Reasoning and Decision Making
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Dan Ariely – Are We In Control Of Our Decisions?
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Tutoring Zone Lottery
A tutor delivers a short lecture on the concept of expected value. His first example uses a deck of cards. He does the same for the guessing penalty for standardized tests and for playing the lottery. The tutor ends the video with a remark: The lottery is just a tax on people who are bad at math. What is the…
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The Risky Decision
In the movie Ransom, starring Mel Gibson, his character makes a risky decision he decides not to pay the ransom to his sons kidnappers, but instead offer it as a reward to anyone who turns them in. Risky decision making involves making choices under conditions of uncertainty. What are some of the ways you can decide whether or not to…
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eBay Ratings: Largely Positive Records and Negative Feedback
An eBay customer scans the site for a laptop. Although the seller has a 98.3% positive feedback rating, there were twenty instances of negative feedback in the last month. To find the negative feedback left by buyers, any potential buyers will have to wade through multiple pages of positive feedback. It is argued that eBay uses this tactic, much like…
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$136 000 Roulette Gamble
In April 2004, Ashley Revell plopped down his entire life savings on a roulette table at the Plaza casino in downtown Las Vegas. This video clip is from the reality series that followed Ashleys adventure. $136,000 was placed on Red, and the roulette ball stopped spinning on Red 7. According to the gamblers fallacy, which do you predict will be…
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Hurricane Destruction
This short clip demonstrates the destructive power of hurricanes. Far more people die every year from causes such as asthma, accidental falls, and tuberculosis, yet people still believe they are more likely to be killed in a hurricane. How does media coverage affect perceptions of the frequency of natural disasters?
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