1
Perspectives on Thinking,
Judging, and Decision Making
Perspectives on Thinking.indd 1
28.10.11 12.00
2

Perspectives on Thinking.indd 2
28.10.11 12.00
 
3
Wibecke Brun, Gideon Keren,
Geir Kirkebøen, Henry Montgomery (eds.)
Perspectives on Thinking,
Judging, and Decision Making
A tribute to Karl Halvor Teigen
Universitetsforlaget
Perspectives on Thinking.indd 3
28.10.11 12.00
4

© Universitetsforlaget 2011
ISBN 978-82-15-01878-2
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted
in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical or photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the
prior permission of Universitetsforlaget. Enquiries should be sent to the Rights Department, Universitetsforlaget, Oslo, at the address below.
www.universitetsforlaget.no
This book is published with economic support from the Faculty of Psychology at the University of Bergen
and the Departments of Psychology at the University of Oslo, the University of Tromsø, and the Norwegian
University of Science and Technology in Trondheim.
Universitetsforlaget AS
P.O. Box 508 Sentrum
NO-0105 Oslo
Norway
Cover Design: Nina Lykke
Design: Rusaanes Bokproduksjon AS
Typeset: Minion Pro 10,7/14
Printed: AIT Otta AS
Perspectives on Thinking.indd 4
28.10.11 12.00
 Table of Contents
5
Table of Contents
Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Gideon Keren, Wibecke Brun, Geir Kirkebøen and Henry Montgomery
Chapter 1
Distinguishing Two Dimensions of Uncertainty. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Craig R. Fox and Gülden Ülkümen
Chapter 2
On Two Complementary Approaches to the Study of
Verbal Probabilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
David V. Budescu and Thomas S. Wallsten
Chapter 3
Overconfidence in the Accuracy of Work Effort Predictions:
The Role of Interval Width. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Magne Jørgensen
Chapter 4
Confidence-Frequency Discrepancy in Judgments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Dan Zakay and Dida Fleisig
Chapter 5
Knowing about One’s Own Ignorance:
Difficulties, Levels and Possible Effects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Carl Martin Allwood
Chapter 6
The Bomb Party Probability Illusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Peter Ayton
Perspectives on Thinking.indd 5
28.10.11 12.00
6
Table of Contents
Chapter 7
Luck, Immanent Justice, and Coincidences. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Jonathan Baron
Chapter 8
Anchoring and Adjustment: A Bayesian Heuristic? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Nigel Harvey
Chapter 9
Rethinking the Role of Intuition in the Conjunction Fallacy. . . . . . . . . . . 109
Gaëlle Villejoubert
Chapter 10
The Time Saving Bias and Related Human Judgmental Shortcomings. . . 120
Ola Svenson
Chapter 11
Approximating Accuracy in Judgment: Simple Heuristics and the
Importance of “Kind” Environments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
Robin M. Hogarth
Chapter 12
Heuristics and Biases Making People Rich or Poor – A Psychological
Account of Stock Market Anomalies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
Tommy Gärling
Chapter 13
Evaluations of Factual and Counterfactual Outcomes:
Judgments vs. Valence Estimates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
Frode Svartdal and Jens Andreas Terum
Chapter 14
Cognitive Errors and the Narrative Nature of Epistemic Thought. . . . . . . 166
Lee Roy Beach
Chapter 15
Risky Decision Making with Mental Causal Models. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
Oswald Huber
Perspectives on Thinking.indd 6
28.10.11 12.00
 Table of Contents
7
Chapter 16
Different Types of Rational-Intuitive Conflict. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
Thomas Gilovich
Chapter 17
Language and Meaning Representation: Implications for
Theories of Reasoning and Decision Making. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
Denis Hilton, Christophe Schmeltzer and Bart Geurts
Chapter 18
The Nature of Invariance Underlying Framing Effects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
Gideon Keren
Chapter 19
Location, Location, Location:
