CRITICAL THINKING LESSON FOR CHAPTER 10B:
Heuristics, Self-reports, and Surveys

In our everyday lives, all of us have been asked to fill out surveys having to do with all kinds of behaviors, thoughts, and feelings. As mentioned in Critical Thinking Lesson 10A, however, we may not always be aware of or remember the behaviors, thoughts, or feelings we are being asked about. How, then are we able to respond to such questions? Our responses in these cases are influenced by cognitive heuristics (mental short-cuts; see Critical Thinking Lesson 8B) as well as distortions of memory. In this lesson, you will learn about a few of these influences.

The Anchoring-and-Adjustment Heuristic

Here is an example of a question you might be asked on a survey of sexual behavior:

How often do you think about sex each day?
(a) not at all
(b) 1-3 times
(c) 4-6 times
(d) 7-9 times
(e) 10 times or more

Most of you probably chose either (b), (c), or (d). Now, would providing the following alternatives to the question have affected your responses in any way?

How often do you think about sex each day?
(a) 4 times or less
(b) 5-9 times
(c) 10-14 times
(d) 15-19 times
(e) 20 times or more

If it is true that, in the first question, most people chose either (b), (c), or (d), then in the second question, most people should choose (a) or (b). But it is very likely that, in the second question, most people again would choose either (b), (c), or (d). Why? Well, the question is somewhat ambiguous (it is not precisely clear what is meant by "thinking about sex"). More important, however, is the fact that most people don't pay close attention to and, hence, don't encode, all the times that they think about sex during the day. Thus, most people probably don't have a clearly formed memory for this information. They would approach this question by looking at the choices provided in order to get some sense of how often the average person thinks about sex each day, and then choose an answer that is not too extreme (unless they think, for other reasons, that they represent one of the extremes). In this case, the heuristic that would be influencing their decision-making is referred to as the "anchoring-and-adjustment heuristic" (Kunda, 1999).

The anchoring-and-adjustment heuristic is defined as a mental shortcut in which one estimates the likelihood of an event by selecting an arbitrary number (an anchor) as a starting point and adjusting upward or downward based on other information. In the case of the sex-survey question, many people probably would assume that (c) represents how often the average person thinks about sex each day. This range of numbers would serve as the "anchor." Most people then would examine their self-concept (the set of beliefs and knowledge that they have about themselves). If, for instance, they think of themselves as an oversexed person compared to others, but not too oversexed, they would adjust upwards, probably by choosing (d) but not (e). In the first question, this would have them claiming to be thinking about sex 7-9 times per day, whereas, in the second question, they would be thinking about sex 15-19 times per day. You can see how the anchoring-and-adjustment heuristic would be important to consider when writing survey questions.

But this heuristic also is important for us in our everyday lives. For example, in Chapter 8 of the textbook, an example was discussed of how a person might go about choosing an apartment to rent (p. 323). Let's say that the rent of the very first apartment that the person looked at was excessively high. This person might use this rent as the anchor against which she would evaluate the rents of other apartments. If the next apartment she looked at had a lower rent but was of equal attractiveness and size, she might immediately sign a lease, even though its rent still was high compared to other simlar apartments in the area. The unreasonable anchor she began with led her to make a bad decision. In general, when we have little knowledge about a topic, anchors can have a large influence on our decision-making. If the anchor is misleading, our decisions will be impacted negatively.

Problems With Retrospective Self-Reports

Surveys often rely upon what people are able to remember about their pasts. This kind of information is referred to as a retrospective self-report. The biggest problem with retrospective self-reports is that they rely upon memory, which, as you learned in Chapter 7 and Critical Thinking Lesson 7A, often contain inaccuracies. There are several things that can distort one's memory of the past. Here are a few of the more important problems.

Present Mood Affects Memory. In general, the mood that people are in affects what they remember about their past. Mood-congruent retrieval refers to the increased tendency to retrieve memories that are consistent with one's present mood. Schacter (1996) provided an example of mood-congruent retrieval:

Women who were depressed when they completed a questionnaire concerning childhood experiences remembered their parents as being more unloving or rejecting than women who had never been depressed. Could it be that the depressed women were remembering their parents accurately? Possibly. However, these women remembered their parents as being more rejecting than women who had been depressed in the past but were not depressed when completing the questionnaire. Being in a depressed mood while completing the questionnaire seemed to contribute to the women's negative recollections of their parents. (p. 212)

In fact, our present mood may distort our memories in such a way that they become more consistent with the mood we are in. For example, McNally (2003) discussed the effects of having post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) on people's memories of the traumatic experiences that gave rise to their PTSD. The results of a number of studies convinced McNally that the "worse their current symptoms, the more severe they remember the trauma to have been" (p. 81):

As the traumatic events recede in time, memory for them may be increasingly subject to distortion. People with chronic PTSD, seeking to make sense of their continued distress, may be especially prone to misremember traumatic events as having been worse than they originally experienced them to be. Conversely, people without the disorder may retrospectively minimize their traumatic experiences. (p. 83)

In other words, people try to explain the present by finding causes in the past. The desire to explain what is happening now may be so strong that they change their memories of the past.

