The Process of Decision Making
Ethics of Sustainability
Class 10
Martha C. Monroe, Ph.D.
Professor and Extension Specialist
School of Forest Resources and Conservation
University of Florida
Your Questions from Reading?
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Rationality
Problems with being rational
Strategies to overcome the problems
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Information
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Heuristics
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Finding/creating it; seeing it
Overcoming deficits and shortcuts
Complexity
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Too much; unfamiliar; different disciplines
Today’s Discussion
• Kahneman and Tversky -- Cognitive
Biases
• Kaplan and Kaplan -- Reasonable
Person Model
• Systems Thinking with Dr. Matt Cohen
• Other important elements?
Rationality
• We weigh the costs and benefits of each
alternative
• And the probability of good and bad things
happening
• And make the rational decision that
maximizes our interests
Kahneman & Tversky
• Israeli psychologists
• Won Nobel prize in Economics for challenging
our ability to be rational with simple
experiments that demonstrate cognitive
hiccups
• Kahneman, D. and A. Tversky. 1974. Judgment under uncertainty:
heuristics and biases. Science 185, 1124-1131.
Is the letter R more frequently the
first or third letter in English
words?
Why? Availability Heuristic
• Some information is more available in
our brain than other, because
– We have little need for some information,
so we don’t know it, don’t store it, can’t
retrieve it
– We remember information unevenly and
therefore access it unequally
Estimating a Product
• Intuitive total of
1x2x3x4x5x6x7x8
• And of
8x7x6x5x4x3x2x1
About what did you guess?
Estimating a Product
• Real answer = 40,320
• Average answer from people working
up
(1 x 2 x 3 x 4 x 5 x 6 x 7 x 8) is 512
• Average answer from people working
down
(8 x 7 x 6 x 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1) is 2,250
• Why would there be such a difference?
Why? Anchoring Heuristic
• The way we start thinking about
something greatly influences where we
end up. Our thinking is “anchored” to
the initial information
– What percentage of the UN is African
nations?
• Is it more or less than 25%?
• Is it more or less than 45%?
Why? Anchoring Heuristic
• The way we start thinking about
something greatly influences where we
end up. Our thinking is “anchored” to
the initial information
– What percentage of the UN is African
nations?
• Is it more or less than 25%?
• Is it more or less than 45%?
10%
65%
Which is more likely?
A. Drawing a red marble from a bag containing
50% red marbles and 50% white marbles?
B. Drawing a red marble seven times in
succession, with replacement, from a bag
containing 90% red marbles and 10% white
marbles?
A
B
Which is more likely?
A. Drawing a red marble from a bag containing
50% red marbles and 50% white marbles?
B. Drawing a red marble at least once in seven
successive tries, with replacement, from a
bag containing 10% red marbles and 90%
white marbles?
A
B
Simple and Complex Events
• The complex event that involves
multiple things dependent upon each
other is less likely than 50/50, but it
feels like a sure bet.
• The complex event that involves one
thing in multiple opportunities is more
likely than 50/50, but it seems so rare.
Why? Poor Sense of Probability
• People tend to overestimate events that
depend on multiple things happening
and underestimate single events that
have an opportunity to occur over
multiple chances.
A Scenario
• A town is served by two hospitals. In the larger
hospital about 45 babies are born every day. The
smaller hospital sees about 15 births each day. The
exact number varies.
• Over one year, each hospital recorded the number of
days more than 60% of the babies born were boys.
Which hospital recorded more boy-birth-days?
– The larger
– The smaller
– Both were equal
Why? Representativeness Heuristic
• Judgments tend to match a stereotype. Most
commonly seen with guessing the probability
that the quiet woman with glasses is a
librarian in a room with 30% librarians.
• Overconfidence that small sample sizes match
global trend
Relevance?
• How do these cognitive biases affect
our ability to make decisions about
sustainability questions?
