Research Colloquium: Sonja Perkovic and Jacob Orquin

24 October 2024

Colloquium by Profs. Sonja Perkovic and Jacob Orquin, Aarhus University, Denmark

Sonja Perkovic

Using Cognitive Biases to Improve Risk Perception

Cognitive biases are systematic deviations from rational thinking that often lead individuals to make suboptimal decisions. In the literature, they are commonly seen as barriers to sound judgment, with risk perception being one domain where their effects are frequently observed. For instance, the availability bias, where individuals overestimate risks based on easily recalled events (e.g., plane crashes), can lead to overestimating rare risks while underestimating more probable yet less memorable risks (e.g., car accidents). However, it remains unclear whether cognitive biases can be strategically used to increase or decrease risk perceptions. Our preliminary findings suggest that biases can be harnessed to influence risk perceptions across diverse contexts. This opens new possibilities for utilizing cognitive biases to align risk perceptions with expert opinions. Policymakers could leverage these insights to improve decision-making and enhance public well-being by shaping how risks are perceived and acted upon​.

Jacob Orquin

A model of goal-based inattention in consumer choice

Consumer attention is limited, while available product information is abundant. Consequently, most information remains unattended, but which information and why? Here, we present a novel model of goal-based inattention in multi-attribute, multi-option consumer choice environments. The model explains three key patterns of consumer inattention: inattention to goal-irrelevant attributes, inattention to goal-relevant attributes that are difficult to locate, and inattention for the sake of avoiding goal-relevant attributes. By integrating insights from marketing, social psychology, and economics, we assume consumers choose based on their goals by weighing product attributes in a utility function according to their goal relevance. We also assume that attention to attributes creates goal competition, which modulates the weights so that attended attributes become more equal while unattended attributes receive zero weight. Consumers select the level of attention or inattention to each attribute a priori but choose a posteriori according to the modulated weights. In other words, consumers anticipate imminent goal competition and select the attention levels that best align their future choices with their current goals. The model makes novel predictions about how changes to consumer environments or consumer beliefs about attribute correlations may help reduce information avoidance of relevant attributes, such as health and sustainability information.

The talks are organised by the Department of Cognitive Modeling and Decision Neuroscience, University Hamburg.

Date and time: 24 Oct 2024, 14:15-15:45 p.m.

Location: Von-Melle Park 11, Room 4, Main campus, University of Hamburg