own direction entirely. If you already host a blog, you may host your topics on your own page in a separate thread. Alternately, you may choose your own host program (e.g., the instructor recommends wordpress.com, which allows you to create a blog for free; if you use wordpress.com, you will also be able to use your login to comment on your classmates’ blogs). The blog post will be due (posted to your site for public viewing) at the start of the lecture for each week. There is no requirement that your blog take a formal scientific tone or be in APA style. However, you
should certainly give credit where credit is due and reference others’ work as necessary (a hyperlink is a good tool for this). Your writing should be accessible to smart non-academic audiences so please avoid jargon as much as possible.
You will also be asked to participate in a discussion of sorts using this forum. That is, you should post commentary on at least three of your classmates’ blogs per week. A list of all class- members’ links will be available on the OWL site to facilitate this process. Please focus your commentary on debate or ideas (remember to be respectful of people in your posts – you may criticize/critique ideas but not people). Comments should be 50 to 150 words (again this
number is flexible) and will be due each week at the start of the discussion section. Blogs/commentaries will be marked on a basic scale (discussed in the first lecture period). Your lowest blog score and your lowest commentary score will be dropped from the grade calculation.
Participation
Participation is critical to class discussion. There will be opportunities (beginning in week 2) to engage in discussion in every class period. Participation will be marked using the following 5- point scale: 5 points (attended the full class session and participation added significant value to group discussion); 4 points (arrived late or left early by at least five minutes but participation added significant value to group discussion); 3 points (attended the full session and participated at a peripheral level); 2 points (arrived late or left early by at least five minutes and participated at a peripheral level); 1 point (attended any portion of the class but did not actively participate);
0 points (did not attend). Your lowest participation score will be dropped from the grade calculation. If you need to miss more than one class session, please see the instructor.
Possible Topics:
Week Topic
1
Lecture
Discussion Orientation and overview
Prospect theory and criticisms of rational choice
2
Lecture
Discussion Cognitive underpinnings of choice behaviour
Dual process theories of decision-making
3
Lecture
Discussion The meaning of error in decision-contexts
Risk and responsibility
4
Lecture
Discussion Emotions and their effects
Emotion/cognition interactions in decision-making
5
Lecture
Discussion Nudging behaviour
Social influences in decision contexts
6
Lecture
Discussion Exam 1
The illusion of positivity
7 Reading
Week No class or discussion
8
Lecture Judgments of others
Discussion Individual differences in decision-making
9
Lecture
Discussion Individual and cultural influences on decision processes
Confidence in group decisions
10 Lecture
Discussion Moral reasoning and decision-making
Interpersonal transgressions
11 Lecture
Discussion Altruism
Competition
12 Lecture
Discussion Negotiations
Relationships and trust
13 Lecture
Discussion Exam 2
Conclusion and wrap-up
Sample Readings: There is no textbook for the course. Instead weekly readings will be drawn from relevant scholarly literature. The following is a selection of possible readings.
• Babcock, L. & Loewenstein, G. (1997). Explaining bargaining impasses: The role of self- serving biases. Journal of Economic perspectives, 11, 109-126.
• Bechara, A., Damasio, H., Tranel, D., & Damasio, A. R. (1997). Deciding advantageously before knowing the advantageous strategy. Science, 275, 1293-1294.
• Dunn, J. R., & Schweitzer, M. E. (2005). Feeling and believing: The influence of emotion on trust. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88, 736-748.
• Evans, J. (2008). Dual-processing accounts of reasoning, judgment, and social cognition. Annual Review of Psychology, 59, 255-278.
• Evans, J. S. T., & Stanovich, K. E. (2013). Dual-process theories of higher cognition: Advancing the debate. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 8(3), 223-241.
• Fiske, A. & Tetlock, P. E. (1997). Taboo trade-offs: Reactions to transactions that transgress spheres of justice. Political Psychology, 18, 255-297.
• Funder, D. C. (1987). Errors and mistakes: Evaluating the accuracy of social judgment. Psychological Bulletin, 101, 75-90.
• Graham, J., Nosek, B. A., Haidt, J., Iyer, R., Koleva, S., & Ditto, P. H. (2011). Mapping the moral domain. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 101(2), 366-385.
• Hertwig, R., Barron G., Elke, W., & Erev, I. (2004). Decisions from experience and the effect of rare events in risky choices. Psychological Science, 15, 534-539.
• Kahneman, D. (2003). A perspective on judgment and choice. American Psychologist, 58, 697-720.
• Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1979). Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk. Econometrica, 47, 263-291.
• Lerner, J. S., Small, D. A., & Loewenstein, G. (2004). Heart strings and purse strings: Carryover effects of emotions on economic transactions. Psychological Science, 15, 337-341.
• Loewenstein, G. F., Thompson, L., & Bazerman, M. H. (1989). Social utility and decision making in interpersonal contexts. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 426-441.
• Malhotra, D., & Bazerman, M. H. (2008). Long Overdue: Introducing Psychological Influence to the Study of Negotiation. Journal of Management, 34, 509-531.
• Pillutla, M. M., Malhotra, D., & Murnighan, J. K. (2003). Attributions of trust and the calculus of reciprocity. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 39, 448-455.
• Rozin, P. (1999). The process of moralization. Psychological Science, 10, 218-221.
• Sharot, T., Korn, C. W., & Dolan, R. J. (2011). How unrealistic optimism is maintained in the face of reality. Nature Neuroscience, 14(11), 1475-U1156.
• Slovic, P., & Peters, E. (2006). Risk perception and affect. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 15, 322-325.
• Taylor, S. E., & Brown, J. D. (1988). Illusion and well-being: A social psychological perspective on mental health. Psychological Bulletin, 103(2), 193-210.
• Thaler, R. H., & Benartzi, S. (2004). Save More Tomorrow: Using behavioral economics to increase employee saving. Journal of Political Economy, 112, S164-S187.
• Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1981). The framing of decisions and the psychology of choice. Science, 211, 453-458.