– Availability
– Anchoring
– Poor Probability
– Representativeness
Some Ideas
• The ability to change our mind when given new
information
• The ability to try something again after the first
failure
• The ability to consider all the data after the media
splash one perspective
• Overconfidence in complex and dependent
technologies
• Overconfidence in stereotypes rather than data
What to do?
• Let computers make decisions for us?
• Work on avoiding all previous knowledge?
• Learn where our biases tend to be?
Reasonable Person Model
• A proposed framework or platform for
creating opportunities for people to be
engaged in solving problems
• Stems from an awareness of the reasons
people do not engage, or engage in anger
Why some people opt out
– “I don’t know enough; it’s all too confusing”
• A lack of awareness, understanding, competence
– “I don’t have time”
• It’s not a priority
• Avoidance – confusion or overwhelmed
– “I don’t really care”
• A lack of vision, concern, hope
• Avoidance – confusion or overwhelmed
– “There’s nothing I can do”
• A lack of motivation, skill, empowerment
• A lack of vision, concern, hope
The Insights
• People are information seekers and processors
– Information is often conflicting, uncertain, or
missing
• Without meaningful, helpful information, we do not
understand
– Without understanding, we do not begin to imagine
• Without a vision of the possible, we are hopeless
– Without hope, we are not engaged
• Without chances to practice, we are without skills
– Without skills, we are not competent
People are not attracted to situations where they are
not competent, informed, and valued
The Reasonable Person Model
Kaplan & Kaplan, 2008, Conservation Biology, 22(4):826-829
Shared mental model
Knowledge
Understanding
Issue and process
Being effective
Competence
Skills to act
Practice
Meaningful action
Hopeful
Helpful
Engagement
Mental Models
• Individuals build their own, often from experience
• As we learn, our mental models/cognitive maps,
become richer, denser, more flexible
• Teaching is the act of helping learners build models,
or sharing you model with them
• Some sort of model already exists
• Learners code new information into the appropriate
model where it is relevant and meaningful
• Having a mental model is to understand
Being Effective = Having
Capacity
• People, when possible, want to be useful & effective
• May instead be confused, stressed, unpleasant,
destructive, because…
• They are not being heard; the system must become
accessible
• They are overwhelmed; they must be able to restore
mental capacity
• They don’t know how; they need skills and
opportunities to practice to become competent
Meaningful Action
• We want to be needed
• And so we participate in efforts that inspire us
– Blessed Unrest (Hawken 2007) – 108,705 organizations!
• Subdividing big projects into small steps makes it
easier to imagine reasonable actions
• Knowing about others’ successes help us imagine
how we might act
– Media can help; success stories help
• We need to cultivate this desire to be needed and to
make a difference with opportunities to be engaged
A Checklist for Educators &
Researchers
• Is my program, unit, or course building their mental models?
– Conveying relevant & meaningful knowledge?
– Building understanding of the issue?
– Building understanding of the process?
• Am I helping people become effective?
– Developing competence with issue and process?
– Developing skills to act?
– Having capacity to attend, to focus?
• Am I empowering participants?
– Do they feel more hopeful?
– Do they want to participate?
– Are they more engaged?
Value of Good Examples
Learning about a green building  Builds a mental model of sustainable construction
Conveys relevant & meaningful knowledge
Builds understanding
 Empowers learners
They become more hopeful
Let’s Look at Stories
• A fact-based narrative filled with meaning
– As in a fable or myth, but modernized for today
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A storyline – challenge, attempts, solution
Characters similar to the audience
Specific, vivid settings that can be imagined
Action, quotes, etc. to increase interest
A “natural” form of communication
Benefits of Stories
• Interesting – so they convey memorable
information
• Relevant and meaningful
• Solving problems
• Painting a picture of the possible
• Testimonies, success stories, examples
• Vicarious experience
What Can a Story Accomplish?
• Build a mental model
– Conveying relevant & meaningful knowledge
– Building understanding of the issue
– Building understanding of the process
• Empower learners with meaningful action
– Do they feel more hopeful
– Do they want to participate
– Are they more engaged
Understanding Systems
• Complete initial worksheet for systems
activity