scholarly journals The foreign-language discount effect: Using English increases intertemporal discount rates through more distant future perception

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuepei Xu ◽  
Zhu-Yuan Liang
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Rational Decision ◽  
Future Time ◽  
Distant Future ◽  
Rational Decision Making ◽  
Intertemporal Preferences ◽  
Intertemporal Decisions ◽  
Effect Experiment

Although the foreign language effect (FLE) has been associated with more rational decision-making, we do not know whether it can exert this effect on intertemporal decisions. Native speakers of languages with a high future-time reference (FTR) have been found to produce higher rates of discounting, but we do not yet know whether intertemporal preferences can also be modulated when high FTR language is used by a foreign speaker. Across two experiments (N=486), we found that switching from a low-FTR native language (Chinese) to a high-FTR foreign language (English) was consistently linked with higher rates of discounting, what we call the foreign-language discount effect. These results, which run counter to the mechanism proposed by FLE (Experiment 1), show that a more distant future perception is the chief factor underlying the observed effect (Experiment 2). Our findings call for caution in the use of the FLE as a beneficial debiasing effect.

Resource-rational decision making

2021 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
pp. 15-21
Author(s):  
Rahul Bhui ◽  
Lucy Lai ◽  
Samuel J Gershman
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Rational Decision ◽  
Rational Decision Making

Author reply: Empathy Does Provide Rational Support for Decisions. But Is It the Right Decision?

2012 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 96-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fritz Breithaupt
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Rational Decision ◽  
Author Reply ◽  
Rational Decision Making ◽  
Rational Support ◽  
The One ◽  
The Right

This article examines the relation of empathy and rational judgment. When people observe a conflict most are quick to side with one of the parties. Once a side has been taken, empathy with that party further solidifies this choice. Hence, it will be suggested that empathy is not neutral to judgment and rational decision-making. This does not mean, however, that the one who empathizes will necessarily have made the best choice.

Evidential Decision Theory

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arif Ahmed
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Decision Theory ◽  
Rational Decision ◽  
Evidential Decision Theory ◽  
Radical Theory ◽  
Rational Decision Making ◽  
Evidential Decision ◽  
Theoretic Foundations

Evidential Decision Theory is a radical theory of rational decision-making. It recommends that instead of thinking about what your decisions *cause*, you should think about what they *reveal*. This Element explains in simple terms why thinking in this way makes a big difference, and argues that doing so makes for *better* decisions. An appendix gives an intuitive explanation of the measure-theoretic foundations of Evidential Decision Theory.

Toward More Rational Decision Making

1988 ◽  
pp. 257-283
Author(s):  
Michael R. Gottfredson ◽  
Don M. Gottfredson
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Rational Decision ◽  
Rational Decision Making

scholarly journals The Psychological Puzzle: Contributing Factors to the Top-Down Politicization of Intelligence

Elements ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Moretti
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Intelligence Community ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Symbiotic Relationship ◽  
Rational Decision ◽  
Contributing Factors ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Rational Decision Making

Policy and intelligence are intimately intertwined. Policymakers need intelligence to make decisions, while the intelligence community derives significance from its ability to provide policy makers with reliable information. In this symbiotic relationship, it is healthy for intelligence consumers to at times check and direct the work of intelligence producers. However, if undertaken maliciously, this checking mechanism manifests as top-down politicization. Here, leaders use intelligence post facto to legitimize their policies instead of using it to guide them, reversing the rational decision-making process. Certain factors may compel leaders to manipulate intelligence to reflect their policy preferences. This essay demonstrates how three distinct processes of top-down politicization can arise from ambiguous evidence, the psychology of intelligence consumers, and the nature of the leaders’ political positions and responsibilities. It then proceeds to argue that political leaders’ psychology is the most potent source of top-down politicization.

scholarly journals Collective decision making by rational individuals

2018 ◽  
Vol 115 (44) ◽  
pp. E10387-E10396 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard P. Mann
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Full Range ◽  
Social Information ◽  
Information Use ◽  
Collective Decision ◽  
Collective Decision Making ◽  
Rational Decision ◽  
Rational Decision Making ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Social Information Use

The patterns and mechanisms of collective decision making in humans and animals have attracted both empirical and theoretical attention. Of particular interest has been the variety of social feedback rules and the extent to which these behavioral rules can be explained and predicted from theories of rational estimation and decision making. However, models that aim to model the full range of social information use have incorporated ad hoc departures from rational decision-making theory to explain the apparent stochasticity and variability of behavior. In this paper I develop a model of social information use and collective decision making by fully rational agents that reveals how a wide range of apparently stochastic social decision rules emerge from fundamental information asymmetries both between individuals and between the decision makers and the observer of those decisions. As well as showing that rational decision making is consistent with empirical observations of collective behavior, this model makes several testable predictions about how individuals make decisions in groups and offers a valuable perspective on how we view sources of variability in animal, and human, behavior.

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