Understanding/Acceptance Principle

FROM THE DESCRIPTIVE TO THE NORMATIVE IN REASONING AND DECISION MAKING

When people’s reasoning departs from a normative model, one response is to question whether that model is appropriate for the task. Stein (1996, p. 239) terms this the reject-the-norm strategy. The Panglossian camp in the rationality debate frequently uses this strategy. Specifically, Panglossians exclusively use the reject-the-norm strategy to eliminate gaps between descriptive models of performance and normative models, although this connection is not a necessary one. When this type of critique is used, the normative model that is suggested as a substitute for the one traditionally used in the heuristics and biases literature is one that coincides perfectly with the descriptive model of the subjects' performance – thus preserving a view of human rationality as ideal. It is rarely noted that the strategy could be used in just the opposite way – to create gaps between the normative and descriptive. Situations in which the modal response coincides with the standard normative model could be critiqued, and alternative models could be suggested that would result in a new normative/descriptive gap; but this is never done. The Panglossian camp, often highly critical of empirical psychologists, is never critical of psychologists who design reasoning tasks in instances in which the modal subject gives the response the experimenters deem correct. Puzzlingly, in these cases, according to the Panglossians, the same psychologists seem never to err in their task designs and interpretations.

The fact that, for the Panglossian, the use of the reject-the-norm application strategy is entirely contingent on the existence or nonexistence of a normative/descriptive gap suggests that in an important sense the applications of norms being endorsed by the Panglossian camp are conditioned (if not indexed entirely) by descriptive facts about human behavior. The rationality debate itself is, reflexively, evidence that the descriptive models of actual behavior guide expert notions of the proper norm for a situation. That is, there would have been no rationality debate (or at least much less of one) had people behaved in accord with the then-accepted norms.

Thus, the Panglossian reject-the-norm strategy can be seen as a conscious application of the naturalistic fallacy (deriving “ought” from “is”). For example, Cohen (1981), like Gigerenzer (1991b), feels that the normative is indexed to the descriptive in the sense that a competence model of actual behavior can simply be interpreted as the normative model. Although both endorse this linking of the normative to the descriptive, they do so for somewhat different reasons. For Cohen (1981), it follows from his endorsement of narrow reflective equilibrium as the sine qua non of normative justification. Gigerenzer’s (1991b) endorsement is related to his position in the cognitive ecologist camp (to use the term coined by Piattelli-Palmarini, 1994, p. 183) with its emphasis on the ability of evolutionary mechanisms to achieve an optimal Brunswikian tuning of the organism to the local environment (Brase, Cosmides, & Tooby, 1998; Cosmides & Tooby, 1994, 1996; Oaksford & Chater, 1994, 1998; Pinker, 1997).

That Gigerenzer and Cohen concur here – even though they have somewhat different positions on normative justification – simply shows how widespread is the acceptance of the principle that descriptive facts about human behavior should guide our notions about the appropriateness of the normative models used to evaluate behavior. In fact, stated in such broad form, this principle is not restricted to the Panglossian position. For example, in decision science, there is a long tradition of acknowledging descriptive influences when deciding which normative model to apply to a particular situation. Slovic (1995) refers to this “deep interplay between descriptive phenomena and normative principles” (p. 370). Larrick, Nisbett, and Morgan (1993) remind us that “there is also a tradition of justifying, and amending, normative models in response to empirical considerations” (p. 332). March (1988) refers to this tradition when he discusses how actual human behavior has conditioned models of efficient problem solving in artificial intelligence and in the area of organizational decision making.

One thing that all of the various camps in the rationality dispute have in common is that each conditions their beliefs about the appropriate norm to apply based on the central tendency of the responses to a problem. They all seem to see that single aspect of performance as the only descriptive fact that is relevant to their views about the appropriate normative model to apply. One goal of our own research program is to expand the scope of the descriptive information used to condition our views about which norms are appropriate to apply to a particular situation.

PUTTING DESCRIPTIVE FACTS TO WORK: THE UNDERSTANDING/ACCEPTANCE ASSUMPTION

How should we interpret situations in which the majority of individuals respond in ways that depart from the normative model applied to the problem by reasoning experts? Thagard (1982) calls the two different interpretations the populist strategy and the elitist strategy: “The populist strategy, favored by Cohen (1981), is to emphasize the reflective equilibrium of the average person. . . . The elitist strategy, favored by Stich and Nisbett (1980), is to emphasize the reflective equilibrium of experts” (p. 39). Thus, Thagard (1982) identifies the populist strategy with the Panglossian position and the elitist strategy with the Meliorist position.

