Cognitive Biases

The "new paternalism" claims that careful policy interventions can help people make better decisions in terms of their own welfare, with only mild or nonexistent infringement of personal autonomy and choice. This claim to moderation is not sustainable. Applying the insights of the modern literature on slippery slopes to new paternalist policies suggests that such policies are particularly vulnerable to expansion. This is true even if policymakers are fully rational. More importantly, the slippery-slope potential is especially great if policymakers are not fully rational, but instead share the behavioral and cognitive biases attributed to the people their policies are supposed to help. Accepting the new paternalist approach creates a risk of accepting, in the long run, greater restrictions on individual autonomy than have been heretofore acknowledged.

A cognitive bias is a mistake in reasoning, evaluating, remembering, or other cognitive process, often occurring as a result of holding onto one's preferences and beliefs regardless of contrary information. There are as many as 180 known cognitive bias’.

Leveraging cognitive biasses may sound, well, manipulative… and at a certain level there’s no denying the impact they have in the decision making process. Let’s not forget, however, every form of communication is designed to influence in one way or another, marketing is not unique in that aspect. Our goal is not to manipulate, the implication being that we're acting only with our interests in mind and with unscrupulous tactics … No, our goal is to persuade; the difference being that everyone wins in the equation, and our reader has come to their decision fairly.
Here’s what you need to keep in mind, and this is a point I’ll repeat many times in this guide… If, and only if, you believe in your offers real value should you consider influencing your reader with these strategies. Let’s also not forget it’s your ethical, and often legal, responsibility to be truthful & transparent in your efforts to close the sale. When done well, and with integrity, you’ll come to find that not only do you have influence, but you're genuinely helping others with your offers in a sustainable way.
Let's now investigate a handful of “cognitive biases” and explore ways to ethically use them to increase the persuasive power of our marketing. Full: https://app.increase.academy/this-is-the-most-important-entrepreneur-skill by https://increase.academy

Some of Law and Economics’ basic claims have come to be criticized as a result of empirical findings that question their viability. Particularly, the premise that agents consistently act rationally and with their self-interest in mind seems problematic. What the consequences of the criticism mean for Law and Economics’ tenability depends largely on the questions whether (1) some elements are unassailable to the alternative’s objections and (2) the alternative is a systematic whole. It is argued that Law and Economics may be salvaged, if it is minimized and its ambitions are tempered. This means focusing on the stable, a priori, elements inherent to it.

Financial professionals and their clients exhibit a wide collection of behavioral biases that many times result in imperfect judgments and outcomes. Understanding these cognitive and affective factors are important for financial planners and advisors to ensure their clients are receiving the best financial advice and investment information. The authors describe some common psychological biases and offer solutions for overcoming these biases. The paper draws on some themes from the authors’ book Financial Behavior – Players, Services, Products, and Markets published by Oxford University Press in 2017.

Baker, H. Kent and Filbeck, Greg and Ricciardi, Victor, The Psychology of Financial Professionals and Their Clients (September 24, 2019). Investments & Wealth Monitor, September-October 2019, pp. 15-20. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3458946

This paper studies the impact of ambiguity and ambiguity aversion on equilibrium asset prices and portfolio holdings in competitive financial markets. It argues that attitudes toward ambiguity are heterogeneous across the population, just as attitudes toward risk are heterogeneous across the population, but that heterogeneity of attitudes toward ambiguity has different implications than heterogeneity of attitudes toward risk. In particular, when some state probabilities are not known, agents who are sufficiently ambiguity averse find open sets of prices for which they refuse to hold an ambiguous portfolio. This suggests a different cross-section of portfolio choices, a wider range of state price/probability ratios and different rankings of state price/probability ratios than would be predicted if state probabilities were known. Experiments confirm all of these suggestions. Our findings contradict the claim that investors who have cognitive biases do not affect prices because they are infra-marginal: ambiguity averse investors have an indirect effect on prices because they change the per-capita amount of risk that is to be shared among the marginal investors. Our experimental data also suggest a positive correlation between risk aversion and ambiguity aversion that might explain the "value effect" in historical data.

