Cognitive Anomalies, Decision-Making, & Democracy - PHI00119H

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  • Department: Philosophy
  • Credit value: 20 credits
  • Credit level: H
  • Academic year of delivery: 2025-26

Module summary

Cognitive effects and biases (e.g. confirmation bias, ‘group think’, temporal discounting), as part of a broader class of cognitive anomalies, impact on our ability to make good, rational decisions, both individually and as groups. This module will examine a selection of cognitive anomalies and related phenomena, reflect on their implications for our views of ourselves as rational thinkers and decision-makers, and consider what if anything might be done to mitigate them.

Module will run

Occurrence Teaching period
A Semester 2 2025-26

Module aims

Students will develop an understanding of (a) a range of cognitive effects and biases and the empirical evidence for their existence, (b) philosophical issues relating to these effects and biases (including implications for rationality and decision-making, and political implications), (c) how the work of philosophers (past and present) can cast light on the effects, and how they might be mitigated.

Module learning outcomes

By the end of this module, students should:

  • understand and be able to explain a diverse body of philosophical, psychological, and interdisciplinary research, concerning cognitive effects and biases that impact rational decision-making
  • understand philosophical work that informs, is related to, or highlights the implications of, these effects and biases (including ethical considerations and implications for widely accepted theses in the philosophy of mind)
  • be able to discuss and critically evaluate views on cognitive effects and biases and their impact upon individual and group decision-making, and relate these to broader philosophical concerns in philosophy of mind and/or ethics, using a variety of formats (including a group wiki and an individual essay)

Module content

The module will consider a number of cognitive effects and biases which can impact on our ability to make good, rational choices, both individually and in groups. The effects considered include: confirmation bias, choice blindness, temporal discounting, group decision-making, conformity, overconfidence. (We will focus on a selection of these in the early part of the module in order to allow students to explore material patiently and in depth.) The module will consider empirical evidence for the effects; the interpretation of that evidence; implications for our conceptions of ourselves as introspectively competent, rational decision-makers; consequences for individual and group decision-making; measures which might be taken to counteract the effects; and related political and broader philosophical questions.

Lectures will address empirical and philosophical work on these and related phenomena, their implications for decision-making, and related philosophical issues (including engagement with philosophical issues in self-knowledge, memory, testimony, misinformation, political deliberation).

The lectures will be complemented by seminars, where there will be an emphasis on the broader implications for decision-making, conceptions of ourselves as rational, society and democracy, and on what can or might be done to mitigate these effects.

Indicative assessment

Task % of module mark
Essay/coursework 60.0
Groupwork 40.0

Special assessment rules

None

Indicative reassessment

Task % of module mark
Essay/coursework 60.0
Essay/coursework 40.0

Module feedback

Verbal formative feedback on essay plans will be available within two weeks of submission (meetings within that period will be subject to student availability).

All formative and summative feedback will be returned in accordance with University and Departmental policy.

Indicative reading

  • Brownstein, M. and Saul, J. (Eds.) (2016) Implicit Bias and Philosophy Vol. 2: Moral Responsibility, Structural Injustice, and Ethics. Oxford University Press.
  • Cassam, Q. (2018) Vices of the Mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press
  • Fricker, E. (1994) “Against Gullibility”, in Matilal and Chakrabarti (eds.) 1994, 125–161.
  • Jacoby, L. L. (1978) ‘On Interpreting the Effects of Repetition: Solving a Problem Versus Remembering a Solution’, Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behaviour, 17, 649–67.
  • Johansson, P., Hall, L., SikStrom, S., Tarning, B. and Lind, A. (2006) ‘How something can be said about Telling More than We Can Know’, Consciousness and Cognition, 15, 673-692.
  • Kelly, T. (2008) ‘Disagreement, Dogmatism, and Belief Polarization’, The Journal of Philosophy, 105 (10), 611–33.
  • Klein, S. B. (2012) ‘Self, Memory, and the Self-Referencing Effect: An Examination of Conceptual and Methodological Issues’, Personality andSocial Psychology Review, 16 (3), 283–300.
  • Koriat, A. (1995) ‘Our Knowledge of Our Own Knowledge: Monitoring andControl Processes in Memory’, in Pawlik, K. (ed.) Bericht uber denKongress der Deutschen Gesselschaft fur Psychologie in Hamburg 1994, Gottingen: Hogrefe.
  • Locke, J. (1706/1996) ‘Of the Conduct of the Understanding’, in Grant, R. and Tarcov, N. (Eds.) Some Thoughts Concerning Education and of the Conduct of the Understanding. Hackett Classics.
  • Loftus, E. F. (1998), Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 142, (1), 60-73
  • Nickerson, R. S. (1998) ‘Confirmation Bias: A Ubiquitous Phenomenon in Many Guises’, Review of General Psychology, 2 (2), 175–220.
  • Nisbett, R. and Wilson, T. (1977) 'Telling more than we can know: Verbal reports on mental processes', Psychological Review, 84, 231–259.
  • Nyhan, B. and Reifler, J. (2010) ‘When Corrections Fail: The Persistence of Political Misperceptions’, Political Behaviour, 32 (2), 303–30.
  • Owens, D. (1999) ‘The Authority of Memory’, European Journal of Philosophy, 7(3), 312–29.
  • Schwitzgebel, E. (2008) 'The Unreliability of Naive Introspection', Philosophical Review, 117 (2008), 245­273
  • Slamecka, N. J. and Graf, P. (1978) ‘The Generation Effect: Delineation of a Phenomenon’, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory, 4 (6), 592–604.
  • Tversky, A. and Kahneman, D. (1974) ‘Judgement under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases’, Science, New Series, 185 (4175) 1124-1131
  • Tversky, A. and Kahneman, D. (1983) ‘Extensional Versus Intuitive Reasoning: The Conjunction Fallacy in Probability Judgement’, Psychological Review, 90 (4) 293–315
  • Wilson, T. (2004) Strangers to Ourselves. Belknap Press.