10352 The Psychology of Intuitive Judgment 1
Credits: 6 advanced credits in Psychology
Prerequisites: 36 credits, including: Introduction to Statistics for Students of Social Sciences I, Introduction to Statistics for Students of Social Sciences II, Research Methods in Social Sciences, Introduction to Psychology, Participation in Psychological and Educational Research and Research Experience, Regression Analysis and Analysis of Variance. Students must also fulfill all English requirements and take bibliographic instruction in the Library.
Recommended: Cognitive Psychology, Social Psychology
Authors: Ruth Beyth-Marom, Shahar Ayal. The materials include Heuristics and Biases: The Psychology of Intuitive Judgment, edited by T. Gilovich, D. Griffin, & D. Kahneman (Cambridge University Press, 2002); a multimedia CD which provides guided, active and interactive reading of a major article of the course, and includes student participation in a study both as researcher and as participant; and a reader.
The course introduces the field of social cognition, which analyzes intuitive thought processes under conditions of uncertainty. It focuses on the systematic gap between judgments based on intuitive shortcuts (actual) and normative models found in statistics and probability theory (desired). The field has implications and applications in many areas.
Objectives: To introduce the student to a new and fascinating area of research in cognitive psychology and its major issues; To examine the implications of this area on behavioral phenomena in various areas of psychology and other fields; To sharpen critical thinking when reading research studies and analyzing actual events; To provide students with the ability to plan and carry out research in this area.
Topics: Thinking under conditions of uncertainty, Decision making under conditions of uncertainty, On probability and its interpretations, Classical inference and Bayesian inference, Heuristics and biases, Criticism of the heuristics and biases approach, New theoretical directions.
1Students may write a seminar paper in this course, although it is not required.
There is some overlap in the content of this and other courses. For details, see Overlapping Courses.