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3 results

  • Chapter 3 - Biases: Mistaking Intuition for Irrationality

  • from Part I - The War on Intuition
  • Gerd Gigerenzer, Max Planck Institute for Human Development
  • Book:
    The Intelligence of Intuition
    Published online:
    28 September 2023
    Print publication:
    12 October 2023, pp 42-67

  • Summary

    Behavioral economics began with the promise to fill the psychological blind spot in neoclassical theory, and ended up portraying intuition as the source of irrationality. The portrait goes like this: people have systematic cognitive biases causing substantial costs, biases are persistent like visual illusions and hardly educable, therefore governments need to step in and steer people with the help of “nudges.” The biases have taken on the status of truism. In contrast, I show that this view of human nature is tainted by a “bias bias,” the tendency to spot biases even if there are none. This involves failing to notice when sample parameters differ from population parameters, mistaking people’s random error for systematic error, and confusing intelligent inferences with logical errors. I use celebrated biases to explain the general problem. Getting rid of the bias bias will be a precondition for a positive role of human intuition and psychology in general.

  • Citation bias and selective focus on positive findings in the literature on the serotonin transporter gene (5-HTTLPR), life stress and depression

  • Y. A. de Vries, A. M. Roest, M. Franzen, M. R. Munafò, J. A. Bastiaansen
  • Journal:
    Psychological Medicine / Volume 46 / Issue 14 / October 2016
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    12 August 2016, pp. 2971-2979
  • Background

    Caspi et al.'s 2003 report that 5-HTTLPR genotype moderates the influence of life stress on depression has been highly influential but remains contentious. We examined whether the evidence base for the 5-HTTLPR–stress interaction has been distorted by citation bias and a selective focus on positive findings.

    Method

    A total of 73 primary studies were coded for study outcomes and focus on positive findings in the abstract. Citation rates were compared between studies with positive and negative results, both within this network of primary studies and in Web of Science. In addition, the impact of focus on citation rates was examined.

    Results

    In all, 24 (33%) studies were coded as positive, but these received 48% of within-network and 68% of Web of Science citations. The 38 (52%) negative studies received 42 and 23% of citations, respectively, while the 11 (15%) unclear studies received 10 and 9%. Of the negative studies, the 16 studies without a positive focus (42%) received 47% of within-network citations and 32% of Web of Science citations, while the 13 (34%) studies with a positive focus received 39 and 51%, respectively, and the nine (24%) studies with a partially positive focus received 14 and 17%.

    Conclusions

    Negative studies received fewer citations than positive studies. Furthermore, over half of the negative studies had a (partially) positive focus, and Web of Science citation rates were higher for these studies. Thus, discussion of the 5-HTTLPR–stress interaction is more positive than warranted. This study exemplifies how evidence-base-distorting mechanisms undermine the authenticity of research findings.