The increasing use of data visualization for displaying information in a transdisciplinary environment
raises issues about client information seeking in the decision-making processes. Field
experts and individuals with high confidence tend to seek less information for their decisions than
non-experts and individuals who are less confident. This work fills a gap about the effect of the
information display format, visual or nonvisual, upon the client’s decision. In the context of data
visualization and confirmation bias, this work provides needed research on computer aided information
seeking in a decision-making, informing environment. Guided by the theories of confirmation
bias and cognitive fit, we propose and test a model that investigates the impact of apriori
decision confidence on seeking more information and information usefulness. Findings indicate
that both information presentation type and confirmation bias affect the decision process of
the information seeker. Findings also indicate that overall, the higher the confidence, the less
likely users will find disconfirming evidence useful.

Many adult anxiety problems emerge in adolescence. Investigating how adolescent anxiety arises and abates is critical for understanding and preventing adult psychiatric problems. Drawing threat interpretations from ambiguous material is linked to adolescent anxiety but little research has clarified the causal nature of this relationship. Work in adults using Cognitive Bias Modification of Interpretations (CBM-I) training show that manipulating negative interpretational style alters negative affect. Conversely, 'boosting' positive interpretations improves affect. Here, we extend CBM-I investigations to adolescents. Thirty-nine adolescents (13-18 years), varying in trait anxiety and selfefficacy, were randomly allocated to receive positive or negative training. Training-congruent differences emerged for subsequent interpretation style. Induced negative biases predicted a decline in positive affect in low self-efficacious adolescents only. Tentatively, our data suggest that cognitive biases predict adolescent affective symptoms in vulnerable individuals. The acquisition of positive cognitions through training has implications for prevention.

The late American Historian, Barbara Tuchman-. II concluded that nothing much has changed. Yet, now, with the fate of the planet potentially hanging in the balance, we need wise leaders. And coaching, if done well, can foster the development of wisdom in leaders who can be better enabled to deal with the paradoxes of our times and take their organisations into the future. New research in the areas of decision making and applied wisdom psychology provides useful frameworks and techniques for coaches wishing to grow their practice and help build wiser leaders.

In the current business word, developing a new product successfully is a factor for growth and survival of companies, and deficiency in product development process especially in small medium size enterprises which possess limited resource will have disappointing consequences. In order to present a solution for each of the product development problems, scholars have introduced some critical success factors. These critical factors will be entirely more effective when the entrepreneur, well organized structure, and cross functional teams are provided with a relative awareness of framing effects. This awareness enables them to make more rational decisions in risky and certain circumstances, and their judgments are less affected by the values that are imposed by problem manipulation. Therefore, the awareness of framing and its effects on the subjective values is investigated not only as a critical success factor but also as a gorge between these factors and new product success. By employing framing, companies can provide the winning condition for themselves in business environments. The present study's research data is qualitative and is retrieved from reviewing the literature of critical success factors in product development, investigating frames and their effects, heuristic and cognitive biases in each of the critical success factors. Ultimately, based upon the discussion, the proposed model would be presented.

It can never be an easy period of adjustment when someone presents brand new ideas through a brand new science. In the case of the prosecution of Socrates, the philosopher created a scene by flipping the social order of the time. The appearance of philosophy in ancient times was revolutionary, and Socrates' fatal mistake was not realizing that this social change needed to be approached carefully. He expected the world to accept his ideas quickly, and instead his inability to restrain is what lead him to his eventual doom. The gadfly Socrates was critiqued and prosecuted not only because his ideals and practices set him apart from the social norms and the ingroup at the time, but also because he lacked the self-monitoring and the need to conform in Greek society.

