Psych Tests
T wo test questions from Michael Lewis's The Undoing Project (184-5, 192-3).
Q. In a family of six children, which birth order is more likely? BBBGGG or GBBGBG?
A. Most say the latter, but they are equally probable, equally random. People have a mental model of “randomness,” and the second matches it better than the first.
Q. One group was asked to estimate the product of 8 x 7 x 6 x 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1. Another group was asked to estimate the product of 1 x 2 x 3 x 4 x 5 x 6 x 7 x 8.
A. The first group's median answer was 2,250; the second group's was 512. The answer is 40,320. Using 8 as a starting point tricked people into thinking the number was big (though not as big as it actually was). Starting with 1 tricked them into estimating small. Kahneman and Tversky calls this “anchoring”: Our guesstimates are affected by starting points, even when they are not relevant to the question at hand.
Peter Leithart
Peter J. Leithart is President of Theopolis Institute. He is the author of numerous books on theology, literature, and culture, including Theopolitan, Defending Constantine, and Baptized Body.
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