The purpose of this study was to examine cognitive biases in clinically anxious children compared to normal children and to determine if cognitive biases could discriminate anxious youth from non-anxious youth. Two specific cognitive biases were the focus of the present study—interpretive biases (i.e., the tendency to interpret neutral stimuli in a negative way) and judgment biases (i.e., a lowered estimate of one's ability to cope with a threatening situation). Twenty-four youth comprised the anxiety disordered sample and were each matched to two normal youth on four demographic variables (gender, age, ethnicity, and family income level), thus the matched comparison sample consisted of 48 youth (ages 7 to 17). Interpretive biases were assessed with the Children's Negative Cognitive Error Questionnaire (CNCEQ) and judgment biases were assessed with the Anxiety Control Questionnaire—child form (ACQ-C). In addition, self-reported symptoms of anxiety and depression and parent-reported internalizing and externalizing symptoms were measured. Results indicated that (1) children in the clinic sample exhibited significantly more interpretive biases and judgment biases relative to the control sample, and scored significantly higher on measures of anxiety, depression, and parent-reported internalizing and externalizing symptoms relative to the control sample, (2) the ACQ-C demonstrated incremental validity over the CNCEQ in predicting diagnostic status, (3) the ACQ-C predicted diagnostic status while controlling for Generalized Anxiety Disorder symptoms and parent-reported internalizing and externalizing symptoms, but not while controlling for RCMAS (anxiety) and CDI (depression) scores, and (4) the relationship between the CNCEQ and diagnostic status was moderated by age and gender. This study adds to the research literature by demonstrating elevated CNCEQ scores among youth with anxiety disorders compared to non-anxious youth and extends findings with the ACQ-C by showing its incremental validity beyond the CNCEQ. The results also add to the understanding of the assessment of negative cognitive vi errors by highlighting developmental and sex differences in their association with anxiety disorder status in youth. Implications of the positive findings for theory and practice are noted and theoretical and methodological reasons for the negative results are discussed to highlight suggestions for future work in this area.

<p>General Aviation (GA) is the foundation of most flying activities and the training ground for civilian pilots, both recreational and professional. However, the safety record for GA is lacking compared to that of commercial aviation. Approximately 75% of accidents each year involve personnel factors, that is, even if the pilot was not the cause of the accident, they could have done something to either prevent it or improve the outcome.<br></p> <p> </p> <p>In this research, I aim to improve GA safety through safety-driven post-flight debrief that encourages pilots to consider the risk in their flights and identify behavioral changes that could make their flying safer. Providing pilots with a debrief tool that they can use with or without a flight instructor requires that we know both what to communicate, and how to communicate it. Risk communication heuristics and biases have not been researched in the context of aviation and flight training and we therefore do not know how pilots understand or respond to debrief.</p> <p> </p> <p>To achieve the goals of this work, I used a three-step process: (1) identify events that may put the safe outcome of a flight at risk, (2) detect those events in flight data, and (3) inform the pilot in a way that helps them improve in their future flights. I use a state-based representation of historical aviation accidents to define a list of events or behaviors that need to be communicated to the pilots, in the form of states and triggers. I use flight data to retrospectively detect these behaviors upon completion of the flight, by mapping parameters or combinations of parameters that can be calculated and tracked in the flight data to the hazardous states and triggers defined. To present these events to pilots, I created a prototype interactive debrief tool with risk information that I use in a survey to evaluate the effectiveness of feedback in different representation formats. Specifically, I evaluate the impact of three factors: representation method (graphical and numerical), parameter type (safety and performance parameters), and framing language (risk-centric and safety-centric). </p> <p> </p> <p>I disseminated the survey via aviation mailing lists, type groups, flying clubs, and flight training providers, end received 268 responses. The survey analysis showed that the feedback representation does affect its effectiveness in terms of risk perception, but not when it comes to pilots’ motivation to change. The lessons learnt from this survey can be used in creating additional surveys that delve further into risk communication biases and our understanding of how pilots perceive risk and feedback.</p>

