The role of social heuristics in deliberative outcomes | María G. Navarro

1. The role of social heuristics
in deliberative outcomes

2. Ecological rationality
Recognition
Fluency Take the best
Satisficing
Tit-for-tat
Imitate the majority
Imitate the successful
If one of two
alternatives is
recognized, infer that it
has the higher value
on the criterion
If one alternative is
recognized faster than
another, infer that it has
the higher value on the
criterion
Infer which of
two
alternatives
has the higher
value by…
a) searching
through cues
in order of
validity
c) choosing the
alternative this
cue favors
b) stopping the
search as soon
as a cue
discriminates
Search through
alternatives, and
choose the first one
that exceeds your
aspiration level
Cooperate first, keep a memory of
Size 1, and then imitate your
partner’s last behavior
Look at a majority of people
in your peer group, and
imitate their behavior
Look for the most
successful person
and imitate his or
her behavior

3. motivation
(objectives & plan)

4. The model of procedural rationality does not offer
an answer to the following questions:
(a) What can be deliberated upon and where?
(b) How should we deliberate?
(c) What are the effects of deliberation?

5. Beltrán, Elena, & Vallespín, Fernando
(2012) (Eds.) Deliberación pública y
democracias contemporáneas. Madrid:
Síntesis.

6. Luis Vega, & Paula Olmos (Eds.) (2011)
Compendio de lógica, argumentación y
retórica. Madrid: Trotta.

7. (i) formulation of the matter and opening of the
session
(ii) information distribution
(iii) presentation of proposals and counter-proposals
(iv) phase of weigh, adjustments and revisions
(v) resolution
(vi) resolution confirmation and closing

8. Analysing the role of social heuristics in the results of
deliberation can be useful in order to:
(i) determine what the possible pathologies of
deliberation are,
(ii) orient the generation of indexes to measure the
deliberation degree,
(iii) contribute to the definition and the functioning of
social heuristics in deliberation contexts.

9. I will describe the weaknesses of the classic programmes on
heuristics, in order to overcome those weaknesses:
1| I will suggest a tentative notion of ‘heuristic expressivism’;
after that and on the basis of Cass Sunstein’s works,
2| I will define social heuristics and, finally,
3| will describe two possible cases of social heuristic:
reputation heuristic and group identification heuristic.

10. It seems appropriate to highlight that although in these experiments there is
a verbal protocol to address the persons whose reasoning is under analysis
they have not, however, been given the importance of questions such as:
(i) whether heuristics may catalyse a process of deliberation;
(ii) whether during the experiments a persuasion model is used that may exert an
influence on the persons asked;
(iii) what is the impact of this hypothetical persuasion model on the results
obtained and how can it be evaluated;
(iv) whether it is worthwhile to create a scenario in which the information may be
obtained without using any (persuasive) question-answer model.

11. 1| heuristic expressivism?

12. In the analysis of heuristics excessive attention has been focused on
not only what could be called the starting point (representation)
and the end point (decision-making), but this fact also appears to
have caused the debate on the presumed semantic properties of
beliefs, their relationship with the described state of
things, with the mental images with which they are
associated, etc., to be put on the back burner.
*For example, the fact that the theory of the underlying
significance to the idea that probability judgments are influenced
by assessments of resemblance is prototypically
representationalist, and that this fact does not seem irrelevant as
it can exert an influence on the interpretation of the results
obtained, has not been discussed.

13. Why is it relevant to affirm that the analysis of the
theories of meaning is still an unfinished task in heuristics
research?

14. Because then, many of the purported systematic errors
that people commit when problems are given to them to
solve and they process them (using logical constants to do
so), could be understood as a consequence of
expressivism.

15. While we employ heuristic reasoning, we do not stop performing
simple generalisation operations through inferential calculation based
on logical constants.
According to this interpretation, heuristic procedures cannot be
dissociated from the deliberative dynamic, from the justification of
the theory of meaning that is used, and nonmonotonic reasoning.

16. In the programs that we have mentioned so far, one of the consistent
defining characteristics is the belief that heuristics are not declarative
propositions but rather procedures that can be applied to very different
problems, and these are precisely the ones that present an unlimited variety
of contents.
However, the research results of the following authors (some of them
members of the ABC Group) can be used to establish a coordinated
counterargument on this point.
I will enumerate, using brief statements, the works that I have selected
indicating very concisely why they could be used as counterarguments.