Position Effects in Choice among Simultaneously Presented Options. . . 223
Maya Bar-Hillel
Chapter 20
Life and (Partial) Death:
How Psychological Connectedness Guides Preferences. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
Henry Montgomery, Per H. Hedberg and William Montgomery
Chapter 21
On the Discovery of the Adoptive Unconscious: Descartes behind
Wilson’s Caricature. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
Geir Kirkebøen
Chapter 22
Historical Ethnic Bias in Collective Memory of Places: Cognitive
or Motivational? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262
Maria Lewicka
Chapter 23
Emotions and Behavioral Decision Making:
How Feeling Is for Doing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274
Marcel Zeelenberg
Name index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285
Perspectives on Thinking.indd 7
28.10.11 12.00
8
Table of Contents
Perspectives on Thinking.indd 8
28.10.11 12.00
 Table of Contents
9
Contributors
Professor Carl Martin Allwood
University of Gothenburg
[email protected]
Professor Craig R. Fox
University of California, Los Angeles
[email protected]
Professor Peter Ayton
City University London
Professor Emeritus Tommy Gärling
University of Gothenburg
[email protected]
[email protected]
Professor Maya Bar-Hillel
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Professor Bart Geurts
Radboud University Nijmegen
[email protected]
[email protected]
Professor Jonathan Baron
University of Pennsylvania
Professor Thomas Gilovich
Cornell University
[email protected]
[email protected]
Professor Emeritus Lee Roy Beach
University of Arizona
Professor Nigel Harvey
University College London
[email protected]
[email protected]
Professor Wibecke Brun († 2011)
University of Bergen
Assistant Professor Per H. Hedberg
Stockholm School of Economics
Professor David V. Budescu
Fordham University, New York
[email protected]
Lecturer Dida Fleisig
The College of Management, Rishon
LeZion
[email protected]
[email protected]
Professor Denis Hilton
University of Toulouse
[email protected]
Professor Robin M. Hogarth
ICREA and Universitat Pompeu Fabra,
Barcelona
[email protected]
Perspectives on Thinking.indd 9
28.10.11 12.00
10
Contributors
Professor Oswald Huber
University of Fribourg
[email protected]
Professor Magne Jørgensen
Simula Research Laboratory, Oslo
[email protected]
Professor Gideon Keren
Tilburg University
[email protected]
Professor Geir Kirkebøen
University of Oslo
[email protected]
Professor Maria Lewicka
University of Warsaw
[email protected]
Professor Emeritus
Henry Montgo­mery
Stockholm University
[email protected]
Researcher William Montgomery
Stockholm University
[email protected]
Post Doctorate Christophe Schmeltzer
University of Toulouse
Senior Researcher/Professor Emeritus
Ola Svenson
Decision Research (Oregon) &
Stockholm University
[email protected]
Ph.D.-Student Jens Andreas Terum
University of Tromsø
[email protected]
Assistant Professor Gülden Ülkümen
USC Marshall School of Business,
Los Angeles
[email protected]
Senior Lecturer Gaëlle Villejoubert:
Kingston University, London
[email protected]
Professor Thomas S. Wallsten
University of Maryland
[email protected]
Professor Dan Zakay
The Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya
[email protected]
Professor Marcel Zeelenberg
Tilburg University
[email protected]
[email protected]
Professor Frode Svartdal
University of Tromsø
[email protected]
Perspectives on Thinking.indd 10
28.10.11 12.00
 Introduction
11
Introduction
It is our pleasure and honor to be the editors of this special volume, dedicated to
Karl Halvor Teigen on his 70th birthday. We were lucky (for the meaning of luck
see Teigen, 1999, and Teigen & Jensen, 2011) in two respects. First, each of the editors (in his/her way) has a close bond with Karl Halvor which is spread over a long
period, and editing this book gave us the opportunity to express our respect and
appreciation to a unique scholar. Second, we were fortunate enough to get an outstanding list of contributors (reflecting the esteem that Karl Halvor enjoys among
his colleagues all over the world) and in the process of editing this volume had the
opportunity to learn unknown facts and discover new perspectives.
