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IB Paper 1 SAQ for thinking and decision making
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This is a full SAQ I wrote for the topic thinking and decision making that helped me get 7's in IB psychology throughout the course.
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Outline/Describe/Explain one bias in thinking and/or decision-making.Describe one study into one bias in thinking and/or decision-making.
Human beings are not always rational thinkers. Instead we rely on intuitive thinking and take
cognitive shortcuts, called heuristics. However, heuristics leave us prone to errors as it can
result in patterns of thinking and decision making which are consistent but inaccurate. These
patterns of thought are known as cognitive biases. An example of this is anchoring bias – the
tendency to rely too heavily on the first piece of information offered, acting as an anchor when
making decisions. This affects the reliability of our decisions: whether the system of thinking
and decision making consistently and systematically leads to a desired outcome.
Englich and Mussweiler, a lab experiment investigating if sentencing demands could serve
as anchors and impact the determination of sentencing in courtrooms. German law
students were given a rape case and relevant passages from the penal code. After the
participants had formed an opinion about the case, half were told that the judge demanded a
sentence of 34 months, and half were told that he demanded a sentence of 12 months.
They were handed a questionnaire and instructed to indicate whether the given sentence was
too low, adequate, or too high; also asked to indicate the sentence they would give if they were
the judge. Results showed that when told the judge recommended a sentence of 34 months,
participants recommended on average 8 months longer in prison than when told that the
sentence should be 12 months for the same crime.
It was concluded that anchoring bias may play a significant role in determining sentencing in
courtrooms because the knowledge that the judge sentenced 34/12months seemed to act as
an anchor that affected their following decisions: the 34 months group gave a sentence 8
months longer than the 12 months group because the initial information of 34 months/12 months
became a value that they subconsciously referred back to as a standard to make their
judgments using system 1 to save energy, instead of using their system 2 analytical thinking to
formulate a sentence of their own. Thus judgmental anchoring bias has a strong effect on
criminal sentencing decisions, even when those determining the sentence would be
considered knowledgeable (law students) and not laymen as in real US courts.
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