17. 2| social heuristics

18. (i) Reasoning heuristically based on (the content of)
what is learned
“It appears that learning is an important factor that needs to be
taken into account when interpreting inferences in a situation in
which outcome feedback is provided. Therefore the conclusions
regarding how people make their inferences depend on the provided
learning opportunity. Depending on whether the learning
opportunities are sufficient to allow people to adapt to the specific
environment, conclusions might differ concerning whether people
make their inferences adaptatively.” (Rieskamp, 2008: 274).

19. (ii) Reasoning heuristically based on (the content
of) defeasible beliefs
“Human inferential systems are paraconsistent in the sense that
we have contradictory beliefs yet reasoning continues through the
use of heuristics without collapsing into triviality. […] Many
heuristics are content-specific or domain-specific. Some heuristics
are learned form experience and many successful executions are
due to familiarity with contextual parameters. These parameters
are important if an agent is to react rationally to highly contextual
“environment variables”, for instance those involved in natural
language processing. […] Heuristics often exemplify
nonmonotonic reasoning because in many cases they produce
defeasible beliefs, retractable in the face of new evidence.”
(Morado and Leah).

20. (iii) Reasoning heuristically based on (the change
and content of) the heuristics of folk psychology
“And if this is true, then heuristic idealisations of common
sense should be evaluated based on the successful or
unsuccessful intentional predictions they lead to, no by the
truth or falsehood of a description of reality that they do not
make. […] Of course, the history of our folk psychology has not
concluded. The patrons of social interaction are in a permanent
state of flux; also, there is no doubt that scientific development
has a certain influence on the avatars of common sense.”
(López Cerezo, 1989: 239).

21. 3| reputation heuristic, & group
identification heuristic

23. Gujarat (India)

24. --I hoped that whoever had done it hadn't been a
Communist or foreigner or a conservative. (R)
--President Kennedy was to speak against the right wing. I
was afraid that it might be a “right wing” radical. (R)
-- Just that it wasn't a U. S. citizen, as that is barbaric (D)
-- I hoped it would not be a Negro [sic] and generally hoped
it was not an American (D)
After Kennedy’s murder people were asked “was there someone
or some organization that you hoped would turn out to be
responsible?”

25. ‘group definition social heuristic’
Studies of social identity show that the need to maintain positive
identity leads one to identify with the in-group—those people
who are similar to oneself.
In other words, when group identification becomes salient, people begin
to compare themselves to others using categorizations that enable
differentiation.
Heuristic of negation (that says that people do not represent at first
what is false but what is true, and then they apply a negation over the
statements so they can save cognitive resources), and the satisfying
heuristic that says ‘search through alternatives and choose the first
one that exceeds your aspiration level.’

26. references
Álvarez, J. F. (1995) Dinámica deliberativa y valores epistémicos. Isegoría 12: 137-147.
Banerjee, A., and Duflo, E. (2011) Poor economics. A radical rethinking of the way to fight
global poverty. New York: PublicAffairs.
Duflo, E., Greenstone, M.; Pande, R., and Ryan, N. (2013) What does reputation buy?
Diferentation in a market for third-party auditors. American economic review: papers &
proceedings 103(3): 314-319.
Goldstein, D., and Gigerenzer, G. (2002) Models of ecological rationality: The recognition
heuristic. Psychological Review 109(1): 75-90.
Frápolli, MJ (2012) ¿Qué son las constantes lógicas? Crítica. Revista hispanoamericana de
filosofía 44(132): 65-99.
Frápolli, MJ, and Villanueva, N. (2012) Frege, Sellars, Brandom: Expresivismo e
inferencialismo semánticos. En Pérez Chico, David (coord.) Perspectivas en la filosofía del
lenguaje. Prensas de la Universidad de Zaragoza.
Gigerenzer, G., and Goldstein, D. (1996) Reasoning the fast and frugal way: Models of
bounded rationality. Psychological Review 103(4): 650-669.
Gigerenzer, G., and Sturm, T. (2011) How (far) can rationality be naturalized? Synthese 187:
243-288.
Rieskamp, J. (2008) The importance of learning when making inferences. Judgment and
Decision Making 3(3): 261-277.
Espino, O., and Byrne, R. (2013) The compatibility heuristic in non-categorial hypothetical
reasoning: Inferences between conditionals an disjunctions. Cognitive Psychology 67: 98-
129.
Teira, D. (2013) Blinding and the non-interference assumption in medical and social trials.
Philosophy of the social sciences 43: 358-372.
Todd, P., Gigerenzer, G., and the ABC Research Group (2012) Ecological rationality:
Intelligence in the world. New York: Oxford University Press.

27. thanks
dzięki

28. Thanks to
Seminar at Department of Logic, History and Philosophy of
Science (UNED)
GILLIUS (Universidad de Sevilla)
Theoria cum Praxi (IFS-CSIC)