The present book examines different issues in the domain of what is referred
to as Behavioral Decision Making. It is a relatively young field that has existed approximately half a century. Its starting point can be traced to Ward Edwards’ seminal paper labeled “The theory of decision making” which appeared in Psychological Bulletin in 1954. Karl Halvor was at that time approaching the age of 13 and
perhaps already at that stage had developed his first ideas regarding the broader
field of judgment and decision making. For sure, since then he has made a large
number of contributions in different domains of this fast growing field.
His initial entrance into the field consisted of four articles (all appearing in
the Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 1983) which investigated different facets
of subjective probability judgments. In the first article he showed that when predicting the outcomes of random events, people tend to select central values and
avoid extremes, anticipating a similar pattern in choice behavior (Christenfeld,
1995). The second article demonstrated that point predictions and interval predictions of the same events do not necessarily yield the same results, foreseeing later
work on point vs. interval estimates (Teigen & Jørgensen, 2005; Teigen, Halberg,
& Fostervold, 2007). The third article demonstrated that probability judgments of
events (n>2) that are exhaustive tend to be sub-additive. The last article showed
that probabilities are treated differently from other dimensions related to uncertainty such as confidence and luck, two concepts that Karl Halvor further studied
in subsequent research.
Two major themes already appear in these early papers which would serve as
the underlying thread for much of Karl Halvor’s research in the years to come.
Perspectives on Thinking.indd 11
28.10.11 12.00
12
Introduction
One concerns his interest in the question of how people understand and represent
uncertainty. How do they interpret probabilities as assessments of uncertainty?
What is their view of randomness and to what extent does it deviate from the
formal definitions of randomness? The second theme concerns the role of pragmatics and the manner in which context effects meaning. In particular, he tried
to understand the pragmatics of articulating uncertainty – hence his well-known
work (in collaboration with Wibecke Brun) on verbal probabilities which is further discussed in chapter 2 by Budescu and Wallsten as well as in chapter 17 by
Denis Hilton, Christophe Schmeltzer, and Bart Geurts.
We invited researchers with different interests in the broad field of judgment
and decision making, all of whom are colleagues and friends of Karl Halvor, to
write a chapter for the present volume as a tribute to Karl Halvor’s contribution to
the field. The book contains 23 chapters (in addition to this introduction) covering a wide variety of different topics in the field. It is eye-catching that almost each
and every chapter overlaps, directly or indirectly, with some of Karl Halvor’s work.
And this is not all, given that he has a second “hobby”, hardly represented in the
present volume (with the exception of chapter 21), namely the history of psychology, in which he published numerous articles.
The first section on Probability Judgments and Assessments of Uncertainty contains a natural continuation of Karl Halvor’s first four articles mentioned above.
Indeed, a major interest of Karl Halvor (underlying much of his work on uncertainty) concerned the conceptual meaning of subjective probabilities (e.g., Teigen,
1994). The chapter by Craig Fox and Gülden Ülkümen (chapter 1) discusses the
conceptual distinction between aleatory uncertainty (governed by some random
processes of nature) and epistemic uncertainty (representing uncertainty regarding knowledge). This distinction, closely related to external vs. internal uncertainty, is also a major theme of chapter 5 by Carl Martin Allwood. His chapter
centers on the internal facet of uncertainty and examines people’s assessments of
their own knowledge or the lack of it.
An important theme in Teigen’s work concerns verbal assessments of uncertainty and their relation with numerical probabilities (e.g., Teigen & Brun, 1995,
1999, 2003a, 2003b). Chapter 2 by David Budescu and Tom Wallsten compares
their own approach to verbal probabilities with the approach developed by Teigen
and Brun.
