In order to explain the conjunction fallacy (or other biases) LoLE is only any use if it does lead to actually conserving effort. (On the specific matter at hand; of course they may put effort into other things.) The alleged pattern is (unless I’ve badly misunderstood):
You ask me “which of these two things is more likely?”
If I think carefully through the options, I will see that it’s more likely that Linda is a librarian simpliciter than that she’s a feminist librarian.
But I don’t do that, because I want to look like I’m doing everything effortlessly.
Instead I use some simple quick heuristic that lets me look effortless.
Unfortunately that leads me to the wrong answer.
And in this sequence of events, it’s essential that I actually do put in less effort. If instead I had some way of looking as if I’m making no effort while actually doing the careful thinking that would get me the right answer, then I would get the right answer.
What am I missing here?
[EDITED to add:] Also: if the question at hand is why psychologists don’t appeal to the LoLE as an explanation for the conjunction fallacy, and the answer (as I suggest) is that they already have what looks like an obvious explanation in terms of actually conserving effort, then it doesn’t really matter that much whether the LoLE involves actual effort-conservation or merely apparent effort-conservation, no?
FWIW this is not how I learned it in psychology class. It was about humans not wanting to do things that took more energy. Looks like it’s called “principle of least effort” on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_least_effort
I buy that there’s another thing called Law of Least Effort that’s about signaling, but maybe worth disambiguate by calling it “signaling low effort?”
The similar naming is unfortunate. It’s LoLE in the article I linked explaining it as well as in that author’s book, but I’ll think about disambiguating in the future.
LoLE isn’t about conserving effort. It’s about appearing to conserve effort and social dynamics. So a comment like
shows a lack of understanding of LoLE. E.g. people put a lot of effort into doing their makeup instead of conserving that effort.
In order to explain the conjunction fallacy (or other biases) LoLE is only any use if it does lead to actually conserving effort. (On the specific matter at hand; of course they may put effort into other things.) The alleged pattern is (unless I’ve badly misunderstood):
You ask me “which of these two things is more likely?”
If I think carefully through the options, I will see that it’s more likely that Linda is a librarian simpliciter than that she’s a feminist librarian.
But I don’t do that, because I want to look like I’m doing everything effortlessly.
Instead I use some simple quick heuristic that lets me look effortless.
Unfortunately that leads me to the wrong answer.
And in this sequence of events, it’s essential that I actually do put in less effort. If instead I had some way of looking as if I’m making no effort while actually doing the careful thinking that would get me the right answer, then I would get the right answer.
What am I missing here?
[EDITED to add:] Also: if the question at hand is why psychologists don’t appeal to the LoLE as an explanation for the conjunction fallacy, and the answer (as I suggest) is that they already have what looks like an obvious explanation in terms of actually conserving effort, then it doesn’t really matter that much whether the LoLE involves actual effort-conservation or merely apparent effort-conservation, no?
FWIW this is not how I learned it in psychology class. It was about humans not wanting to do things that took more energy. Looks like it’s called “principle of least effort” on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_least_effort
I buy that there’s another thing called Law of Least Effort that’s about signaling, but maybe worth disambiguate by calling it “signaling low effort?”
The similar naming is unfortunate. It’s LoLE in the article I linked explaining it as well as in that author’s book, but I’ll think about disambiguating in the future.