Human cognition is often biased, from judgments of the time of impact of approaching objects all the way through to estimations of social outcomes in the future. We propose these effects and a host of others may all be understood from an evolutionary psychological perspective. In this paper we elaborate error management theory . Error management theory predicts that if judgments are made under uncertainty, and the costs of false positive and false negative errors have been asymmetric over evolutionary history, selection should have favored a bias toward making the least costly error. This perspective integrates a diverse array of effects under a single explanatory umbrella and it yields new content-specific predictions. The Paranoid Optimist --3 The Paranoid Optimist: An Integrative Evolutionary Model of Cognitive Biases Better safe than sorry. (Folk Wisdom) Nothing ventured, nothing gained. (Contradictory Folk Wisdom)

Research on people's confidence in their general knowledge has to date produced two fairly stable effects, many inconsistent results, and no comprehensive theory. We propose such a comprehensive framework, the theory of probabilistic mental models (PMM theory). The theory (a) explains both the overconfidence effect (mean confidence is higher than percentage of answers correct) and the hard-easy effect (overconfidence increases with item difficulty) reported in the literature and (b) predicts conditions under which both effects appear, disappear, or invert. In addition, (c) it predicts a new phenomenon, the confidence-frequency effect, a systematic difference between a judgment of confidence in a single event (i.e., that any given answer is correct) and a judgment of the frequency of correct answers in the long run. Two experiments are reported that support PMM theory by confirming these predictions, and several apparent anomalies reported in the literature are explained and integrated into the present framework.

Research examining the role of cognition in depression is critically reviewed. Specifically, five broad areas of cognitive functioning are examined: expectations and evaluations of performance, perception of environmental information, recall of information, cognitive biases, and attributional processes. The review of the literature suggests that neither Beck's nor the learned helplessness model of depression has a strong empirical base. Depressed persons present themselves negatively on a variety of measures, but less consistently than either model suggests. Differences between depressed and nondepressed persons with respect to extralaboratory experiences and self-presentational strategies remain viable alternative explanations for those results that have been obtained. In addition, specificity to depression has not been demonstrated consistently for any measure of cognitive bias or distortion. Attention is given to conceptual and methodological difficulties in unambiguously establishing what people think, in demonstrating biased or distorted cognitive processes, and in testing hypotheses about the fundamental role of cognition in depression.

The objectivity of forensic science decision making has received increased attention and scrutiny. However, there are only a few published studies experimentally addressing the potential for contextual bias. Because of the esteem of DNA evidence, it is important to study and assess the impact of subjectivity and bias on DNA mixture interpretation. The study reported here presents empirical data suggesting that DNA mixture interpretation is subjective. When 17 North American expert DNA examiners were asked for their interpretation of data from an adjudicated criminal case in that jurisdiction, they produced inconsistent interpretations. Furthermore, the majority of 'context free' experts disagreed with the laboratory's pre-trial conclusions, suggesting that the extraneous context of the criminal case may have influenced the interpretation of the DNA evidence, thereby showing a biasing effect of contextual information in DNA mixture interpretation.

During the last years, Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber (henceforth, M&S) have been consistently working on a novel theory of reasoning capable of overcoming the limitations of the "logicist" and "individualist" accounts that have largely dominated cognitive science and philosophy. The Enigma of Reason is the culmination of this process. In it, they offer an evolutionary perspective on reasoning that takes social interaction as the key explanatory element. Their view is articulated around three main claims: (1) Reason has evolved as an adaptation to humans' unique "hypersocial" ecological niche; (2) reason has a double role (evaluative and justificatory) which manifests especially in dialogical contexts; and (3) reason does not work alone, but as part of a complex machinery of inferential mechanisms supported by the massively modular architecture of the human mind or brain.

