Perception and Cognition Psychology - Coursework Example

Perception and Cognition Psychology Your name Course Tutor Institution Department FOPAC PRACTICAL ABSTRACT Omission bias is a critical component in the determination of human behavior. The omission or inclusion of omission bias in a research study can influence the results of the study to a great degree. Many studies have been conducted to determine the effect of omission bias on research study in medical and non-medical contexts. The research hypothesizes that the greater majority of people have a preference for non-risky treatment. Passive intervention is usually preferred over active intervention in the instance of medical treatment. People have a preference for passive intervention over active intervention as they tend to believe passive intervention causes lesser risk of harm to themselves and other people. Omission bias is usually a function of self-role and interpersonal relationships. The study established that people will usually have omission bias depending on whether the intervention is intended for their own use. People may take on more risk if they are taking the intervention for themselves than if they administering the intervention or recommending it to someone else. Introduction Baron and Ritov (2003) define omission bias as the behavior by individuals whereby they tend to prefer harm that results from omissions with regard to equal or lesser harm caused by action. According to several research studies previously carried out, participants have been found to choose the passive treatment option more often than the active treatment option, even when the balance of health risks and benefits clearly favors vaccination. This tendency for individuals to choose passive treatment options over active ones may be interpreted as a symptom of omission bias, the tendency to have a preference for inactive to active options even in instances in which inaction results into poorer outcomes or enhanced risks, Connolly & Reb (2003). Comprehensive research has been conducted with regards to omission bias as evidence by various individuals. Ritov& Baron (2003) highlights a number of studies aimed at giving insights on the issue of omission bias. These studies are in the medical as well as non-medical contexts and include studies by Asch et al. (1994), Baron & Leshner, 2000, Baron & Ritov (1994) among others Majority of people have been found to prefer less risky treatment options over those they regard as being more risky. The effects of omission bias has been found to affect a number of decision making areas such as medical and ethical issues faced by individuals. Asch et al., 1994 describes one form of omission bias whereby an individual chooses an omission that may be potentially injurious rather than an act that may be less harmful potentially. Ritov & Baron (1992) describe a type of omission bias whereby an individual decides to omit an action such as letting someone die over committing an action such as killing someone actively. They are thus willing to face higher risks of death to avoid having directly caused harm. Spranca et al. (1991) experimental results showed that individuals judged the active theft of $100 to be morally worse than merely failing to point out a store’s $100 error in one’s favor. As Baron &Ritov (2004) explain, such omission bias is caused by the fact that individuals usually distinguish between direct and indirect causation. They tend to weigh highly those harms caused by their direct actions much more than those harms that are only caused indirectly. Zikmund-Fisher et al (2006) point out that majority of individuals display an omission bias in their day to day decision making regards medications. These individuals have been found to accept the risk of passive nonintervention over active interventions, such as vaccinations, that they consider as being less risky. Hypothesis One: According to Baron and Ritov (1994), individuals were found to tolerate greater risk of vaccine death in instances in which vaccine deaths resulted from vaccine failure rather than the vaccine’s side effects. An interpretation of this may mean that where deaths were directly caused by vaccination, individuals became more reluctant to administer or allow vaccination of the affected individuals. Spranca et al. (1991) studied omission bias effect by requiring the participants to make judgments about which treatment option they regarded as better or more advisable. In this study, the same outcome was possible from either an act or an omission. The cases were equipoised in a manner that allowed for either the act or omission to lead to a worse outcome in equal measure. They found that participants in the study tended to assign a lower rating (less advisable) for those acts that resulted in a worse outcome than omissions that resulted in the same worse outcome. According to Connolly &Reb (2003), omission bias is caused by the use of a heuristics by individuals in their decision making. According to Gigerenzer & Gaissmaier (2011), heuristics is a term that refers to the cognitive processes, conscious or unconscious, that human beings utilize in their day to day decision making. In evaluating these losses and gains, they usually make use of rules of thumb to aid them in day to day decision making. According to Tversky & Kahneman (1974), individuals make use of heuristics during decision making in an effort to abridge their mental effort. Hypothesis I hypothesize that based on the results of Zikmund-Fisher (2005) we would expect that participants will choose the passive treatment option more often than the active treatment option. Hypothesis one predicted that most participants chose the active treatment option more often than the passive treatment option, because they were willing to face higher risks. As the hypothesis two, participants in the Self-role chose the passive treatment option