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Cognitive Sophistication and the Development of Judgment and Decision-Making reviews the existing literature on the development of reasoning, judgment and decision-making, with a primary focus on measures from the heuristics and biases tradition. The book presents a model based on cognitive sophistication to examine the development of judgment and decision-making, including age related differences in developmental samples, associations with intellectual abilities and executive functions, and associations with dispositional tendencies that support judgment and decision-making. Additional sections cover the empirical findings of a longitudinal study conducted over seven years that tie together the discussed aspects related to cognitive sophistication.
This book will provide a much-needed description of the theoretical and conceptual issues, a review of empirical findings, and an integrative summary of the implications for developmental models of reasoning, judgment and decision-making.
List of contents
1. Defining Cognitive Sophistication in the Development of Judgment and Decision-Making
2. Foundations for the Development of Judgment and Decision-Making: Cognitive Abilities, Thinking Dispositions and Specific Knowledge
3. Development of the Ability to Detect and Override Miserly Information Processing
4. Recognizing the Diagnosticity of Statistical Information in Development: Base Rate Sensitivity
5. Preference for Delayed Over Immediate Rewards in Development: Prudent Temporal Discounting
6. Understanding Descriptive Invariance In Development: Framing Effects
7. Correlations Between Judgment and Decision-Making Tasks in Developmental Samples
8. Real-World Correlates of Judgment and Decision-Making Paradigms in Developmental Samples
9. The Emergence of Rational Thinking in Development: Conclusions and Future Directions
About the author
Dr. Toplak’s research spans cognitive science and clinical research. She studies cognitive science models of rational thinking and decision-making in typically developing samples and in developmental psychopathology. She has published over 50 peer-reviewed papers and book chapters across the fields of decision-making and clinical research, including two books: Individual Differences in Judgement and Decision-Making: A Developmental Perspective (Psychology Press, 2016) and The Rationality Quotient: Toward a Test of Rational Thinking (MIT Press, 2018), the latter of which won the 2017 PROSE Award in Education Theory.
Report
"Understanding what underlies the large individual differences in reasoning abilities is a critical question, for both theoretical and practical reasons. In this book, Maggie Toplak has provided a remarkably detailed and theoretically rich account of the development of rational reasoning skills, much of which is based on her own work. The impact of a variety of different components on reasoning is clearly detailed, and the consequences for real-world functioning are highlighted. I would highly recommend it for anyone who is interested in understanding the complex web of factors that impact how individuals reason." --Henry Markovits, Professor, Psychology Department, Université du Québec à Montréal