本報告は，因果関係に関する「人間らしい」推論の1つのモデルを提案する。
従来より，p という事象とq という事象とのあいだにどのような関係があればそれが「因果関係」と認知されるのか，について議論されてきた。われわれは，その認知の中で働いていると見られる「対称性バイアス」および「相互対称性バイアス」という2 つの非論理的な認知的バイアスが，結果として合理的な因果関係の認知・推論・期待形成をもたらしているのではないかという仮説を立てた。
これを検証するため，この2 つのバイアスが柔軟に働く「緩い対称性モデル」を定義し，コンピューター内に構築したエージェントに実装して，このエージェントが「2 本腕バンディット問題」に対して示すパフォーマンスを調べた。その結果，このエージェントの振る舞いは人間による被験者実験のデータときわめてよく合致するだけでなく，機械的な硬直性を超えた柔軟かつ人間らしい挙動を示すことがわかった。
このように，「緩い対称性モデル」は人間の因果推論を非常によく表現するモデルであると言える。と同時に，「対称性バイアス」と「相互排他性バイアス」は人間の推論の基礎にある本質的な契機だと考えられる。

"Will computers ever think like humans?"
"Not if they're well designed."

Mixing academic essay, anti-art philosophy, unsettling memoir and wry wit, Noise Music is a profoundly complex and open-ended collage covering a plethora of topics including psychology of information processing, consciousness, science, time, perception, art theory and criticism, morals, mental illness, the human condition, artificial intelligence, cognitive biases, language and communication. However, at its core the book is about the limits of human knowledge and understanding due to how minds process ambiguous and complex information, including art. Going hand in hand with the philosophy, the aleatory narrative and miscellaneous scope expects readers to critique and expand beyond their conventional aesthetic modes of thinking and, in the end, makes the book itself "unsolvable."

The 821 page book can be purchased in hard copy/paper back http://www.amazon.com/Noise-Music-psychology-aesthetics-epistemology/dp/0692567674

Money illusion has been defined as a tendency to think in terms of nominal rather than real monetary values, and understood as a cognitive bias. Overcoming money illusion would lead individuals to the preferable decisions, and consequently, the market would become more efficient. In this paper, we focused on the role of emotions that are evoked by the numerical information and investigated whether money illusion would be alleviated or become more serious depending on individuals' differences in numerical abilities and depending on how information is presented to investors. Our results showed that people in the high numeracy group could correctly answer regardless of how nominal value is expressed when the questions required a rational decision. However, they suffered from strong money illusion when answering questions that induced an emotional reaction, especially in the situations where nominal value was expressed in the balance of assets. High numeracy individuals tend to extract more emotional meaning from numerical information and consequently, they selected the irrational choices even though they know the rational one. It seems that the subjects were not able to control the impulsive emotion that came from their aversion to nominal losses. These uncontrollable emotions lead to the irrational decision-making (named "Id effect ") which may be one of the triggers of money illusion. To overcoming money illusion, it requires the sufficient ability not only to find rational choice but also to maintain rational ideas.

In this volume,‭ ‬volume‭ ‬6,‭ ‬I will deal with insight and understanding,‭ ‬meaning and communication and intersubjectivity.‭ (‬In an appendix I will include a number of‭ –‬isms,‭ ‬cognitive biases and fallacies that might interfere in,‭ ‬with and distort these things.‭)
The latter is pre-supposed by,‭ ‬present,‭ ‬necessary and operating in all four of these notions when they are employed as verbs.‭ ‬I hope and intend to employ these words and explore them without the need for ghost-in-the-machine like mysterious,‭ ‬mystical and mythical‭ ‘‬mental‭’ ‬processes and organs such as‭ ‘‬mind‭’ ‬and‭ ‘‬consciousness‭’ ‬but by means of different meanings,‭ ‬dimensions,‭ ‬levels of t notions of intersubjectivity.‭ ‬Intersubjectivity enfolds‭ (‬like a pregnant mother her foetus‭) ‬insight,‭ ‬understanding,‭ ‬meaning and communication.‭ ‬Intersubjectivity is the beginning,‭ ‬the ground and reason for and the end of all meanings or sense that human beings could have.