because they thought of harms caused by direct actions much more than harms caused only indirectly. A chi-square goodness of fit test indicates that the choices between the active and passive options were unequal. (X2 (1) = 167.9, p .05. Therefore, there is no statistically significant difference in relationship between the role of the decision maker and the choice. FOPAC PRACTICAL DISCUSSION SECTION I hypothesize that based on the results of Zikmund-Fisher (2005) we would expect that participants will choose the passive treatment option more often than the active treatment option. But the result is active more than passive aspects of the study and hence there is a need to reexamine other aspects of the study and make modifications. Hypothesis One: Based on the results of Zikmund-Fisher (2005) we would expect that participants will choose the passive treatment option more often than the active treatment option. Hypothesis Two: Based upon the results of Zikmund-Fisher (2005) we would expect participants to choose the passive treatment option most often in the active role than in the other roles. The study attempted to determine whether the omission bias effect will make individuals to prefer either the passive verses the active treatment options under the different roles. As per hypothesis One, most participants chose the passive treatment option more often than the active treatment option, because they were willing to face higher risks of death than to cause harm to themselves or others. As expected from the results of previous research on omission bias, individuals similar to the participants in this study have a higher prevalence for passive treatment options over active ones due to the risks involved in the latter. As per hypothesis two, participants in the Self-role chose the passive treatment option because they thought of harms caused by direct actions much more than harms caused only indirectly. According to Zikmund-Fisher (2005), medical treatment decisions usually vary, often significantly, depending on the decision role of the participant. Susceptibility to omission biases depends on an individual’s social role and authority relationships, which in turn determines to what extent he or she is able to differentiate between harmful acts and harmful omissions, Haidt& Baron (1996). Where an individual holds a social role with a high degree of responsibility, the society will evaluate a given situation based on the outcome of the decision rather than on who caused any harms. Several factors influence how and why various people make decisions the way they do and has been investigated by many psychologists. It is widely agreed that human beings are incapable of rationally and objectively making decisions when faced with a question or task. The results of this study reveal that omission bias actually exists even in circumstances where consequences are equated in either omission to act or action. As Barron &Ritov (2003) note, the omission bias has been found to be smaller as a result of the fact that people have become accustomed to administering vaccines even when vaccination carries small risks of serious consequences, in the same manner in which they are accustomed to the idea that drugs for chronic diseases may have serious and even life-threatening side effects. The study’s results demonstrate that medical treatment decisions usually vary depending on the decision maker’s role. These findings are aligned with previous studies on the role effect on decision making, which suggests that individuals who make clinical decisions for themselves take into account a number of varied factors unlike those who are simply giving advice to others, who tend to focus only on one factor. As Zikmund-Fisher (2005) notes, what an individual might choose for himself or herself is not always what he or she would choose for another person. Gaining an understanding of this basic notion is likely to assist both patients and physicians to improve their clinical decisions. References Asch, D. A., Baron, J., Hershey, J. C., Kunreuther, H., Meszaros, J., Ritov, I., and Spranca, M. (1994).Omission bias and pertussis vaccination.Medical Decision Making, 14, pp. 118 123. Baron, J. (1992).The Effect of Normative Beliefs on Anticipated Emotions.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63, pp. 320–330. Baron, J.&Ritov, I. (1994).Reference points and omission bias. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 59, pp. 475–498. Baron, J., &Leshner, S. (2000). How serious are expressions of protected values. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 6, pp. 183–194. Baron, J. and IlanaRitov, I. (2003).Omission bias, individual differences, and normality. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 94, pp. 74-85. Connolly, T., &Reb, J. (2003).Omission bias in vaccination decisions: Wheres the ‘‘omission’’? Wheres the ‘‘bias’’?Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processe, 91, pp. 186–202 Gigerenzer, G. and Gaissmaier, W. (2011).Heuristic Decision Making.Center for Adaptive Behavior and Cognition, Max Planck Institute for HumanDevelopment, 14195 Berlin. Haidt, J., & Baron, J. (1996).Social roles and the moral judgment of acts and omissions. European Journal of Social Psychology, 26, pp. 201–218. Spranca, M., Minsk, E., & Baron, J. (1991).Omission and commission in judgment and choice. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 27, pp. 76–105. Tversky, A. and Kahmeman, D. (1979). Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk. Econometrica. Pp. 263–291. Tversky A, Kahneman D (1974) Judgement under uncertainty: heuristics and biases. Science; 185: 1124–31 Zikmund-Fisher, B. J., Sarr, B., Fagerlin, A. and Ubel, P. A. (2005).A Matter of Perspective: Choosing for Others Differs from Choosing for Yourself in Making Treatment Decisions. Journal of General Internal Medicine.21(6), pp. 618–622. Read More