One of the more robust findings with regard to probability assessments is the
so called phenomenon of overconfidence (e.g., Keren, 1991). Chapters 3 and 4 are
devoted to that topic: Chapter 3 by Magne Jørgensen examines overconfidence in
lay persons’ estimation of confidence intervals, a work that was initiated by Jørgensen, Teigen, and Moløkken (2004). Chapter 4 by Dan Zakay and Dida Fleisig
Perspectives on Thinking.indd 12
28.10.11 12.00
 Introduction
13
makes an attempt to resolve an empirical inconsistency of what is termed the confidence frequency effect. The essence of this effect is that people are overconfident
with regard to single predictions (sometimes referred to as “local confidence”),
a phenomenon that disappears when they assess the probability of being correct
over a larger set of predictions (sometimes referred to as “global confidence”).
Inconsistencies and paradoxes are indeed inherent in both the normative and
descriptive facets of probability judgments and decision making. An intriguing and stimulating example is examined in depth in Peter Ayton’s contribution
(chapter 6). It describes a sequential lottery (sampling without replacement) in
which five events are associated with a large financial reward and one with death.
Given that one is forced to participate, the question is raised as to which position
in the sequence (1 to 6) one would choose to be in. Ayton neatly discusses the various considerations involved in such a decision.
To end this section it may be worthwhile to note that uncertainty assessments
keep Karl Halvor’s mind busy at all times. Even when he goes to work and waits
for the bus he immediately starts to calculate the probability that the bus will be on
time, too early or too late. Such thoughts led him to study the issue experimentally
and the results are summarized in Teigen and Keren (2007). In that paper, the
authors use a scenario concerning Fred who is waiting for the bus and show that,
at least in this situation and in contrast to much previous research, participants do
not neglect base-rates. To eliminate any doubts, Fred is Karl Halvor’s pseudonym.
The themes of the second section, entitled Naive Theories, Heuristics, and Cognitive Errors, lie at the heart of Karl Halvor’s work. The intricacies underlying human reasoning and decision making and the near impossibility of avoiding some
inconsistencies seems to be a major thread behind Karl Halvor’s studies. Indeed,
almost all the chapters in this section have some relation to Karl Halvor’s research.
Baron’s chapter 7 touches on two central concepts that Karl Halvor has investigated, namely luck and coincidences (Teigen, 1983, 1999, 2005). Much of Karl
Halvor’s research and interests lie around what is commonly termed heuristics
and cognitive errors. A sample of such cognitive shortcomings are presented and
discussed by several authors. Chapter 8 by Nigel Harvey deals with the well known
anchoring and adjustment pitfall, chapter 9 by Gaëlle Villejoubert examines the
conjunction fallacy, and chapter 10 written by Ola Svenson looks into the time
saving bias. Chapter 9 also looks at a common explanation of many cognitive errors according to which they are due to intuitions and are not subject to deliberate
analysis. This theme is also the subject of chapter 16 of section 3.
Disregarding the corny issue of whether cognitive errors can be experimentally
demonstrated (Cohen, 1981) and the extent to which it is justified to label them
faulty, Robin Hogarth in chapter 11 suggests a distinction between what he calls
Perspectives on Thinking.indd 13
28.10.11 12.00
14
 Introduction
kind and wicked environments. Whereas the former type of environments allows
easy learning of judgmental tasks, wicked environments, as the name suggests,
contain obstacles that often hinder such learning. Following this view, cognitive
errors can best be understood as an interaction between the cognitive system and
the relevant environment. Chapter 12 by Tommy Gärling makes an attempt to
apply and relate our knowledge of heuristics and biases to anomalies in the stock
market.
The last chapter (13) in this section, by Frode Svartdal and Jens Andreas Terum,
is devoted to the question of how evaluation of an outcome is influenced by imagining alternative potential outcomes or counterfactual reasoning. Students of
judgment and decision making were for long time interested in the underpinnings of counterfactual thinking and its corresponding effect on judgment and
choice. Karl was early on intrigued by counterfactual thinking and in particular its
interpretation in terms of good or bad luck (e.g., Teigen, 1995, 1998). The present
chapter, which in some respects continues previous work by Teigen and his colleagues (e.g., Teigen, Evensen, & Samoilow, 1999; Teigen, Kanten, & Terum, 2011),
examines valence evaluations of negative outcomes portrayed as either factual or
counterfactual showing the former are consistently rated as more aversive compared with the latter.
