Overall Thoughts...

Now Christmas is over and I am getting back into the swing of doing uni work..
I have no more judgement lectures, and after reflecting on the module I am really glad I chose it. There was a lot of work to do but it was okay because I felt like I new exactly what I had to do to get a good mark, unlike some modules that I think give a very vague idea of what must be done to get a decent mark! This, together with the fact that I found most of the reading quite interesting, meant I did enjoy the module.
At the beginning of the semester I thought I'd really struggle with all the technical parts, as a lot of the work was done through the internet and Google. I surprised myself in that I found it rather easy to create a blog and set up wiki pages. I think this skill will be useful for when I leave uni as the world of work relies heavily on e-mails, research and often blogs.
A second skill I have improved on is my presentation skills. I found doing the presentations quite stressful but I am really glad I have got more experience of giving them now! I also felt slightly less anxious about doing them because I was in a group. Looking back I think my group worked quite well together. Our last presentation flowed from person to person, and we communicated well when creating the slides.
Our final wiki is now done. I finished my part before Christmas because I thought if we get it done early then we could make sure it all made sense and flowed. I shared an article with one of the members of my group, we decided we would write about half of the paper each, this worked well as we both finished it early we had time to make sure nothing was repeated in the second half.
I have enjoyed writing this blog as it has really helped me to reflect on what I have done in lesson. Sometimes I can do some reading for a seminar, and when the seminar is done, I never think about what I have learnt again! I am now revising for my exams and i have to say I'm glad to have got one module out the way! :-)

Last week of uni

Right, i did my presentation on Jury decision making today. It went quite well i think. It flowed and made sense. I was a bit nervous as my part was quite long and i wanted it to be as concise as possible, i wasn't sure if people fully understood what i was saying it but i hope so. after the presentation we were asked whether we thought membership function is a good way to measure interpretations of reasonable doubt, i didn't get chance to say this, but i think it is because it measures interpretations of reasonable doubt to be around 0.90. This is the closest measurement to what has been found in past research. Unfortunately i did not get to watch the last couple of presentations because i had to leave the class to go to an appointment. Overall i learnt from the experience that a lecturers job is a lot harder than i thought. its difficult to give precise and clear presentations while keeping every1 engaged and sounding interesting. I feel that i gave it my best go though.

I have also just written up a draft of my participation to our last wiki (which is on the same subject but a different paper). My paper is about how accurate people expect jurors to be compared to how they well they actually do. But the part of the paper i have written about (another group member is writing about the second half), is about how jurors should make decisions in court if they wish to maximises the expected utility of their decision. They should do this using three theoretical tools. These involve the utility theory and Bayes' theorem, i do understand their overall concept but i had a lot of difficulty getting my heads around the calculations they involve as algebra is not one of my strong points! I think it is interesting to see how you would calculate a rational and logical verdict (using these calculations), and the complexity of the calculations helped me to see why people often do not make rational decisions, it would be impossible to do these calculations every time you make a decision! However its a scary thought that jurors (the people we trust to keep us safe by convicting criminals and reducing the likelihood of innocent people being convicted), may make a lot more errors than most of us think!

I hope to have my part of the wiki finished as soon as possible, hopefully before Christmas because i have lots of other revising to do!

1st week of the presentations...

I have just attended our second to last lecture of this module. This was the start of the presentations on an article from our wiki's. We only had chance to see 4 out of the 10 groups do a presentation as they were all quite long.
I thought the presentations were really good. The speakers seemed to fully understand their articles and they gave clear summaries. However I felt that some could have been a bit shorter however I guess this would be hard to achieve as all the papers have huge amounts of information in them! I found some of the presentations really interesting, like the one about the fact that people who's body's are less symmetrical have to make more of an effort in life because they are seen as being less attractive!
I’m glad I got to see some other groups perform before we do ours, as I can see what the presentations were like from the audiences’ point of view. I think it’s important that our presentation is concise and as clear as possible. I think the key is to find a balance between makings as much of the article as clear as possible while making it short and snappy.
Next Friday we will be presenting our paper on jury decision making. We have divided it up into 5 equal parts and I will be talking about the findings from the first experiment. In brief these are; that the 3 different methods used to measure peoples interpretation of what reasonable doubt is (Reasonable doubt is really just, how sure a juror has to be that a suspect is guilty in order to convict them), did not show any correlation, i.e. they each showed that people came up with different interpretations of reasonable doubt. Secondly, it was found that all methods were reasonably valid as they all predicted participants verdicts above chance level. Lastly, it was found that interpretations of reasonable doubt vary a lot from person to person. These findings show that jurors may not be as consistent as first thought and should have an effect on future research.
All I need to do now is make the power point slides and i think our group will be meeting up during next week to go over our presentation so its ready for Friday.

