Adolescents' base rate judgments, metastrategic understanding, and stereotype endorsement

The less-is-better effect: a developmental perspective

The less-is-better effect emerges when an option of lesser quantitative value is preferred or overvalued relative to a quantitively greater alternative (e.g., 24-piece dinnerware set > 24-piece dinnerware set with 16 additional broken dishes; Hsee, 1998, Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 11, 107-121). This decisional bias emerges when the option of lesser quantitative value is perceived as qualitatively better (e.g., smaller set of intact dishes > larger set of partially broken dishes). Interestingly, this effect emerges for adult humans when options are evaluated separately but dissipates when options are considered simultaneously. The less-is-better bias has been attributed to the evaluability hypothesis: individuals judge objects on the basis of easy-to-evaluate attributes when judged in isolation, such as the brokenness of items within a set, yet shift to quantitative information when evaluated jointly, such as the overall number of dishes. This bias emerges for adult humans and chimpanzees in a variety of experimental settings but has not yet been evaluated among children. In the current study, we presented a joint evaluation task (larger yet qualitatively inferior option vs. smaller yet qualitatively superior option) to children aged 3 to 9 years old to better understand the developmental trajectory of the less-is-better effect. Children demonstrated the bias across all choice trials, preferring an objectively smaller set relative to a larger yet qualitatively poorer alternative. These developmental findings suggest that young children rely upon salient features of a set to guide decision-making under joint evaluation versus more objective attributes such as quantity/value.

Numeracy, gist, literal thinking and the value of nothing in decision making

The onus on the average person is greater than ever before to make sense of large amounts of readily accessible quantitative information, but the ability and confidence to do so are frequently lacking. Many people lack practical mathematical skills that are essential for evaluating risks, probabilities and numerical outcomes such as survival rates for medical treatments, income from retirement savings plans or monetary damages in civil trials. In this Review, we integrate research on objective and subjective numeracy, focusing on cognitive and metacognitive factors that distort human perceptions and foment systematic biases in judgement and decision making. Paradoxically, an important implication of this research is that a literal focus on objective numbers and mechanical number crunching is misguided. Numbers can be a matter of life and death but a person who uses rote strategies (verbatim representations) cannot take advantage of the information contained in the numbers because 'rote' strategies are, by definition, processing without meaning. Verbatim representations (verbatim is only surface form, not meaning) treat numbers as data as opposed to information. We highlight a contrasting approach of gist extraction: organizing numbers meaningfully, interpreting them qualitatively and making meaningful inferences about them. Efforts to improve numerical cognition and its practical applications can benefit from emphasizing the qualitative meaning of numbers in context - the gist - building on the strengths of humans as intuitive mathematicians. Thus, we conclude by reviewing evidence that gist training facilitates transfer to new contexts and, because it is more durable, longer-lasting improvements in decision making.

Gender Intensification and Gender Generalization Biases in Pre-adolescents, Adolescents, and Emerging Adults

The gender intensification hypothesis claims that the socialization pressures of early adolescence lead to the adoption of traditional sex-typed roles. We tested this proposal by examining how extensively children (M_age  = 9.39 years; N = 69, 31 female), early adolescents (M_age  = 12.06 years; N = 70, 36 female), middle adolescents (M_age  = 14.81 years; N = 65, 37 female), and emerging adults (M_age  = 18.51 years; N = 70, 37 female) made generalizations from vignettes about male and female characters who had stereotypically feminine or masculine qualities and who had stereotypically neutral qualities. Results showed, first, age-related increases in gender-based generalization biases (the difference between stereotype-consistent and stereotype-neutral generalizations) to mid-adolescence and an age-related decrease in generalization biases from mid-adolescence to adulthood. Second, we found gender intensification in self-conceptualizations as masculine and feminine: More so than children and emerging adults, middle adolescents adopted stereotypically masculine and feminine traits. Third, age-related declines in gender stereotypes of occupations and traits were mediated by faith in intuition. Finally, faith in intuition and gender self-concepts moderated age-related increases in generalization biases such that the slope of the age-related increase in biases was steepest for participants who placed the most faith in intuition and whose gender self-concepts were traditional. Findings are discussed in terms of gender identification, dual-process theories of judgements, and the interference stereotypes create when adolescents construct problem representations. Statement of contribution What is already known of the adolescent appearance culture Appearance plays an important role in the psychosocial lives of adolescents. Little research has been conducted on cultural differences in the adolescent appearance culture. What this study adds to our understanding of the adolescent appearance culture Americans were more appearance focused than Chinese adolescents; girls were more appearance focused than boys. The appearance focus-country link was mediated by body esteem, activity level, and parental body size. The link between appearance focus and gender was mediated by body consciousness and perceived appearance pressure.