Confirmation bias, as the term is typically used in the psychological literature, connotes the seeking or interpreting of evidence in ways that are partial to existing beliefs, expectations, or a h...

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Confirmation Bias: A Ubiquitous Phenomenon in Many Guises:

In 1974 an article appeared in Science magazine with the dry-sounding title “Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases” by a pair of psychologists who were not well known outside their discipline of decision theory. In it Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman introduced the world to Prospect Theory, which mapped out how humans actually behave when faced with decisions about gains and losses, in contrast to how economists assumed that people behave. Prospect Theory turned Economics on its head by demonstrating through a series of ingenious experiments that people are much more concerned with losses than they are with gains, and that framing a choice from one perspective or the other will result in decisions that are exactly the opposite of each other, even if the outcomes are monetarily the same. Prospect Theory led cognitive psychology in a new direction that began to uncover other human biases in thinking that are probably not learned but are part of our brain’s wiring.

Thinking fast and slow.

Theoretical models of financial markets built on the assumption that some investors are overconfident yield one central prediction: overconfident investors will trade too much. We test this prediction by partitioning investors on the basis of a variable that provides a natural proxy for overconfidence--gender. Psychological research has established that men are more prone to overconfidence than women. Thus, models of investor overconfidence predict that men will trade more and perform worse than women. Using account data for over 35,000 households from a large discount brokerage firm, we analyze the common stock investments of men and women from February 1991 through January 1997. Consistent with the predictions of the overconfidence models, we document that men trade 45 percent more than women and earn annual risk-adjusted net returns that are 1.4 percent less than those earned by women. These differences are more pronounced between single men and single women; single men trade 67 percent more than single women and earn annual risk-adjusted net returns that are 2.3 percent less than those earned by single women.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/98110615.pdf?abstractid=139415&rulid=175370&mirid=3

Boys Will Be Boys: Gender, Overconfidence, and Common Stock Investment

Theoretical models predict that overconedent investors trade excessively We test this prediction by partitioning investors on gender Psychological research demonstrates that, in areas such as enance, men are more overconedent than women Thus, theory predicts that men will trade more excessively than women Using account data for over 35,000 households from a large discount brokerage, we analyze the common stock investments of men and women from February 1991 through January 1997 We document that men trade 45 percent more than women Trading reduces men’s net returns by 265 percentage points a year as opposed to 172 percentage points for women It’s not what a man don’t know that makes him a fool, but what he does know that ain’t so Josh Billings, nineteenth century American humorist It is difecult to reconcile the volume of trading observed in equity markets with the trading needs of rational investors Rational investors make periodic contributions and withdrawals from their investment portfolios, rebalance their portfolios, and trade to minimize their taxes Those possessed of superior information may trade speculatively, although rational speculative traders will generally not choose to trade with each other It is unlikely that rational trading needs account for a turnover rate of

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Boys will be Boys: Gender, Overconfidence, and Common Stock Investment

/pdf/research-design-qualitative-quantitative-and-mixed-methods-1m92m1x5gg.pdf

Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches

When the International Journal of Cognition, Technology & Work was launched approximately two years ago, we defined the mission of CTW to report on studies of people at work from a socio-technical and cognitive systems perspective (Hollnagel and Cacciabue, 1999) This implies that disciplines like cognitive systems engineering, human factors, and cognitive ergonomics represent the core subject of the journal, both at a theoretical and a practical level In a wider perspective, the scope of CTW can be defined as the consideration for all issues related to the joint humanmachine system operating in complex dynamic environments In this short editorial we report on the amount of received and published manuscripts and on the scientific content, scope and trend of the subjects discussed in the different issues In particular, we intend to show which areas and themes have been discussed and which problems have not yet been tackled This will enable the reader to get a flavour of how much has been covered of the original goals of the Journal and whether we are achieving the stated mission of CTW During the past two years approximately 70 manuscripts were received and have been thoroughly reviewed before publication Some have been rejected, as they did not meet the required standards set for our journal Some authors did not revise their work after the review process Some manuscripts are still going trough in the publication process The overall amount of published material has been of 43 papers These came from Australia, England, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Portugal, Scotland, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, The Netherlands, and US Special Issues 1/3 and 2/1 were entirely dedicated to two correlated specific subjects: Managing Soft Knowledge in a Hard Workplace and People, Information Systems and Change They both focused on the impact of modern technology in social and working contexts Special Issue 2/4, which concludes the second year of publication of CTW, is totally devoted to the human factors issues and implications connected with the recent nuclear accident occurred in Japan at Tokai-Mura processing plant

Cognition, Technology & Work: Two Years On

Operational Readiness Verification, Phase 2:

Even if a large amount of work has been done so far in both technological and human factors worlds, automation is still a controversial issue. Human and technological reliabilities cannot be taken separately. Human-machine systems are more intimately integrated, in particular with massive use of software as mediating spaces. The main issue is to better understand who must be in charge, verify who is effectively in charge and so on. Safe, efficient and comfortable environments and systems require enhanced analysis of responsibility allocation among the various human and machine agents. Such analysis should take into account not only the increasing distance between humans and the physical world that they try to control, but the increasing number of both artificial and human agents that mediate interactions. This panel will provide a discussion forum to advance these topics.

Panel on authority distribution in human-machine systems

Introduction: The journey to here and what happens next

The sustained existence of modern societies depends on the safe and efficient functioning of multiple systems, functions, and specialised services. Because these often are tightly coupled, safety cannot be managed simply by responding whenever something goes wrong. Both theory and practice make clear that safety management that follows developments rather than leads them runs a significant risk of lagging behind and of becoming reduced to uncoordinated and fragmentary fire-fighting. (The same, of course, goes for the management of quality and productivity.) In order to prevent this from happening, safety management must look ahead, not only to avoid that things go wrong but also – and more importantly – to ensure that they go right.1 Proactive safety management must focus on how everyday performance usually goes well rather than on why it occasionally fails, and must actively try to improve the former rather than simply prevent the latter.

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Erik Hollnagel

Papers

Cognition, Technology & Work: Two Years On

Operational Readiness Verification, Phase 2:

Panel on authority distribution in human-machine systems

Introduction: The journey to here and what happens next

A Tale of Two Safeties (Draft)