Preperation for our presentation in week 11

It is now the end of week nine and i am writing this blog after a meeting with my group, which we did instead of having a lecture this week. We had planned to get started on the reading for our presentation which is on an article by Mandeep K. Dhami: Measuring quantitative Interpretations of reasonable doubt. I had already read through the paper and highlighted the parts i felt were most important. I found that parts were incredibly hard to understand this may be because it is written in a very technical way. In our meeting today David Harman went through it with us, and iv had another read through myself, i now feel happier now with the overall concept, which, when i think about it is rather straight forward and just commonsense. The only thing i have to try and do now is to condense it down into simpler terms for the presentation.
Reasonable doubt is basically the highest probability that the jury would have to feel that the defendant is guilty, in order to convict them. In most cases past research have found that this is normally around 90% probability. Therefore if a jury was 90% sure that the defendant was guilty its more than likely they would convict them.
The question this paper addresses is whether different methods of explaining the standard of reasonable doubt too the jurors leads them to give different verdicts.
It becomes apparent in this paper that describing reasonable doubt in words (qualitatively), rather than explaining in in terms of probability (quantitatively) results in more inter individual variability in their interpretation of reasonable doubt. If this is true then it raises concerns that jurors may find it difficult to reach consensus on a verdict.
Breifly, there were three methods used in experiments 1 & 2 to measure interpretations of reasonable doubt; two direct methods (direct rating and membership function) and one indirect method ( decision theory based). They also analysed these against the different ways the jurors were instructed about reasonable doubt. It was found that the direct and in direct methods did differ in their ability to predict verdicts. They seemed to appear to capture different aspects of the concept of reasonable doubt. Overall, it appears that there is alot of inter and intraindividual variability in jurors, and that their interpretaion of how sure they should be that a person is guilty in order for them to convict them can also vary alot. These finding should have a massive impact on the way jurors are instructed on reasonable doubt and on future researchers choosiong the method when studying standards of proof!
That explanation was rather vague and i feel i need to re-read the paper and read some of the other articals on the subject so that i am happy enough to present it to the class! our goup decided whos doing what, and i am explaining the results of the 1st experiment so i need to look at that part again!
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Revision session

This week our lecture only lasted an hour, as it was a revision session we went over ,as a class, all the different topics we've covered so far. From fast and frugal reasoning to framing effects and the endowment theory.
I have to say i have found the topic of judgment and decision making really interesting and at times surprising. I find it especially shocking that even as humans with free will and the capability to make our own independent decisions and judgements, that we often have confidence are the correct and truthful ones, can usually be predicted and irrational. Take the mug and candy experiment ,i spoke about earlier in the endowment effect blog, for example, it shows it is possible to predict that if you are endowed with a good your more likely to stick with it rather than swap it with something of similar value. This is an irrational decision as your not picking the one you like the most but the one you had to start off with.
We have also learnt that our thinking which results in a decision or judgement being made may be like a very simple algorithm. Take the best algorithm, for example, argues we can base decisions on just one cue rather than looking at all the available information, i find i often do this when making quick snap decisions. This can understandably lead to irrational and inaccurate decisions, which is a scary thought as decisions people make can have a large impact on others, for instance jurors decisions in court! ( which i will be looking into further for my last wiki)
Lastly, a finding from the reading i recently did on framing effects, that the wording of a question has an effect on peoples choices even if they have time to think about their answer, really surprised me. Before i had given this subject any thought i did think that as humans our decisions are relatively rational and accurate. However reading the findings about the disease problem and many others proved my initial thoughts to be wrong! Thinking about it now however, and finding that even i was effected by framing effects in the disease problem, i realise that there are many factors that can influence our beliefs about things and they can easily become illogical and unreasonable, even if after careful consideration of the choice being made!
Now i am starting my reading for our last wiki, jury decision making. I am hoping that for this wiki our group will be a little bit more organised than the last one, we will have to make sure every one has done their bit in time to meet up as a group and discuss the overall piece of work. We have found it hard to allocate each person to a certain topic in the subject so that we all have an equal part in the wiki. Also We need to start preparing soon for our presentation on one of the papers which will take place on our very last lecture.

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Doing my first wiki.