The third section, entitled Approaches to Reasoning and Decision Making, consists of three chapters that propose a more global outlook on judgment and choice.
The heuristics and biases program initiated by Kahneman and Tversky (Kahneman, Tversky, & Slovic, 1982) triggered much empirical and theoretical research.
As Gilovich notes in chapter 16, Karl Halvor has conducted insightful research
to explore and understand cognitive errors that are incompatible with the principles of rational thought. Chapters 14 and 15 each propose an overall theoretical
framework to account for cognitive errors and the conflict between deliberate and
spontaneous ways of reasoning.
Chapter 14 by Lee Roy Beach presents the essentials of his new theoretical
framework referred to as the psychology of narrative thought (Beach, 2010), which
supposedly replaces his older approach labeled image theory (Beach & Mitchell,
1990). Briefly, the theory assumes that judgment and decision making are carried
out by a thought process in the form of construing a narrative. The nature of the
narrative and the manner by which it is constructed can account for the ultimate
judgment or decision.
A common theme in behavioral decision making and experimental economics
concerns potential conflicts between what are referred to as intuitive and deliberate (considered the more rational) modes of reasoning underlying judgment
and decision making. Assuming that these two modes are governed by different
Perspectives on Thinking.indd 14
28.10.11 12.00
 Introduction
15
processes, Tom Gilovich examines in chapter 16 three different types of conflict
arising from discrepancies between the reason and intuition modes of thought.
He presents what he terms the matching hypothesis according to which the conflict
is resolved by detecting a match between the features of the particular problem at
hand and the features they associate with intuitive and rational thought.
Like Beach’s chapter 14, Oswald Huber’s chapter 15 is an attempt to describe the
decision processes, albeit his fundamental construct is that of causal mental models. A major idea in this framework is that when evaluating an attractive option
which nevertheless may also produce some unwanted side effects, the decision
maker will envisage a counter action (termed risk-defusing operator), that will
eliminate or mitigate undesired consequences.
The fourth section is devoted to Representation of Options and Choice Behavior.
Initiated by the work of Kahneman and Tversky, in particular the frequently cited
Asian disease problem (Tversky & Kahneman, 1981), researchers have realized
that the manner by which options are described or framed may strongly influence both judgment and choice. Although the statements that “50 % of the task
has been completed” or that “50 % of the task remains to be done” are logically
equivalent, the two announcements do not necessarily convey the same message
(Teigen & Karevold, 2005). Much of Karl Halvor’s recent work contains some ingenious demonstrations of framing effects and an attempt to better understand
their effects on judgment and choice (e.g., Halberg & Teigen, 2009; Halberg, Teigen, & Fostervold, 2009; Teigen & Nikolaisen, 2009; Karevold & Teigen, 2010;
Teigen, 2010). Chapter 17 by Hilton, Schmeltzer, and Geurts and chapter 18 by
Gideon Keren are devoted to framing and are directly or indirectly linked with
Karl Halvor’s work.
The initial interest of Karl Halvor in framing effects goes back to his research
on the communication and articulation of uncertainty noting that different expressions that formally represent the same level of uncertainty are nevertheless
interpreted differently. For instance, the expressions (verbal probabilities) “it is
quite uncertain that the treatment will be helpful” and “it is a possibility that the
treatment will be helpful” are judged by experimental participants to represent the
same probability of a successful treatment (a probability of around .31). However,
only a third of the participants interpret “quite uncertain” as conveying an encouraging message compared with 90 % who consider “it is a possibility” as communicating an encouraging message. Hilton et al. (chapter 17) propose that the
meanings ascribed to linguistic quantifiers and probability expressions go beyond
what they formally denote depending on their relations to other words that belong
to the same linguistic domains. The authors show how these relations enable different kinds of reasoning.
