Cognitive Biases in Playing the Lottery: Estimating the Odds and Choosing the Numbers

Three experiments were conducted to examine the operation of the representativeness and anchoring and adjustment heuristics in lottery play. Subjects in Experiments 1 and 2 indicated their chances of winning a lottery with an objective probability of 1 in 10. Consistent with the anchoring and adjustment heuristic, subjects (in both experiments) perceived their chances of winning to be greater when the lottery was based on a single event than when it was based on a disjunctive event. Subjects in these two experiments also selected numbers to play in a pick-3 (Experiment 1) or pick-4 (Experiment 2) lottery. Consistent with the representativeness heuristic, subjects in Experiment 2 demonstrated a preference for numbers without repeating digits. This also occurred in Experiment 3 wherein the numbers actually played in the Indiana daily Pick-3 lottery were examined.     

Human evaluative conditioning: acquisition trials, presentation schedule, evaluative style and contingency awareness.

Two different processes may be operative in human Pavlovian conditioning: signal learning and evaluative learning. Whereas most studies on evaluative conditioning focused on a mere demonstration of the phenomenon or on a theoretical analysis of the underlying processes, some basic parameters of evaluative learning are still unexplored. Hence, using the standard neutral picture--(dis)liked picture pairing paradigm (Baeyens, Eelen & Van den Bergh, 1990), in this study the effect of two parameters of evaluative conditioning was assessed on a between-subjects base, namely the Number of Acquisition Trials (2/5/10/20) and the Presentation Schedule of the stimulus pairs (blockwise or random). Additionally, the study included an exploratory analysis of the potential effects of the Evaluative Style of subjects (Feelers vs Thinkers, operationalized in terms of speed of emitting evaluations). Finally, the relationship between contingency awareness and evaluative learning was reassessed. Neutral-liked conditioning was found to be quadratically related to the number of acquisition trials (increase in effect up to 10 trials, decrease from 10 to 20 trials), whereas neutral-disliked conditioning linearly increased with increasing numbers of trials. Randomized vs blockwise presentation schedules of the stimulus pairs did differentially affect the overall pattern of conditioning, but in a way which was both unexpected and difficult to account for theoretically. Both the Evaluative Style of subjects and contingency awareness were demonstrated to be generally orthogonal to conditioned shifts in CS valence. Based on these findings, some practical suggestions are provided for the application of evaluating conditioning based therapeutical interventions to affective-behavioral disorders which are centred around inappropriate (dis)likes.     

The representation and integration in memory of spatial and nonspatial information

A series of experiments investigated whether people could integrate nonspatial information about an object with their knowledge of the object's location in space. In Experiments 1 and 3, subjects learned the locations of cities on a fictitious road map; in Experiments 2, 4, and 5, subjects were already familiar with the locations of buildings on a campus. The subjects then learned facts about the cities on the maps or the buildings on the campus. The question of interest was whether or not these nonspatial facts would be integrated in memory with the spatial knowledge. After learning the facts, subjects were given a location-judgment test in which they had to decide whether an object was in one region of the space or another. Knowledge integration was assessed by comparing levels of performance in two conditions: (a) when a city or a building name was primed by a fact about a neighboring city or building, and (b) when a city or a building name was primed by a fact about a distant city or building. Results showed that responses in Condition a were faster or more accurate, or both faster and more accurate, than responses in Condition b. These results indicate that the spatial and nonspatial information were encoded in a common memory representation.     

Contributions of subjective-tone to tone-phoneme identification

We measured subjective-tone identification thresholds evoked by acoustically filtered complex tones and compared them to Mandarin-Chinese tone-phoneme identification thresholds previously measured under the same filtering conditions. Tone phonemes were identified at intensities below subjective-tone identification thresholds, suggesting subjective tone is not necessary for tone-phoneme identification. Lower subjective-tone thresholds evoked by resolved harmonics rather than unresolved harmonics were consistent with pattern recognition theories of pitch perception.The authors thank Donald Gans and Richard Klich for all their help.     

Computer-Assisted Careers Guidance Systems and Organisational Change

This article describes a study conducted to identify the range of potential influences that a computer-assisted careers guidance system (PROSPECT (HE)) had on the functioning of organisations (careers services in higher education). Data from six institutions indicated that use of PROSPECT (HE) was associated with important and varied change within the organisations. It appears that when a careers service seeks opportunities for change, CACG systems can be an important catalyst for change in two respects: by providing a focal point for achieving previously established goals; or, as a consequence of system use, by making staff aware of the potential for new organisational goals.     

A typology of personal and environmental sexual harassment: Research and policy implications for the 1990s

Most of the research conducted on sexual harassment over the last decade and a half has used categories that are neither mutually exclusive nor exhaustive. This has created problems for researchers: it is difficult to compare results from one study to another, harassment types that have scholarly and legal-policy relevance are omitted, and the ability of researchers to inform legal and policy decisions is diminished as a result of these problems. A comprehensive categorization of harassment types that addresses these methodological problems is presented. Specifically, 11 specific types of harassment—4 types of Verbal Requests, 3 Verbal Remarks, and 4 Nonverbal Displays—are presented with examples from research and legal literatures. Recommendations for reconceptualizing research definitions of harassment as well as for diversifying the methodological approaches to the topic are made.     

The construction of the self: An evolutionary view

Contemporary research on the construction of the self emphasizes the products rather than the process of self-development. Borrowing from the writings of William James and contemporary views of natural selection, we propose a model ofevolutionary self-construction. Grounded in the principles of evolution and the philosophy of pragmatism, evolutionary self-construction proposes a process that guides the seeking of “truth” inpossible selves. According to this view, the self develops in response to uncertainty reduction with the “correct” self identified via the “sentiment of rationality.” Selves presently identified as correct are considered to be “instruments of action” that facilitate the interaction between an individual and the environment. Selected selves can then be developed to one’s best advantage and presented in an optimal fashion. This model helps organize contemporary frameworks around a common theme and embraces affect as a central component in the development of the self. A previous version of this paper was presented at the 98th annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, Boston, MA.