O mercado de capitais brasileiro tem se desenvolvido ao longo dos anos, e com o fim do longo período inflacionário, houve a possibilidade das pessoas fazerem planejamentos de longo prazo, sem se preocupar apenas com a perda do valor do dinheiro no curto prazo. Alguns fatores levaram à entrada de investidores no mercado de capitais, que tem sido crescente nos últimos anos. Para que se atraia cada vez mais investidores para esse mercado, e de forma sustentável, instruindo-os para que possam ter mais consciência na hora de investir, é essencial conhecer vieses que influenciam suas decisões, pois, diferentemente do que apontam as Teorias Tradicionais e Modernas de Finanças, os investidores (e as pessoas em geral) não agem de forma completamente racional quando fazem escolhas, podendo ser influenciados, de forma mais ou menos intensa, por vieses, como excesso de confiança, falácia de custos irrecuperáveis, aversão à perda, entre outros, que poderão afetar essas escolhas, e por fim, o mercado em geral. Dessa forma, o objetivo deste estudo foi de identificar a intensidade em que vieses estão presentes em decisões de investidores individuais do mercado de capitais brasileiro, e verificar se essa intensidade está relacionada ao sexo e ao tempo como investidor do mercado, fornecendo subsídio para que sejam desenvolvidos programas, focados inicialmente naqueles vieses que se mostram mais presentes nas decisões, para instruir investidores e possíveis investidores sobre essa influência, ajudando-os a identificar padrões em suas escolhas que possam ser prejudiciais a eles. Para isso, o instrumento de pesquisa utilizado foi um questionário com questões múltipla escolha, disponibilizado em provedor de serviços de pesquisas eletrônicas, por meio do qual foi efetuada a coleta de dados. O link do questionário foi enviado a instituições relacionadas ao mercado de capitais para divulgação a investidores e a grupos de investidores por meio de redes sociais. No total, 178 pessoas responderam à pesquisa, sendo que 80 são investidores no mercado de capitais, cujas respostas foram analisadas. Para efetuar a interpretação das respostas foi utilizada análise descritiva. Observou-se que, dos 13 vieses analisados, apenas 4 se mostraram com alta intensidade na escolha de investidores, sendo eles os vieses de excesso de confiança, excesso de negociação, contabilização mental e ancoragem, e que, para maioria dos vieses não se observa diferença significativa de intensidade entre sexo masculino e feminino, mas é possível perceber que para alguns dos vieses quanto maior o tempo como investidor, menor a intensidade do viés. As respostas de não investidores também foram analisadas, como forma de identificar a intensidade em que vieses estariam presentes em pessoas que poderiam em algum momento ser investidores, e percebeu-se que, comparativamente aos investidores, eles apresentaram maior intensidade dos vieses. Para pessoas que estão envolvidas com o mercado de capitais a intensidade dos vieses não foi tão alta, mas para aqueles que não são investidores a alta intensidade foi predominante para um maior número de vieses, o que poderia estar relacionado à experiência adquirida no mercado de alguma forma, e que mostra a necessidade de apresentar situações a que as pessoas poderiam estar expostas e cuidados a serem tomados para mitigar as influências que podem sofrer ao investir no mercado. / The Brazilian capital market has developed over the years, and with the end of a long inflationary period, there was the possibility of people making long-term plans, instead of only being worried about the loss of value of money in the short term. Some factors have led to the entry of investors in the capital market, which has been growing in recent years. In order to attract more and more investors to this market, and in a sustainable way, instructing them so they can be more aware when investing, it is essential to know the biases that influence their decisions, since, unlike what the Traditional and Modern Finance Theories describe, investors (and people in general) do not act completely rationally when they make choices and may be influenced more or less intensely by biases such as overconfidence, sunk cost fallacy, loss aversion, among others, which may affect these choices, and ultimately, the market. Thus, the aim of this study was to identify the intensity in which biases are present in the decisions of individual investors in the Brazilian capital market, and verify if this intensity is related to sex and time as market investor, providing information so that programs can be developed, focused initially on those biases that are more present in decisions, to instruct investors and potential investors of this influence, helping them to identify patterns in their choices that may be harmful to them. For this, the research instrument was a questionnaire with multiple choice questions, available in electronic research services provider, through which was collected the data. The link to the questionnaire was sent to the capital market related institutions, so they could send it to investors, and groups of investors through social networks. 178 people responded to the survey, of which 80 are investors in the capital market, whose responses were analyzed. To analyze the responses it was used descriptive analysis. It was observed that, of the 13 biases analyzed, only 4 showed up with high intensity in the choice of investors, namely the bias of overconfidence, excessive trading, mental accounting and anchor, and that for, most biases, no significant difference in intensity is observed between males and females, however, for some biases, it is possible to see that when higher the period the person has been an investor, lower the intensity of the biases. The responses of non-investors were also analyzed as a way to identify the intensity in which biases were present in people who might be, at some point, investors, and it was noticed that, compared to investors, they showed greater intensity of biases. For those people who are involved with the capital market the intensity of biases was not as high as for those who are not, for whom the high intensity was prevalent for a larger number of biases. This could be related, somehow, to the experience gained in the market, and shows the need to present situations that people could be exposed and be careful about, being aware of steps that could be taken to mitigate the influences that they can suffer when investing in the market.

