Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2019, Philosophy, Applied

In this dissertation, I construct scientifically and practically adequate moral analogues of cognitive heuristics and biases. Cognitive heuristics are reasoning “shortcuts” that are efficient but flawed. Such flaws yield systematic judgment errors, cognitive biases. For example, the availability heuristic infers an event's probability by seeing how easy it is to recall similar events. Since dramatic events like airplane crashes are disproportionately easy to recall, this heuristic explains systematic overestimations of their probability (availability bias). The research program on cognitive heuristics and biases (e.g., Daniel Kahneman's work) has been scientifically successful and has yielded useful error-prevention techniques, cognitive debiasing. I try to apply this framework to moral reasoning to yield moral heuristics and biases. For instance, a moral bias of unjustified differences in animal-species treatment might be explained by a moral heuristic that dubiously infers animals' moral status from their aesthetic features. While the basis for identifying judgments as cognitive errors is often unassailable (e.g., per violating laws of logic), identifying moral errors seemingly requires appealing to moral truth, which, I argue, is problematic within science. Such appeals can be avoided by repackaging moral theories as mere “standards-of-interest” (a la non-normative metrics of purported right-making features/properties). However, standards-of-interest do not provide authority, which is needed for effective debiasing. Nevertheless, since each person deems their own subjective morality authoritative, subjective morality (qua standard-of-interest and not moral subjectivism) satisfies both scientific and practical concerns. As such, (idealized) subjective morality grounds a moral analogue of cognitive biases, subjective moral biases (e.g., committed non-racists unconsciously discriminating). I also argue that cognitive heuristic is defined by its relation to rationa (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Sara Worley Ph.D. (Advisor); Richard Anderson Ph.D. (Other); Theodore Bach Ph.D. (Committee Member); Michael Bradie Ph.D. (Committee Member); Michael Weber Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Cognitive Psychology; Ethics; Philosophy; Philosophy of Science; Psychology

MA, Kent State University, 2023, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of Psychological Sciences

Negative interpretation bias, the tendency to interpret ambiguous situations as negative or threatening, is associated with reports of intense and more frequent negative affect. However, there is a relative paucity of work seeking to determine whether this cognitive bias might account for individual differences in positive affect. Given the wealth of benefits associated with positive emotional experiences, such as greater psychological wellbeing and better physical health, this investigation tested the influence of negative interpretation bias on positive emotion responses to emotionally-evocative film clips. In particular, we tested the potential role that negative interpretation biases might play in reducing reports of positive emotion in individuals with generally higher trait negativity. Mediation analyses across two samples of college students at a large, Midwestern public university revealed partial effects of negative interpretation bias on the association between trait negativity and reports of positive emotion following emotionally-evocative films in one sample (b = −0.051), but no significant mediation in the other sample. A potential reason for these mixed findings may be that the demand of the context was too clear, given prior evidence of the role of ambiguity in bias. Future investigation using less explicit stimuli may help to determine whether negative interpretation bias reliably drives low positive emotional reactivity and what role context may play on this process.

Committee: Karin Coifman (Advisor); John Updegraff (Committee Member); Christopher Flessner (Committee Member); William Lechner (Committee Member) Subjects: Clinical Psychology

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Wright State University, 2009, Engineering PhD

Humans often employ cognitive heuristic principles when making decisions. These cognitive heuristic principles allow the human to simplify the decision making task, and can, by their very nature, lead to deviations, referred to as cognitive biases, which influence the quality of the decisions.While the role of heuristics and biases have been studied in judgmental decision making tasks, very little research on cognitive heuristics and biases has been done on decision making in complex, dynamic tasks. The research undertaken and discussed herein investigates the existence and impact of cognitive biases in time-critical decision making. To do so, this research uses the target identification task undertaken by military image analysts. This research had three goals. The first goal was to identify the search strategies commonly employed in the object identification task. The second was to identify heuristics and biases that occur during this complex reasoning task. The third goal was to develop a decision support system that improves decision making performance by successfully mitigating the biases that arise during time-critical decision making. To achieve these goals three experiments were conducted. The first, a preliminary study, was done to verify the potential existence of biases in the object identification task. Once the preliminary study indicated the potential existence of biases, a second study was undertaken to identify which specific biases were present. The information uncovered in the second study was evaluated and based on these results a decision support system was constructed using cognitive engineering principles. This decision support system consisted of three artifacts; an image repository, a message board, and a marking aid. The decision support system was then evaluated in the third study. Additionally, this third study permitted the identification of four specific search strategies commonly employed in the object identification task, including per (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: S. Narayanan PhD, PE (Advisor); Edward Mykytka PhD (Committee Member); Daniel Voss PhD (Committee Member); Xinhui Zhang PhD (Committee Member); Misty Blue PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Engineering

Doctor of Philosophy, University of Toledo, 2009, Psychology

“Decision making inertia” is a term loosely used to describe the similar nature of a variety of decision making biases that predominantly favor a decision to maintain one course of action over switching to a new course. Three of these biases, the sunk cost effect, status-quo bias, and inaction inertia are discussed here. Combining earlier work on strength of handedness and the sunk cost effect along with new findings regarding counterfactual thought, this work principally seeks to determine if counterfactual thought may drive the three decision biases of note while also analyzing common relationships between the biases, strength of handedness, and the variables of regret and loss aversion. Over a series of experiments, it was found that handedness differences did exist in the three biases discussed, that amount and type of counterfactuals generated did not predict choice within the status-quo bias, and that the remaining variables potentially thought to drive the biases presented did not link causally to them. This is important as it suggests that decision making inertia, if it does exist, is not tied to one common antecedent.

Committee: John D. Jasper PhD (Committee Chair); Stephen D. Christman PhD (Committee Member); Rickye E. Heffner PhD (Committee Member); Kamala L. London PhD (Committee Member); Michael E. Doherty PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Psychology

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2008, Psychology

Pessimistic biases and rumination are thought to play an interactive role in the course of depression. To understand the impact of changing negative cognitions and/or rumination on subsequent changes in mood and thinking, an experimental study was conducted. Females (N = 115) with high depressive symptoms were randomized to one of four conditions: correction for negative cognitions, correction for rumination, correction for both negative cognitions and rumination, or no correction. Participants completed measures before and after engaging in their respective correction conditions. Duration of negative mood following a mood induction was also assessed. Based on a priori contrasts comparing conditions, there were significant differences between conditions on changes in positive beliefs in rumination and duration of negative mood. Secondary analyses supported and extended prior research showing a distinct relationship between maladaptive and adaptive forms of rumination, namely brooding and reflection, with cognitive biases.

Committee: Daniel Strunk PhD (Advisor); Michael Vasey PhD (Committee Member); Julian Thayer PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Psychology