The College Fix

People who gamble may seem to make confusing and questionable decisions when betting is involved and often take a loss as a result.

However, these choices are often more sound than they seem, according to a study put out by University of Minnesota psychologists. The findings provide some insight into the psychology of gambling and human decision-making in general.

“We’re interested in the simple kind of decision-making that people do every day,” said Shawn Green, the study’s lead researcher and a post-doctoral fellow in the University’s Department of Psychology  and the Center for Cognitive Sciences.

The study concluded that “human decision making is rational and model based” even when it doesn’t seem to be.

The researchers presented subjects with two options representing decisions made in games of chance, such as choosing what side a flipped coin would land on, or between two piles of cards. The subjects were made aware that one option was weighted more favorably.

One option had a 70 percent chance of having a favorable outcome, while the other only had a 30 percent chance. With those odds, the rational decision would seem to be to choose the option with the 70 percent chance of winning every time.

“You’d think that if heads on a coin has that much more a chance to be the winning choice, you should just stick with it and never choose tails,” Green said.

Read the full story at the Minnesota Daily.

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