It has been widely accepted that people do not always behave rationally when making decisions. However, cognitive biases are still of interest to a relatively small group (mostly working in the area of psychology) even though they have been introduced to a wider audience by Tversky and Kahneman&rsquo / s article in Science in 1974. It has already been shown that behavioral biases affect most decisions of people / therefore, they have an important role in a wide range of fields, from financial marketing to gambling. The purpose of this study is to investigate some cognitive biases (anchoring, reference point, probability judgment and risk propensity) in Turkey. In brief, anchoring bias is the fallacious effect of anchor values on decision making process, the presence of reference point bias proves that people are excessively affected by comparisons, probability judgment bias is the erroneous evaluation of probabilities, and risk propensity bias is the fallacious effect of the risk propensity levels on decision making processes. The relationships of these biases with individual cognitive ability levels and socioeconomic variables are also inspected. The data are collected by using a survey that is composed of the related measures which are taken from previous surveys in the literature. The sample is composed of a large number of participants (1575) from a wide range of socioeconomic statuses, from students to working professionals to retired individuals. The results lend support to the presence of a reference point bias, and an effect of risk propensity levels on decisions. However, an evidence which supports anchoring and probability judgment biases are failed to be found at a significant level. A significant relationship between cognitive ability level and risk propensity level is found. Moreover, demographic variables are also found to have an effect on the selected biases and cognitive ability.

Estimates suggest that 40% of the food grown in the United States ends up in landfills. Household losses are the highest contributor to volume of waste overall, and individual households are estimated to discard around 15% of their total acquired food inventory. Consumers are generally waste averse and a vast majority have been shown to object to wasting food in particular, yet almost all consumers discard a substantial volume of potentially edible food each year. This exploratory qualitative study sought to uncover underlying psychological mechanisms behind this discrepancy between attitude and behavior by exploring the decision-making processes that consumers engage in as they acquire, prepare, consume and discard food. By exploring the patterns of thinking that shape household provisioning practices through an initial in-depth interview, a two-week long household food diary and a follow-up interview with 17 diverse consumers, a grounded theory emerged to explain this counter-intuitive behavior pattern. Extending research from behavioral economics and decision making literature, data from this study suggests the following: 1) people evaluate cost of goods based on incomplete value estimations that fail to account for the costs associated with discarding potentially edible foods; 2) costs associated with the act of shopping are salient and encourage less frequent provisioning trips; 3) people do not adequately account for costs associated with overbuying and storing food; and 4) consumer strategies aimed at maximize efficiency in food acquisition through less frequent shopping trips may actually result in increased inefficiency in the form of greater waste and higher overall cost of goods. Based on emergent findings, a strategy for waste avoidance is presented along with managerial implications.

La majorité des recherches en sciences cognitives suppose que la fonction du raisonnement humain est d'aider l'individu à avoir de meilleures croyances et à prendre de meilleures décisions, en particulier grâce à des mécanismes mentaux d'inférences logiques. En 2011, Dan Sperber et Hugo Mercier ont proposé une vision alternative du raisonnement humain. La fonction du raisonnement serait argumentative : le raisonnement serait ce qui permet aux individus de produire et d'évaluer des arguments en contextes dialogiques. Cette thèse a d'une part pour objectif de proposer une comparaison théorique entre les théories standards du raisonnement et la théorie argumentative du raisonnement. D'autre part, elle apporte un soutien empirique a la théorie argumentative à travers différents paradigmes expérimentaux (i.e., résolution de problème individuelle, production et évaluation d'arguments individuelles, résolution de problème et échange d'arguments en groupe). Cette thèse défend non seulement la valeur explicative de la théorie argumentative du raisonnement, mais caractérise également les mécanismes cognitifs du raisonnement humain, de part leurs fonctions, leurs biais, et les contextes qui les déclenchent / Most research in cognitive science assumes that the function of human reasoning is to help individual to improve their beliefs and make better decisions, in particular through mental mechanisms of logical inference. In 2011, Dan Sperber and Hugo Mercier put forward an alternative view of human reasoning. The function of reasoning would be argumentative: reasoning would be what enables individuals to produce and evaluate arguments in dialogical contexts. This PhD thesis aims at proposing a theoretical comparison between standard theories of reasoning and the argumentative theory of reasoning. Furthermore, it provides empirical support for the latter by using different experimental paradigms (i.e., individual problem solving, production and evaluation of arguments in solitary contexts, problem solving and arguments exchange in group). This thesis not only defends the explanatory value of the argumentative theory but also characterizes the cognitive mechanisms of human reasoning by their functions, their biases, and their triggering contexts

