Normative accounts of illusory correlations.

When learning about the joint occurrence of different variables, individuals often manifest biases in the associations they infer. In some cases, they infer an association when none is present in the observed sample. In other cases, they infer an association that is contrary to the one that is in fact observed. These illusory correlations are often interpreted as being the byproduct of selective processing or as the outcome of an "illogical" pseudocontingency heuristic. More recently, a normative account of illusory correlations has been proposed, according to which they can be given a normative underpinning in terms of an application of Laplace's Rule of Succession. The present work will discuss the empirical and theoretical limitations associated with this normative account, and argue for its dismissal. As an alternative, we propose a normative account that casts illusory correlations as the expected outcome of a Bayesian reasoner relying on marginal frequencies. We show that this account succeeds in capturing the qualitative patterns found in a corpus of published studies. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Remembering the bad ones: Does the source memory advantage for cheaters influence our later actions positively?

Previous research has demonstrated that people remember information that is (emotionally) incongruent to their expectations, but it has left open the question if this memory enhancement has also an influence on our later actions. We investigated this question in one pilot study and two experiments. In all studies, participants first interacted with trustworthy and untrustworthy looking partners in an investment game. Facial trustworthiness was manipulated to stimulate social expectations about the behaviour of the partners. In a later second investment game, participants played against old opponents from the first game and new opponents. Overall, willingness to cooperate in the second game was influenced by the formerly behaviour of the opponent. However, facial trustworthiness affected economic decisions, too. Furthermore, we analysed source memory data that indicated no differences in memory between cheaters and cooperators. Instead, source guessing was related to cooperation: The more participants guessed that an untrustworthy looking face belonged to a cheater, the less they cooperated with untrustworthy looking opponents. Interestingly, in Experiment 2, we found a positive correlation between old-new recognition and later cooperation. In sum, the results demonstrate that memory and guessing processes can influence later decisions. However, economic decisions are also heavily affected by other social expectations like facial trustworthiness.

Pseudocontingency inference and choice: The role of information sampling.

Pseudocontingencies are inferences of correlations between variables, like two options and two outcomes, drawn on the basis of their skewed base rates covarying across a third variable (e.g., two contexts). Here, we investigated the effect of pseudocontingency inference on choice behavior. When choices between two options are not based on the actual contingency between options and outcomes, but instead on a pseudocontingency, the latter may override the existing contingency, resulting in potentially suboptimal choice behavior. Whereas research has mainly focused on investigating the pseudocontingency effect by presentation of predetermined learning trials, we examined the role of free information sampling for the pseudocontingency effect as compared with predetermined learning. Experiment 1 replicated previous findings of a pseudocontingency effect in choice behavior. In Experiment 2, we compared predetermined information and free information sampling in a bivariate decision scenario with only two options and two outcomes. Experiments 3 and 4 aimed at investigating the inference of a pseudocontingency when sampling information by context or by context and option in the trivariate scenario. The results revealed an asymmetry between positive contexts with predominantly gains and negative contexts with predominantly losses. Within a negative context we found no differences between options, neither during information sampling nor for subsequent choices. Within the positive context, when information sampling was self-determined, participants sampled skewed base rates of options and preferred the predominant option. The findings underline the influence of self-determined information sampling on the pseudocontingency effect on choice behavior. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).