Last week we started the reading for our first collaborative wiki. Our group decided together to base this written work on framing effects, as it was the most recent subject we had learnt about for our class and everyone felt they had a good basic understanding of it. We each read one article and one member of our group did an introduction and conclusion. I was happy with this choice as I found the previous two articles slightly harder to get to grips with and found it more interesting.
My part was to read an article about susceptibility to framing (I.E. whether different factors can minimise the effects of framing), then write around 500 words on the subject and add it to our collaborative work. After every one has done their bit we will come together to make sure the piece of work flows as if it were an essay. The deadline for this work has been pushed back a week to next Friday because some people had difficulty accessing the wiki. Although it has caused problems for some members of the class, I think once everyone gets used to them these online collaborative sites are a good way of working, I like the fact you can change things then post comments at the bottom. Also if the group can’t get together then we can have discussions online.
The reading I did extended my understanding of framing effects. For example, it has been suggested by psychologists that framing effects only happen as a mistake by the subject, and that given time and thought they will understand that the two frames of the same outcome are actually equivalent, and therefore make a more rational choice. However it was found that this is not actually the case. Even when participants were given longer to think more carefully about their choices they were still affected by framing. Although people who were categorized as more careful thinkers were more consistent, as they were more likely to respond to a second framing of a problem in the same manner as they did with an earlier response to an alternative frame.
I think this finding is not that relevant in everyday life because it is very rare that we get two frames of the same problems. For example if someone is trying to persuade you to do something then they may frame a question in a certain way, e.g. in the context of a gain. In this scenario even the most careful thinkers would still be affected by the frame. However the fact that framing does seem to effect peoples choices is extremely important in the way people to make decisions in everyday life. Going back to the disease problem, the government may choose to adopt a more risky decision just because of the way the question is framed!
When all of my group have contributed to the wiki, we will all read through it to make sure it makes sense as a whole piece of work. Then we will start on the reading for the last wiki. As this one will contribute 40% of my overall mark for this module I am eager to start the reading a.s.a.p. Our group has been allocated jury decision making as a topic for our wiki. This wasn’t our first choice but I am happy with it as it seems quite interesting.

Neoclassical Theory Vs. Prospect Theory and The Endowment Theory!

This lecture was based on the endowment theory and how it can be explained. My group read a paper by John A, List which looks at the neoclassical and prospect theories.
I found this paper quite interesting as i can see how it the endowment effect can play its part everyday choices!
The endowment effect is pretty straight forward. Basically it is when a person values a good/item that is their property higher than they would if it was not theirs! Therefore, if someone starts of with an endowed good (An item that is theirs or that they have been given) then they are more likely to keep it rather than swap it for something else even if the other item is of the same value.
This effect is in line with the Prospect Theory because according to the prospect theory we value an outcome relative to our reference point. Also that loosing the item we posses is weighted more heavily than gaining another.
However the neoclassical model would say that this endowment effect is mealy down to a mistake by the consumer because of their inexperience, and that in time they will learn to make rational choices that will maximize their profit - in line with neoclassical view.
I agree that the endowment effect is an irrational choice, as it is a mistake that results in not maximizing ones profit! However i can understand that if you receive something then it may be hard to give it up, perhaps if the item has more sentimental value then there would be a bigger endowment effect? Also i think it is believable that once a person has lots of experience in trading in a certain area then they will show a lesser endowment effect, i think this may be because they learn to be more certain of their preference and the value of items. Maybe through trial and error, for example if someone losses a lot of money through not trading goods because they were endowed then they may overcome this effect.
List created an experiment to test whether consumers do actually overcome the endowment effect. His experiment took place in a real market place. He found that when a non-dealer ( a person with little experience in dealing goods in the market place) is endowed with a good they were four times more likely to keep that good rather than exchanging it for another good of the same price, this can be explained by the prospect theory. However, the more experienced dealers did not show any preference for trading for the other good whether they had been endowed with it or not. This is in line with the neoclassical view that people make rational decisions, taking all information into account.
So the endowment effect was only present in the non dealers, therefor the experienced dealer had seemed to learn over time to treat goods leaving their endowment as an opportunity cost rather than a loss! Meaning that the prospect theory can predict the actions of non dealers and the neoclassical theory can predict the actions of experience dealers.
In class we were not able to present the work we had done in groups however i did feel i had a good understanding of the reading and would have been confident to present it to the class.
Next, we have to start on the wiki with our groups, as we don't have a class next week i will spend time during the week doing the reading for that on decision framing!