The reason for these attitudes of mine towards mental things,‭ ‬processes,‭ ‬organs,‭ ‬etc is that I do not believe they exist,‭ ‬apart from being umbrella-notions that refer to a number of undefined and not yet conceptualized meanings.‭ ‬They have their origins in uneducated,‭ ‬uninformed redundant myths and folk psychology.‭ ‬Their usage date back to almost pre-historic times in the evolution of human thinking and psychology and are conceptual remainders and linguistic left overs‭  ‬of primitive flat earth socio-cultural attitudes and beliefs.

I further need to make four points concerning my approach in this volume and my approach to or understanding of philosophy,‭ ‬they manner or style in which I write,‭ ‬especially in this volume and how I employ and interpret the nature and one function of intersubjectivity,‭ ‬both in this volume and in general.‭ ‬The latter I present as a kind of hypothesis and conclusion.

1‭)‬I realized many years,‭ ‬decades,‭ ‬ago‭ ‬that I approach philosophy,‭ ‬science,‭ ‬art and other socio-cultural practices that I am interested in and became involved with in a manner that is not the usual run-of-the-mill one or that of the typical scholar,‭ ‬but in an original and creative thinking way.‭ ‬I did not attempt to study in this manner,‭ ‬but it came to me naturally.‭ ‬I would study and grasp what some philosopher,‭ ‬scientist,‭ ‬sociologist,‭ ‬artist,‭ ‬thinker,‭ ‬etc attempted to express and communicate‭ – ‬as serious scholars would and some of them do in an excellent way,‭ ‬and most of them in a mediocre manner and others rather poorly.‭ ‬But,‭ ‬that was only the beginning of my contact with a subject and an author.‭ ‬I had to go further and question his work and the assumptions he made as merely the first preliminary step,‭ ‬as I had to re-think his approach and work by means of my own original insights,‭ ‬model or perspective.‭ ‬I thought this is merely the natural or usual way of reading and thinking about the ideas thinkers or authors present to us,‭ ‬until I discovered this,‭ ‬my natural attitude and way of dealing with texts,‭ ‬approaches and theories are unusual and that the conventional way of dealing with such things is that of the academic scholar‭ ‬-‭ ‬that what we read in articles,‭ ‬theses,‭ ‬books and research.‭ ‬It often consists of commentaries on the work and/‭ ‬or the commentaries of others‭ – ‬for example one paper in sociology presented us with commentary on Habermas’s commentary on Brandom.‭ ‬Of course that type of thing is fine for the category of scholarly work,‭ ‬but to me it appears almost pointless and irrelevant and does not develop the discipline or provide us with meaningful insights.‭ ‬So much for scholarly approaches,‭ ‬or the stuff that the majority of academic books,‭ ‬articles and theses are made of and the insights and ideas of the handful of original-‭ ‬and creative thinking individuals in disciplines,‭ ‬discourses or socio-cultural practices,‭ ‬for example Plato,‭ ‬Aristotle,‭ ‬Kant,‭ ‬Hegel,‭ ‬Wittgenstein,‭ ‬Leibniz,‭ ‬Spinoza,‭ ‬Marx,‭ ‬et al.

One aspect of these two approaches is the question about the intention or motive of these different kinds of work.‭ ‬The original,‭ ‬creative-thinking one is obliged to work,‭ ‬think and write in that discipline or execute the socio-cultural practice,‭ ‬as if his life depends on it,‭ ‬he lives or exists for his passion,‭ ‬the other kind forms part of the professional,‭ ‬academic practice,‭ ‬the academic who must publish and therefore is obliged to find some topic or subject-matter,‭ ‬often contrived,‭ ‬as it forms part of his tenure and job-description,‭ ‬like the majority in any discipline who lives off that subject.