Perspectives on Thinking.indd 15
28.10.11 12.00
16
 Introduction
Framing effects have important consequences for rational choice theory because of its reliance on the so-called description invariance assumption (e.g.,
Tversky & Kahneman, 1986). Following this assumption, logically equivalent descriptions of choice options should not affect the preference order among these
options. Chapter 18 by Gideon Keren challenges the descriptive validity of this
assumption, claiming that description equivalence in real life is frequently based
on information or structure similarity rather than on formal logical equivalence.
Not undermining the importance of framing, there are clearly other aspects
that influence the choice process. Chapter 19 written by Maya Bar-Hillel examines another important aspect of the choice process, namely the position of the
different choice alternatives. For instance, other things being equal, people prefer
options in central rather than in marginal peripheral positions. Thus, in the wellknown game of “hide or seek” a treasure in one of four linearly ordered locations,
72 and 63 percent of hiders and seekers respectively, chose one of the two middle
positions (Rubinstein, Tversky, & Heller, 1997). The importance of location of the
choice options in determining the final choice can manifest itself in different ways
that are neatly discussed in this chapter.
The last chapter (20) in this section by Henry Montgomery, Per H. Hedberg, and
William Montgomery, is based on the concept of psychological connectedness – an
unobservable construct which is supposed to represent the self and its connections
with the outside world on different facets such as on the temporal dimension (i.e.,
the bond with the past, present and future), on the social dimension (strength of relationships), and so forth. The chapter first defines and explains the meaning of psychological connectedness and subsequently demonstrates its effect on preferences.
Previous normative theories of judgment and decision making tended to underestimate, or ignore altogether, the affective facet. Behavioral decision making,
which attempts to describe how judgments and decisions are actually made, cannot be complete without taking into account the role of emotions and motivation
(e.g., Zajonc, 1980). The last three chapters of this book are directly or indirectly
associated with affect.
An important and often cited book regarding emotions is Damasio’s (1994)
Descartes’ Error. A few years later, Wilson (2002) published Strangers to ourselves:
Discovering the adaptive unconscious. Both authors contrast recent findings with
the seventeenth century philosopher Descartes’ “grave mistakes.” In chapter 21,
Geir Kirkebøen challenges these authors’ and other psychologists’, including Karl
Halvor’s (e.g., Teigen, 1997) misinterpretations of Descartes. Specifically, Kirkebøen argues that contrary to what Wilson (2002) and other claim, Descartes could
be considered as the parent of the modern theory of the adaptive unconscious.
Much of the research in behavioral decision making, certainly the heuristics and
Perspectives on Thinking.indd 16
28.10.11 12.00
 Introduction
17
biases line of research, has focused on the behavior of the individual. Chapter 22 by
Maria Lewicka comprises an exception in that she examines a group bias, specifically collective memories. She examines memory of historical events and demonstrates
how such memory is biased by ethnic membership. Analyzing such collective ethnic
biases in Central Eastern Europe, she concludes that they can be accounted for by a
mixture of motivational reasons and object-driven cognitive heuristics.
The closing chapter (23) by Marcel Zeelenberg highlights once again the importance of the affective facet that has initially been neglected by the founding researchers in the field of judgment and decision making. Zeelenberg claims that traditional models of rational choice have serious limitations when it comes to describing
and predicting people’s decision making behavior in daily life. Subsequently, he
describes a research program from his own laboratory labeled as “Feeling is for
doing”, in which he shows how emotions (assumed to be motivational constructs)
serve as signals that lend priority to some alternative options over others.
Consider the following question. A friend of yours is celebrating her birthday
and invites you for a party. Naturally you can’t come empty-handed and so you
go to the local liquor store, where you are told that there are two offers on sale: A
bottle of delicious French wine for $ 30 or two bottles of a good Italian wine for
exactly the same price. What do you buy your friend as a gift? Now suppose you
are actually the person who is celebrating her birthday and further assume that
you had the choice between the above two gifts. Karl Halvor and his collaborators
(Teigen, Olsen, & Solås, 2005) reported the surprising experimental finding that
most participants in the role of the gift giver opted for the French bottle, whereas
most participants in the role of the gift receiver had a preference for two bottles
of Italian wine. Given these unexpected results we are not certain whether Karl
Halvor would prefer to receive the current edited book or whether he rather had
23 bottles of French wine, one bottle for each chapter. We decided for the former
but based on Karl Halvor’s research he may have preferred the latter. In any event,
on behalf of all the authors that contributed a chapter to this volume we wish Karl
Halvor many happy returns and further success and delight in his inexorable psychological inquiry.