Current Concerns Affect Memory. Mood-congruent retrieval is related to the consistency bias, which, as you learned in Critical Thinking Lesson 7A, refers to the tendency to unknowingly change our memories of what we were like in the past in order to make them more consistent with the way we are now. As stated there, the consistency bias occurs probably because we often have a great deal of trouble remembering what we actually believed, felt, or knew in the past. People assume that their personal attributes (such as their attitudes, beliefs, concerns, moods, desires, and knowledge) stay stable over long periods of time and then use this assumption to make inferences about what their personal attributes were in the past (Schacter, 2001).

For example, Schacter (2001) discussed a study performed with college students who were dating each other. The couples answered questions about the state of their relationship (how much they liked or loved their partner) and about the characteristics of their partner (for instance, how honest, kind, and intelligent they were) in two sessions that were separated by two months. During the second session, the couples also tried to recall how they had responded in the first session. The students whose evaluations became more negative in the second session relative to the first recalled their first evaluation as being more negative than it actually was. The students whose evaluations became more positive in the second session relative to the first recalled their first evaluation as being more positive than it actually was. Schacter concluded that memories "of past impressions and feelings were filtered through, and made consistent with, partners' current impressions and feelings" (p. 141)

Misinformation Effect. In Chapter 7, you learned about the misinformation effect, which is a distortion in one's memory of an event caused by information learned after the event. For example, a rape victim by the name of Jennifer Thompson developed a false memory of her attacker partly because of information she received from police detectives investigating the crime. When she picked the wrong person out of a photo line-up, the detectives told her that they thought he was the person who had raped her. This post-event information distorted her memory of her attacker's appearance. Later, when she chose the same incorrect person out of a physical line-up, the police told her that he was the same person she had picked out of the photo line-up. This information caused further distortions in her memory. Eventually, although the actual rapist was another man who looked very different, she became convinced that the man she had picked out of the photo and physical line-ups was the man who had raped her. Anytime we hear inaccurate information after experiencing an event, our memory of the event may change. Eventually, the memory may bear little resemblance to what actually happened.

In general, retrospective self-reports provide data that may be questionable. Since many surveys rely upon retrospective self-reports, their results may provide an inaccurate view of people's true behaviors, thoughts, and emotions.

Question 10B-1
In Chapter 10, it was reported that "[a]lthough most sex offenders admit to an extensive history of using pornographic materials, a review of the relevant research indicated that [they] typically do not have earlier or more extensive exposure to pornography in childhood or adolescence than other people" (p. 392). Based on what you learned in this lesson, why might sex offenders report that they more frequently viewed pornography compared to others even though they probably did not?
Suggested Answer

Question 10B-2
In Chapter 10, it was reported that "undergraduates exposed to a large dose of pornography (three or six films per week for six weeks) developed more liberal attitudes about sexual practices" (p. 392). In addition, people who frequently are exposed to pornography become more dissatisfied with their sex lives and their sexual partners. Based on what you have learned in this lesson, please explain these findings.
Suggested Answer

Question 10B-3
Engel (2000, p. 187) quoted the following passage from The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry:

The next planet was inhabited by a tippler [a person who frequently drinks alcohol to excess]. This was a very short visit, but it plunged the little prince into deep dejection.
"What are you doing there?" he said to the tippler, whom he found settled down in silence before a collection of empty bottles and also a collection of full bottles.
"I am drinking," replied the tippler with a lugubrious [excessively mournful, dismal, or gloomy] air.
"Why are you drinking?" demanded the little prince.
"So that I may forget," replied the tippler.
"Forget what?" inquired the little prince....
"Forget that I am ashamed," the tippler confessed, hanging his head.
"Ashamed of what?" insisted the little prince, who wanted to help him.
"Ashamed of drinking!"

Based on what you learned in the Critical Thinking Application at the end of Chapter 10, which fallacy is the tippler committing in this passage?
Suggested Answer

Bibliography and References

Engel, S. M. (2000). With good reason: An introduction to informal fallacies (6th ed.). Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's.

Kunda, Z. (1999). Social cognition: Making sense of people. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

McNally, R. J. (2003). Remembering trauma. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Schacter, D. L. (1996). Searching for memory: The brain, the mind, and the past. New York: BasicBooks.

Schacter, D. L. (2001). The seven sins of memory: How the mind forgets and remembers. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.