2‭) ‬The second point concerns certain aspects of the so-called Socratic Method/s.‭ ‬In an earlier book I roughly distinguished between different kinds of philosophy‭  ‬in terms of the ways it is being done‭ (‬speculative or revisionary metaphysics as Strawson labelled it,‭ ‬his own descriptive kind of metaphysics,‭ ‬and two kinds of explorative philosophy,‭ ‬namely the hard ones,‭ ‬that retains certain metaphysical ambitions and the soft explorative kind,‭ ‬that lost the need or desire for any form‭  ‬of metaphysics.‭ ‬The latter is represented by the Socratic methods and the former‭  ‬by the Philosophical Investigations.‭ ‬In that work I suggested that the explorative types of doing philosophy appear to be more meaningful for the philosophical enterprise as it discarded all or most metaphysical aspirations and motives and as they provide us with a faint glimmer of hope that there remains a future for the philosophical discourse‭ – ‬a socio-cultural practice that desperately seeks for subject-matter‭ (‬by innovations such as experimental philosophy,‭ ‬the creation‭  ‬of philosophies of every subject and everything possible and increasing attempts to become involved in interdisciplinary work‭) ‬and methods and that is increasingly predicted not to last beyond the end of this century,‭ ‬if that long.

This research presents evidence that decision support systems can play an important role in debiasing behaviorally-challenged investors. An empirical study involving 119 participants provides strong evidence for the existence of cognitive biases in investment decision-making and demonstrates the effectiveness of decision aids in lowering the negative impact of such biases on the ability of investors to make sound investment decisions. Additionally, such decision aids are shown to be more valuable in decision environments where the bias level is likely to be higher.

This paper analyzes experimentally if psychological traits and cognitive biases affect trading behaviour and performance. Based on the answers of 67 subjects to a psychological questionnaire we measured their degree of overconfidence, impulsiveness and self-monitoring, and their availability, representativeness and confirmation biases. The 67 subjects also participated in an experimental financial market, in the spirit of Plott and Sunder (1988).

Digital forensics is an important and growing forensic domain. Research on miscarriages of justice and misleading evidence, as well as various inquires in the UK and the US, have highlighted human error as an issue within forensic science. This has led to increased attention to the sources of cognitive bias and potential countermeasures within many forensic disciplines. However, the area of digital forensics has yet to pay sufficient attention to this issue. The main goal of this article is to contribute to a more scientifically sound digital forensics domain by addressing the issues of cognitive bias as a source of error. In this paper we present an analysis of seven sources of cognitive and human error specifically within the digital forensics process, and discuss relevant countermeasures. We conclude that although some cognitive and bias issues are very similar across forensic domains, others are different and dependent on the specific characteristic of the domain in question, such as digital forensics. There is a need for new directions in research with regard to cognitive and human factors in digital forensics.

Two dictionaries of Semito-Hamitic, one by Orel & Stolbova, and another one by Christopher Ehret, were published at the same time, thus allowing the public, for the first time, to assess their reliability.
The authors disregard the possibility of accidental matches. A simulation of their respective methods measures the amount of possible false positives.

According to a growing literature in many fields of the social sciences and humanities defending the mind-modularity thesis, the brain is composed of mutually inconsistent modules that contain contradictory beliefs. What consequences could this view have on persuasive behaviour? In order to sketch an answer, first the family of concepts of what is called generalized deception is discussed; then, this discussion is applied to the problem of the social influence bias to observe both how the mind works strategically wrong and what kind of argumentative moves are used within this mental design in a controversial social context.

Όλα τα οικονομικά εγχειρίδια και βιβλία που διδάσκονται οι πρωτοετείς φοιτητές των οικονομικών σχολών με σκοπό την ανάλυση των μικροοικονομικών και μακροοικονομικών θεωριών, ξεκινούν με μια βασική υπόθεση: Ότι τα άτομα λαμβάνουν αποφάσεις σκεπτόμενοι ορθολογικά (κλασική θεωρία Ορθολογικών Αποφάσεων-Rational Choice Theory).
Το παρόν δοκίμιο έχει ως σκοπό να αμφισβητήσει αυτήν την βασική υπόθεση και να δείξει πως τα άτομα επηρεαζόμενα από το περιβάλλον, τις πεποιθήσεις, τις στάσεις, τις προσδοκίες και τα συναισθήματα τους λαμβάνουν συνειδητά ή μη, μη ορθολογικές αποφάσεις όσον αφορά την αγοραστική τους συμπεριφορά (και όχι μόνο). Όλες αυτές οι μη ορθολογικές αποφάσεις ονομάζονται γνωστικές μεροληψίες (cognitive biases) –όρος που έχει επικρατήσει από την ψυχολογία. Στο παρόν δοκίμιο θα περιγραφούν και θα αναλυθούν οι κυριότερες από αυτές και στην συνέχεια θα δούμε με ποιο τρόπο μπορούν επηρεάσουν την συμπεριφορά του καταναλωτή αλλά και πως μπορούν να προβλεφθούν και να αξιοποιηθούν από το μάρκετινγκ.