Gideon Keren, Wibecke Brun, Geir Kirkebøen and Henry Montgomery
addendum
Shortly before this book went to press, one of the initiators of this project,
Wibecke Brun, passed away after a long period of illness. All of us – the contributors, the editors, Karl Halvor Teigen, and everyone who knew her – will
miss her tremendously. Let this book be a tribute to Karl Halvor Teigen and the
memory of his dear student Wibecke Brun.
Perspectives on Thinking.indd 17
28.10.11 12.00
18
 Introduction
References
Beach, L.R. (2010). The psychology of narrative thought: How the stories we tell
ourselves shape our lives. Bloomington, IN: Xlibris.
Beach, L.R., & Mitchell, T.R. (1990). Image theory: A behavioral theory of decisions in organizations. In B.M. Staw and L.L. Cummings (Eds.), Research in
Organizational Behavior, 12. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.
Christenfeld, N. (1995). Choice from identical options. Psychological Science, 6(1),
50–55.
Cohen, L.J. (1981). Can human irrationality be experimentally demonstrated? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 4, 317–370.
Damasio, A.R. (1994). Descartes’ error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain.
New York: Putnam’s Sons.
Edwards, W. (1954). The theory of decision making. Psychological Bulletin, 51(4),
380–417.
Halberg, A.M., & Teigen, K.H. (2009). Framing of imprecise quantities: When are
lower interval bounds preferred to upper bounds? Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 22, 490–509.
Halberg, A.M., Teigen, K.H., & Fostervold, K.I. (2009). Maximum vs. minimum
values: Preferences of speakers and listeners for upper and lower limit estimates. Acta Psychologica, 132, 228–239.
Jørgensen, M., Teigen, K.H., & Moløkken, K. (2004). Better sure than safe? Overconfidence in judgment-based software development effort prediction intervals. Journal of Systems and Software, 70, 79–93.
Kahneman, D., Tversky, A., & Slovic, P. (1982). Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases. N.Y.: Cambridge University Press.
Karevold, K.I., & Teigen, K.H. (2010). Progress framing and sunk costs: How
managers’ statements about project progress reveal their investment intentions.
Journal of Economic Psychology, 31, 719–731.
Keren, G. (1991). Calibration and probability judgments: Conceptual and methodological issues. Acta Psychologica, 77, 217–273.
Rubinstein, A., Tversky, A., & Heller, D. (1997). Naive strategies in competitive
games. In W. Albers, W. Güth, P. Hammerstein, B. Moldovanu and E. van
Damme (Eds.), Understanding Strategic Interaction: Essays in Honor of Reinhard
Selten (pp. 394–402). Berlin: Springer.
Teigen, K.H. (1983). Studies in subjective probability I: Prediction of random
events. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 24, 13–25.
Teigen, K.H. (1983). Studies in subjective probability II: Dilemmas of chance
events. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 24, 27–33.
Perspectives on Thinking.indd 18
28.10.11 12.00
 Introduction
19
Teigen, K.H. (1983). Studies in subjective probability III: The unimportance of
alternatives. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 24, 97–105.
Teigen, K.H. (1983). Studies in subjective probability IV: Probabilities, confidence
and luck. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 24, 175–191.
Teigen, K.H. (1994). Variants of subjective probabilities: Concepts, norms, and
biases. In G. Wright & P. Ayton (Eds.), Subjective Probability. Oxford, England:
Wiley & Sons.
