In this video I introduce the sunk-cost fallacy, which is when we make present decisions based on previous investments which aren’t relevant. This fallacy can occur in the form of gamblers or investors who make increasingly risky decisions in order to make up for past losses. Tversky and Kahneman have suggested that part of the reason for this fallacy is … Read More
The Availability Heuristic
In this video I provide an introduction to behavioral economics and the work of Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman by describing a heuristic we use when attempting to assess the frequency of events. The availability heuristic is a shortcut that estimates frequency based on how available an event is to us, or how readily we can bring examples to mind. … Read More
Obstacles to Problem Solving
In this video I introduce several potential obstacles to problem-solving including overconfidence, illusory superiority, belief bias, and belief perseverance. Then I describe a “consider the opposite” strategy for potentially reducing the influence of bias when interpreting evidence that supports or contradicts our pre-existing beliefs. Don’t forget to subscribe to the channel to see future videos! Have questions or topics you’d … Read More
What is the Availability Heuristic?
In their first study of the availability heuristic, Tversky and Kahneman asked participants to estimate whether English had more words that started with the letter K or more words that had K as the third letter. What do you think? If you’re like most participants in their study, you might guess that there are more words that start with k … Read More