Yet there are few controversial tasks in the heuristics and biases literature in which all untutored laypersons disagree with the experts. There are always some who agree. Thus, the issue is not the untutored average person versus experts (as suggested by Thagard’s formulation), but experts plus some laypersons versus other untutored individuals. Might the cognitive characteristics of those departing from expert opinion have implications for which normative model we deem appropriate?

Slovic and Tversky (1974) made essentially this argument years ago, when they maintained that descriptive facts about argument endorsement should condition the inductive inferences of experts regarding appropriate normative principles. In response to the argument that there is “no valid way to distinguish between outright rejection of the axiom and failure to understand it” (p. 372), Slovic and Tversky (1974) observed that “the deeper the understanding of the axiom, the greater the readiness to accept it” (pp. 372–373). Thus, a correlation between understanding and acceptance would suggest that the gap between the descriptive and normative was due to an initial failure to fully process or understand the task.

We might call Slovic and Tversky’s argument the understanding/acceptance assumption – that more reflective and engaged reasoners are more likely to affirm the appropriate normative model for a particular situation. From their understanding/acceptance principle, it follows that if greater understanding resulted in more acceptance of the axiom, then the initial gap between the normative and descriptive would be attributed to factors that prevented problem understanding (e.g., lack of ability or reflectiveness on the part of the subject). Such a finding would increase confidence in the normative appropriateness of the axioms or in their application to a particular problem. In contrast, if better understanding failed to result in greater acceptance of the axiom, then its normative status for that particular problem might be considered to be undermined. The central idea behind Slovic and Tversky’s (1974) development of the understanding/acceptance assumption is that increased understanding should drive performance in the direction of the truly normative principle for the particular situation – so that the direction that performance moves in response to increased understanding provides an empirical clue as to what is the proper normative model to be applied.

One might conceive of two generic strategies for applying the understanding/acceptance principle: variation in understanding can be created, and naturally occurring individual differences can be examined. Slovic and Tversky used the former strategy by providing subjects with explicated arguments supporting the Allais or Savage normative interpretation (see also, Sieck & Yates, 1997; Stanovich & West, 1999). Alternatively, from an individual differences perspective, the understanding/acceptance principle can be interpreted as dictating that more reflective, engaged, and intelligent reasoners should be more likely to respond in accord with normative principles. Thus, it might be expected that those individuals with cognitive/personality characteristics more conducive to deeper understanding would be more accepting of the appropriate normative principles for a particular problem. This application of the understanding/acceptance principle derives from the assumption that a normative/descriptive gap that is disproportionately created by subjects with a superficial understanding of the problem provides no warrant for amending the application of standard normative models.

TACIT ACCEPTANCE OF THE UNDERSTANDING/ACCEPTANCE PRINCIPLE AS A MECHANISM FOR ADJUDICATING DISPUTES ABOUT THE APPROPRIATE NORMATIVE MODELS TO APPLY

Theorists on all sides of the rationality debate have used the understanding/acceptance argument, sometimes without naming it. For example, critics of the heuristics and biases literature have repeatedly drawn on an individual differences version of the understanding/acceptance principle to bolster their critiques. Cohen (1982) critiques the older “bookbag and poker chip” literature on Bayesian conservatism (Phillips & Edwards, 1966; Slovic, Fischhoff, Lichtenstein, 1977) by noting that

if so-called “conservatism” resulted from some inherent inadequacy in people’s information-processing systems one might expect that, when individual differences in information-processing are measured on independently attested scales, some of them would correlate with degrees of “conservatism.” In fact, no such correlation was found by Alker and Hermann (1971). And this is just what one would expect if “conservatism” is not a defect, but a rather deeply rooted virtue of the system. (pp. 259–260)

This is precisely how Alker and Hermann (1971) themselves argued in their paper:

Phillips, Hays, and Edwards (1966) have proposed that conservatism is the result of intellectual deficiencies. If this is the case, variables such as rationality, verbal intelligence, and integrative complexity should have related to deviation from optimality – more rational, intelligent, and complex individuals should have shown less conservatism. (p. 40)

Stanovich (1999) discusses several examples of the tacit endorsement of the understanding/acceptance principle in the work of Gigerenzer and Goldstein (1996), Funder (1987), Lopes and Oden (1991), Wetherick (1971, 1995), and others. Many Panglossian theorists make recourse to patterns of individual differences (or the lack of such patterns) to undermine the standard interpretations of the tasks under consideration. In other cases, however, examining individual differences may actually reinforce confidence in the appropriateness of the normative models applied to problems in the heuristics and biases literature.