O mercado de capitais brasileiro tem se desenvolvido ao longo dos anos, e com o fim do longo período inflacionário, houve a possibilidade das pessoas fazerem planejamentos de longo prazo, sem se preocupar apenas com a perda do valor do dinheiro no curto prazo. Alguns fatores levaram à entrada de investidores no mercado de capitais, que tem sido crescente nos últimos anos. Para que se atraia cada vez mais investidores para esse mercado, e de forma sustentável, instruindo-os para que possam ter mais consciência na hora de investir, é essencial conhecer vieses que influenciam suas decisões, pois, diferentemente do que apontam as Teorias Tradicionais e Modernas de Finanças, os investidores (e as pessoas em geral) não agem de forma completamente racional quando fazem escolhas, podendo ser influenciados, de forma mais ou menos intensa, por vieses, como excesso de confiança, falácia de custos irrecuperáveis, aversão à perda, entre outros, que poderão afetar essas escolhas, e por fim, o mercado em geral. Dessa forma, o objetivo deste estudo foi de identificar a intensidade em que vieses estão presentes em decisões de investidores individuais do mercado de capitais brasileiro, e verificar se essa intensidade está relacionada ao sexo e ao tempo como investidor do mercado, fornecendo subsídio para que sejam desenvolvidos programas, focados inicialmente naqueles vieses que se mostram mais presentes nas decisões, para instruir investidores e possíveis investidores sobre essa influência, ajudando-os a identificar padrões em suas escolhas que possam ser prejudiciais a eles. Para isso, o instrumento de pesquisa utilizado foi um questionário com questões múltipla escolha, disponibilizado em provedor de serviços de pesquisas eletrônicas, por meio do qual foi efetuada a coleta de dados. O link do questionário foi enviado a instituições relacionadas ao mercado de capitais para divulgação a investidores e a grupos de investidores por meio de redes sociais. No total, 178 pessoas responderam à pesquisa, sendo que 80 são investidores no mercado de capitais, cujas respostas foram analisadas. Para efetuar a interpretação das respostas foi utilizada análise descritiva. Observou-se que, dos 13 vieses analisados, apenas 4 se mostraram com alta intensidade na escolha de investidores, sendo eles os vieses de excesso de confiança, excesso de negociação, contabilização mental e ancoragem, e que, para maioria dos vieses não se observa diferença significativa de intensidade entre sexo masculino e feminino, mas é possível perceber que para alguns dos vieses quanto maior o tempo como investidor, menor a intensidade do viés. As respostas de não investidores também foram analisadas, como forma de identificar a intensidade em que vieses estariam presentes em pessoas que poderiam em algum momento ser investidores, e percebeu-se que, comparativamente aos investidores, eles apresentaram maior intensidade dos vieses. Para pessoas que estão envolvidas com o mercado de capitais a intensidade dos vieses não foi tão alta, mas para aqueles que não são investidores a alta intensidade foi predominante para um maior número de vieses, o que poderia estar relacionado à experiência adquirida no mercado de alguma forma, e que mostra a necessidade de apresentar situações a que as pessoas poderiam estar expostas e cuidados a serem tomados para mitigar as influências que podem sofrer ao investir no mercado. / The Brazilian capital market has developed over the years, and with the end of a long inflationary period, there was the possibility of people making long-term plans, instead of only being worried about the loss of value of money in the short term. Some factors have led to the entry of investors in the capital market, which has been growing in recent years. In order to attract more and more investors to this market, and in a sustainable way, instructing them so they can be more aware when investing, it is essential to know the biases that influence their decisions, since, unlike what the Traditional and Modern Finance Theories describe, investors (and people in general) do not act completely rationally when they make choices and may be influenced more or less intensely by biases such as overconfidence, sunk cost fallacy, loss aversion, among others, which may affect these choices, and ultimately, the market. Thus, the aim of this study was to identify the intensity in which biases are present in the decisions of individual investors in the Brazilian capital market, and verify if this intensity is related to sex and time as market investor, providing information so that programs can be developed, focused initially on those biases that are more present in decisions, to instruct investors and potential investors of this influence, helping them to identify patterns in their choices that may be harmful to them. For this, the research instrument was a questionnaire with multiple choice questions, available in electronic research services provider, through which was collected the data. The link to the questionnaire was sent to the capital market related institutions, so they could send it to investors, and groups of investors through social networks. 178 people responded to the survey, of which 80 are investors in the capital market, whose responses were analyzed. To analyze the responses it was used descriptive analysis. It was observed that, of the 13 biases analyzed, only 4 showed up with high intensity in the choice of investors, namely the bias of overconfidence, excessive trading, mental accounting and anchor, and that for, most biases, no significant difference in intensity is observed between males and females, however, for some biases, it is possible to see that when higher the period the person has been an investor, lower the intensity of the biases. The responses of non-investors were also analyzed as a way to identify the intensity in which biases were present in people who might be, at some point, investors, and it was noticed that, compared to investors, they showed greater intensity of biases. For those people who are involved with the capital market the intensity of biases was not as high as for those who are not, for whom the high intensity was prevalent for a larger number of biases. This could be related, somehow, to the experience gained in the market, and shows the need to present situations that people could be exposed and be careful about, being aware of steps that could be taken to mitigate the influences that they can suffer when investing in the market.

