People As Intuitive Scientists: Reconsidering Statistical Explanations of Decision Making

Published on October 17, 2020

A persistent metaphor in decision-making research casts people as intuitive statisticians. Popular explanations based on this metaphor assume that the way in which people represent the environment is specified and fixed a priori. A major flaw in this account is that it is not clear how people know what aspects of an environment are important, how to interpret those aspects, and how to make decisions based on them. We suggest a theoretical reorientation away from assuming people’s representations towards a focus on explaining how people themselves specify what is important to represent.

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