Perkovic, S orcid.org/0000-0003-0488-3755 and Orquin, JL (2018) Implicit Statistical Learning in Real-World Environments Behind Ecologically Rational Decision Making. Psychological Science, 29 (1). pp. 34-44. ISSN 0956-7976
Abstract
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.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2017, The Author(s). This is an author produced version of a paper accepted for publication in Psychological Science. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Keywords: | decision making, implicit statistical learning, ecological rationality, eye tracking, field study, open data, open materials |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Business (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 26 Jul 2017 10:17 |
Last Modified: | 20 Mar 2018 20:10 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | SAGE Publications |
Identification Number: | 10.1177/0956797617733831 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:119477 |