Teigen, K.H. (1995). How good is good luck: The role of counterfactual thinking
in the perception of lucky and unlucky events. European Journal of Social Psychology, 25, 281–302.
Teigen, K.H. (1997). Aspects of the history of the unconscious. In G. Overskeid
& F. Svartdal (Eds.), The unconscious and modern science (pp. 11–27). Oslo: Ad
Notam (in Norwegian).
Teigen, K.H. (1998). Hazards mean luck: Counterfactual thinking in reports of
dangerous situations and careless behavior. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology,
39, 235–248.
Teigen, K.H. (1999). Good luck and bad luck: How to tell the difference. European
Journal of Social Psychology, 29, 981–1010.
Teigen, K.H. (2005). When a small difference makes a big difference: Counterfactual thinking and luck. In D.R. Mandel, D. Hilton & P. Catellani (Eds.), The
psychology of counterfactual thinking (pp. 129–146). London: Routledge.
Teigen, K.H. (2010). When frames meet realities: On the perceived correctness of
inaccurate estimates. In G. Keren (Ed.), Perspectives on framing (pp. 197–217).
New York: Psychology Press.
Teigen, K.H., & Brun, W. (1995). Yes, but it is uncertain: Direction and communicative intention of verbal probabilistic terms. Acta Psychologica, 88, 233–258.
Teigen, K.H., & Brun, W. (1999). The directionality of verbal probability expressions: Effects on decisions, predictions, and probabilistic reasoning. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 80, 155–190.
Teigen, K.H., & Brun, W. (2003a). Verbal expressions of probability and uncertainty. In D. Hardman & L. Macchi (Eds.), Thinking: Psychological perspectives
on reasoning, judgment, and decision making (pp. 125–145). Chichester: Wiley.
Teigen, K.H., & Brun, W. (2003b). Verbal probabilities: A question of frame? Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 16, 53–72.
Teigen, K.H., Evensen, P.C., & Samoilow, D.K. (1999). Good luck and bad luck:
How to tell the difference. European Journal of Social Psychology, 29, 981–1010.
Teigen, K.H., Halberg, A.M., & Fostervold, K.I. (2007). More than, less than, or
minimum, maximum: How upper and lower bounds determine subjective interval estimates. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 20, 179–201.
Perspectives on Thinking.indd 19
28.10.11 12.00
20
 Introduction
Teigen, K.H., & Jensen, T.K. (2011). Unlucky victims or lucky survivors: Spontaneous counterfactual thinking by families exposed to the tsunami disaster.
European Psychologist, 16, 48–57.
Teigen, K.H., & Jørgensen, M. (2005). When 90 % confidence intervals are 50 %
certain: On the credibility of credible intervals. Applied Cognitive Psychology,
19, 455–475.
Teigen, K.H., Kanten, A.B., & Terum, J.A. (2011). Going to the other extreme:
Counterfactual thinking leads to polarized judgments. Thinking and Reasoning,
17, 1–29.
Teigen, K.H., & Karevold, K.I. (2005). Looking back versus looking ahead: framing of time and work at different stages of a project. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 18, 229–246.
Teigen, K.H., & Keren, G. (2007). Waiting for the bus: When base-rates refuse to
be neglected. Cognition, 103, 337–357.
Teigen, K.H., & Nikolaisen, M. (2009). Incorrect estimates and false reports: How
framing modifies truth. Thinking and Reasoning 15(3) 268–293.
Teigen, K.H., Olsen, M.V.G., & Solås, O.E. (2005). Giver-receiver asymmetries in
gift preferences. British Journal of Social Psychology, 44, 125–144.
Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1981). The framing of decisions and the psychology
of choice. Science, 211, 453–458.
Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1986). Rational choice and the framing of decisions.
Journal of Business, 59, S251–S278.
Wilson, T.D. (2002). Strangers to ourselves: Discovering the adoptive unconscious.
Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.
Zajonc, R.B. (1980). Preferences need no feelings. American Psychologist, 35, 151–
175.
Perspectives on Thinking.indd 20
28.10.11 12.00