What I mean is, I might not have any particular notion of what could cause a complete suspension of diplomatic relations, and give it, say, .01 probability. Then, when asked the second question, I might think “Oh! I hadn’t thought of that—it’s actually quite likely (.5) that there’ll be an invasion, and that would be likely (.5) to cause a suspension of diplomatic relations, so A^B has a probability of .25 (actually, slightly more). Of course, this means that B has a probability higher than .25, so if I can go back and change my answer, I will.”
(These numbers are not representative of anything in particular!)
I do agree, however, that the literature overall strongly suggests the veracity of this bias.
In the case of Russia/Poland question the subjects were professional political analysts. For this case in particular we can assume that for these subjects the amount of information about political relations included in the question itself is insignificant.
What I mean is, I might not have any particular notion of what could cause a complete suspension of diplomatic relations, and give it, say, .01 probability. Then, when asked the second question, I might think “Oh! I hadn’t thought of that—it’s actually quite likely (.5) that there’ll be an invasion, and that would be likely (.5) to cause a suspension of diplomatic relations, so A^B has a probability of .25 (actually, slightly more). Of course, this means that B has a probability higher than .25, so if I can go back and change my answer, I will.”
(These numbers are not representative of anything in particular!)
I do agree, however, that the literature overall strongly suggests the veracity of this bias.
In the case of Russia/Poland question the subjects were professional political analysts. For this case in particular we can assume that for these subjects the amount of information about political relations included in the question itself is insignificant.
That’s… somewhat discouraging.
Enough so that I had to triple check the source to be sure I hadn’t got the details wrong.
It certainly contradicts the claim that these studies test artificial judgments that the subjects would never face in day-to-day life.