Objective: A large body of research has demonstrated the importance of cognitive biases in the development and maintenance of psychosis. Self-report scales for routine clinical practice have been developed only recently. Two new instruments on cognitive biases are evaluated: the Cognitive Biases Questionnaire for Psychosis and the Davos Assessment of Cognitive Biases Scale. Methods: In a Flemish sample of 98 patients diagnosed with schizophrenia and 152 healthy controls, we investigated (1) the factor structure, (2) the reliability (internal consistency), (3) the discriminative power and (4) the convergent validity of the Dutch CBQ-P and the DACOBS. Results: Using Confirmatory Factor Analysis, a 1-factor solution provided the best fit for the CBQ-P, and a 3-factor solution for the DACOBS. The CBQ-P Total Scale and the three scales of the DACOBS showed good internal consistencies. The CBQ-P Total Scale and all three DACOBS subscales were able to differentiate between healthy controls and patients diagnosed with schizophrenia, when controlling for age and years of education. The CBQ-P and DACOBS scales showed moderate correlations, confirming the convergent validity of both scales. Conclusions: The CPQ-P and DACOBS appear to be psychometrical sound instruments to assess general thinking bias in psychosis within a Flemish population. Implications for future research are discussed.

Othering is the construction and identification of the self or in-group and the other or out-group in mutual, unequal opposition by attributing relative inferiority and/or radical alienness to the other/out-group. The notion of othering spread from feminist theory and post-colonial studies to other areas of the humanities and social sciences, but is originally rooted in Hegel's dialectic of identification and distantiation in the encounter of the self with some other in his "Master-Slave dialectic". In this paper, after reviewing the philosophical and psychological background of othering, I distinguish two kinds of othering, "crude" and "sophisticated", that differ in the logical form of their underlying arguments. The essential difference is that the former is merely self-other distantiating, while the latter – as in Hegel's dialectic – partially depends on self-other identification. While crude othering is closer to the paradigmatic notion of othering, sophisticated othering is closer to Hegel's, but so is quasi-othering, which is nearly identical in form to sophisticated othering, but which misses the defining feature of othering – attributing relative inferiority and/or radical alienness. Because Hegel’s dialectic applies to any encounter of an interpreting self with some other, sophisticated or quasi-othering is at least potentially a very common occurrence in the interpretation of others, especially of those who do not belong to the in-group. However, although othering is usually undesirable, the Hegelian varieties can provide a "mirror", which can be used as a tool to improve understanding of both the other and the interpreting self, and the malignant aspects of othering can be avoided through charity.

Background: It has been hypothesised that dysfunctional strategies for avoiding depression play an important role in the pathway to mania. Support for this hypothesis comes from studies demonstrating that remitted and manic bipolar patients show similar cognitive biases to currently depressed patients. Method: Manic patients, depressed bipolar patients, remitted bipolar patients and healthy controls were compared on an expanded version of Nolen-Hoeksema's [Nolen-Hoeksema, S., 1991. Responses to depression and their effects on the duration of depressed mood. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 100, 569-582.] Response Styles Questionnaire, measuring strategies for coping with depression. Results: Manic patients reported greater use of active-coping and risk-taking compared to the depressed, remitted and healthy controls. Bipolar remitted patients reported greater rumination. Conclusions: The findings are consistent with the hypothesis that mania is associated with dysfunctional strategies for regulating negative emotion.

