I certainly don’t have any problem with the experiments and as important as the conjunction bias is, I think its just as important to ask and assess why this bias exists. Once we can nail that down, it becomes easier to teach yourself and others how not to fall into that bias trap.
So the sympathy towards the subjects is part of the explanation. Same with the commments discussing the use of language and framing of the questions.
My opinion on this is that the reason the poor reasoning occurs is simply because we are comforted by one of the fitted answers sitting in conjunction with one of the unfit answers rather than an unfit answer by itself.
There may not be an easy way to teach this to a layman or ourselves so we see the correct reasoning easily but its a start.
I certainly don’t have any problem with the experiments and as important as the conjunction bias is, I think its just as important to ask and assess why this bias exists. Once we can nail that down, it becomes easier to teach yourself and others how not to fall into that bias trap.
So the sympathy towards the subjects is part of the explanation. Same with the commments discussing the use of language and framing of the questions.
My opinion on this is that the reason the poor reasoning occurs is simply because we are comforted by one of the fitted answers sitting in conjunction with one of the unfit answers rather than an unfit answer by itself.
There may not be an easy way to teach this to a layman or ourselves so we see the correct reasoning easily but its a start.