Implicit Statistical Learning in Real-World Environments Behind Ecologically Rational Decision Making

Ecological rationality results from matching decision strategies to appropriate environmental structures, but how does the matching happen? We propose that people learn the statistical structure of the environment through observation and use the learned structure to guide ecologically rational behavior. We study this learning hypothesis in the context of organic foods by asking why people believe organic foods are more healthful despite evidence to the contrary. In Study 1, we show that products from healthful food categories are more likely to be organic. In Study 2, we show that perceptions of the healthfulness and amount of organic products across food categories are accurate. In Study 3, we show that people perceive organic products as more healthful when the statistical structure justifies this inference. Our findings suggest that people believe organic foods are more healthful and use this cue to guide behavior because organic foods are, on average, 30% more healthful.