Richard Molander In the article, “In Praise of Vagueness,” researchers investigated the effect of

This state of mind that these people put themselves in potentially helps their demeanor to set goals and achieve them. However, avoiding some important information that’s useful may result in a negative outcome. A severe diagnosis of an untreatable cancer would devastate me, yet a diagnosis of a simple cold consists of beneficial knowledge to get better. The only thing that would devastate me more entails being reminded about that diagnosis repeatedly thus explaining how being deliberately ignorance can help someone stay in the correct mindset to set and achieve future

One criticism of this research is that it is correlational. Therefore, we cannot infer a causal

Two phenomena- hindsight bias and judgmental overconfidence- illustrate why we can’t rely solely on intuition and common sense.

A. The framework is explicitly stated and it was evident throughout the study, so evident in fact that it was not difficult at all to discover the framework. It was easy to comprehend and made sense; the study's implicit statements, as well as its explicit statements, provided a clear and concise understanding of the framework of the study.

* Weakness: The limited size of the sample. A larger sample size would add credibility to the study.

Voltaire once said, “Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is an absurd one.” We live in a world that is constantly changing and does not grant the certainty that people desire. But, people want the stability of knowing what is going to happen; this is why certainty is absurd. In his essay The Surety of Fools, Daniel Kahneman provides examples of people using a phenomenon he calls the illusion of validity. These people strongly believe their actions cause a specific outcome, when in reality there is statistical evidence that shows their actions have no direct correlation with the outcome. While Kahneman argues the illusion of validity comes partially from people’s tendency to make quick decisions without fully conveying the causes, it really stems from people’s fear of uncertainty from having a lack of knowledge. Other fields of academia, such as science and economics, have admitted that uncertainty grounds their thinking processes. Kahneman is inaccurate in neglecting to mention that it is the fear of uncertainty that really causes the illusion of validity.

Randomness error: the tendency of individuals to believe that they can predict the outcome of random events.

However, it’s unknown exactly what kinds of situations will cause ambiguity to be avoided or preferred. The literature is also unclear as to whether the reaction is from the, “missing probability parameter itself, or (2) motivational or attributional factors…” (Rode et al. 1999) associated with comparing opitions. The authors hypothesized that, “people associate ambiguous probabilities with highly variable outcomes” (Rode et al. 1999). If the outcome that the person needs is higher than the average payoff of each option, then the person should actually default to the ambiguous option because it would have more variability, which could have a greater chance

10. What are some of the limitations of this study that decrease the potential for generalizing the findings to the target population?

The evidence within the study is completely unbiased and so the research is more reliable. The reason for the research being unbiased is because the ladies participating were not allowed to discuss what they were doing for an entire year and it was all anonymous and so there was no way for the individual 's conducting the study to be persuaded by the participants and vice versa. Another important element is that the participants could not influence other participants as well due to the fact that no one knew who else was involved in the study (Ackard, D. M., & Peterson, C. B., 2001). The outcomes were large and diverse which is another element in which it could be seen that this was unbiased and true. The size of the sample was quite large as well; study one had 267 participants and study two had 222 participants which aids in being able to get a stronger truth to the study and allows the study to be more reliable (Ackard, D. M., & Peterson, C. B., 2001). Finally, the instruments used to gather their data was clear and concise. It was evident that they did not leave any factors up for chance, they went into extreme detail.

This study was limited due to the small sample size. Although the conclusions are valid, more research with a

If it included the more helpful factor as discussed above, it would be more thorough and

Another limitation was the short time frame in which this study was conducted. The study was conducted over the course of four weeks and within one math unit. Four weeks of data collection

This is known as the optimism bias. It can have positive and negative results. For example, when someone who has an optimism bias is sick they may not seek needed medical care because of the misperceived optimism. Optimism isn’t always negative as it can be associated with better health and better performance on the job. (Love, Kopec, & Guest, 2015)

However, numeric uncertainty may not be the best form of communication for all users. Most of the work described above was done using university undergraduate students as subjects. It is reasonable to assume the decisions made by this population would be similar to the general population, but there could be subgroups that would make better use of a categorical recommendation. Indeed, using the example of Hurricane Floyd, a majority of residents (64%) followed the evacuation warning, suggesting it was useful to some. It is also possible that some people may do worse when they are given numeric uncertainty information. Some people may not be able to understand or process the uncertainty information, due to limitations in mathematical ability, analytic reasoning, or intelligence, and would instead benefit from a recommendation. The literature supports this idea in specific situations: when faced with a low probability event where the optimal decision is to take precaution, individuals with uncertainty information are more likely to make a risk seeking error, but individuals with a recommendation made fewer errors (Grounds & Joslyn, 2015; Joslyn & Leclerc, 2012).