In this paper we seek to gain an improved understanding of the structure of cognitive biases and their relationship with measures of intelligence and relevant non-cognitive constructs. We report on the outcomes of a study based on a heterogeneous set of seven cognitive biases — anchoring effect, belief bias, overconfidence bias, hindsight bias, base rate neglect, outcome bias and sunk cost effect. New scales for the assessment of these biases were administered to 243 undergraduate students along with measures of fluid (Gf) and crystallized (Gc) intelligence, a Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT), Openness/Intellect (O/I) scale and Need for Cognition (NFC) scale. The expected experimental results were confirmed — i.e., each normatively irrelevant variable significantly influenced participants' responses. Also, with the exception of hindsight bias, all cognitive biases showed satisfactory reliability estimates (αs > .70). However, correlations among the cognitive bias measures were low (rs < .20). Although exploratory factor analysis produced two factors, their robustness was doubtful. Cognitive bias measures were also relatively independent (rs < .25) from the Gf, Gc, CRT, O/I and NFC and they define separate latent factors. This pattern of results suggests that a major part of the reliable variance of cognitive bias tasks is unique, and implies that a one-factor model of rational behavior is not plausible.

"This collection of essays is intended to showcase the potentially wide applicability of Strategic Foresight and Warning approaches and concepts. These provide a suite of useful analytical tools for busy analysts within and outside government. Such tools may well be timely as policy analysts everywhere face the demanding task of having to make sense of an often bewildering variety of often- linked transnational security threats, challenges and opportunities that comprise the complex milieu within which Singapore and other countries find themselves inextricably a part of." Extract of Foreword By Dr. Kumar Ramakrishna Associate Professor

Content:
1- Strategic Foresight and Warning: An Introduction by Helene Lavoix
2- Risks and Opportunities: The Role of Strategic Foresight and Warning by Jan Eichstedt
3- Cognitive Biases: What We Think Affects the World -The Case of Climate Change and Terrorism by Marc Villot
4- The future of food security: complexity and a systemic approach by Ya-Yi Ong
5- Strategic foresight and warning, the United States (U.S.) Department of Defense and counterinsugency in Iraq by Justin M. Goldman
6- Framing the Future for ASEAN by Loh Woon Liang
7- Typhoon Ketsana and the effects of cognitive biases in a government’’s strategic foresight and early warning capability by Gayedelle V. Florendo
8- Navigating Uncertainty: Understanding and Appreciating the Role of the Human Analyst by B.C. Tan

This paper examines possible ways in which the legal process is influenced by money-related considerations – sometimes to a dramatic extent - and considers ethical implications and practical reflections on the administration of justice. 

Financial considerations can have a direct or indirect impact on the legal process, both technically (funding availability and ability) and psychologically (the importance attributed to financial considerations in human decision-making processes). 
In many cases – money can be seen as a moving force in the legal process, from the moment a person contemplates the idea of initiating it; throughout the process; and even after a judgment is reached.

As megaprojects have become ubiquitous, their real benefits and costs have come under increased scrutiny. We interviewed Bent Flyvbjerg, who has extensively studied megaproject development. Flyvbjerg has found systematic problems in the development process: by intentionally misrepresenting information and deliberately disregarding risks, proponents instigate projects that result in fewer benefits and higher costs than promised.

Information visualization designers strive to design data displays that allow for efficient exploration, analysis, and communication of patterns in data, leading to informed decisions. Unfortunately, human judgment and decision making are imperfect and often plagued by cognitive biases. There is limited empirical research documenting how these biases affect visual data analysis activities. Existing taxonomies are organized by cognitive theories that are hard to associate with visualization tasks. Based on a survey of the literature we propose a task-based taxonomy of 154 cognitive biases organized in 7 main categories. We hope the taxonomy will help visualization researchers relate their design to the corresponding possible biases, and lead to new research that detects and addresses biased judgment and decision making in data visualization.