Many buildings underperform leading to up to 20% energy waste. Case studies on monitoring-based commissioning (MBCx) have shown that using energy management and information systems (EMIS) for continuous energy monitoring and analysis enables the identification of issues that cause energy waste and verifies energy conservation measures. However, MBCx is underutilized by organizations leading to an energy efficiency gap between the energy saving potential of technologies like EMIS and observed savings. This energy efficiency gap can be attributed to general barriers to MBCx and barriers caused specifically by cognitive bias in the decision-making process. Using qualitative data from over 40 organizations implementing and practicing MBCx, this manuscript provides a better understanding of these barriers. Chapter 1 synthesizes and codes the qualitative data to develop a framework of variables acting as barriers and enablers to MBCx. The framework highlights commonly experienced barriers like data configuration, and also variables with conflicting results like payback/return on investment, which was experienced as a barrier to some organizations and enabler to others. Chapter 2 examines the barriers to MBCx through a behavioral decision science lens and finds evidence of cognitive biases, specifically, risk aversion, social norms, choice overload, status quo bias, information overload, professional bias, and temporal discounting. The success of choice architecture in other energy efficiency decisions is used to offer suggestions for ways to overcome these cognitive biases. This manuscript can be used by practitioners to better understand potential barriers to MBCx and by researchers to prioritize gaps and find methods to overcome the barriers to MBCx. / Master of Science

The modeling of financial risk, whose shortcomings came to the fore during the financial crisis, generally understands risk from the history of prices and returns. However, the state space of risk is not fully revealed from the history of prices and returns. In this dissertation, certain cognitive biases were modeled, and the simulation results were quantitatively characterized to reveal risk not revealed from the history of prices and returns. This contribution adds to the extant literature on the modeling of financial risk by showing how to reveal parts of the state space of risk not revealed from other methods in use today.

Existing research investigating human judgment and decision making describes patterns of systematic biases in the way people process information and make decisions. Framing effects, for example, demonstrate that logically equivalent alternatives presented in divergent linguistic frames can lead to systematically different choice outcomes; in general, people demonstrate a preference for risk-averse behaviour when information is framed positively and risk-seeking behaviour when information is framed negatively. Similarly, the status quo bias describes a tendency for decision makers to maintain current or previous decisions when confronted with the availability of new options, demonstrating that people possess a predisposition to continue with established behaviour. This research proposes that the goals a decision maker adopts and the hedonic tone of the stimulus being evaluated influence whether framing effects are observed; similarly, the past performance of the status quo and complexity of available options influence whether participants exhibit a preference for the status quo. Using a survey-based experimental methodology, the aforementioned propositions are investigated by systematically manipulating characteristics of decision problems in order to reveal the mechanisms which influence the emergence of framing effects and the status quo bias. The results demonstrate that when positive goals or stimuli are emphasized, usual framing effects are observed; that is, participants demonstrate a preference for risk-averse behaviour in the positive frame and risk-seeking behaviour in the negative frame. Conversely, when negative goals or stimuli are emphasized, participants fail to demonstrate the expected shift in risk-preference. Past performance and complexity of the available alternatives are also shown to influence preference for the status quo; specifically, participants demonstrate greater preference for the status quo when past performance is strong compared to when it is weak, and when the number of available options is low compared to when it is high. The findings of this research improve our understanding of how contextual factors influence shifts in preference and the emergence of decision making biases; moreover, the current research demonstrates the need for future research to consider the influence of situational and contextual factors when investigating decision making in particular and human behaviour in general.