Anchoring bias and adjusting your strategy from a base
I've often argued that it's not a good idea to think in terms of a base strategy that you adjust to meet changing conditions. I'm not sure I've ever made a good arguement or explanation for why I think it's a mistake to do that though.
So I thought I'd give it another try.
Rational thought is not the norm for human beings. There tends to be natural bias of many different kinds that bends the way we make decisions. There's probably evolutionary reasons for this. But the reasons for it don't really matter. We do tend towards bias in the way we make decisions, in the way we think, and if you're a fan of the idea of rational thought it's important to recognize these natural biases and to guard against them.
There's a human decision making bias that psychologists call anchoring bias.
Let me explain it with an example.
If I try to determine the best strategy for a given situation by a focus on adjustment from some baseline strategy you'll likely not arrive at the best strategy, your judgement will be biased no matter how hard you try to compensate for the bias.
The best approach for poker players is to focus on the current situation rather than a baseline strategy. What is it about the current situation that creates value or risk? Don't ask yourself How should I play suited connectors in general and how should I adjust that for my position? Ask yourself What is it about my current position that creates value then look at your hand and see if you have a hand that can exploit that value.
It really does make a difference how you think about something. It might seem silly and trite and unimportant to think about things in a certain way, but it's important if you want to avoid mistakes generated by psychological bias.
So I thought I'd give it another try.
Rational thought is not the norm for human beings. There tends to be natural bias of many different kinds that bends the way we make decisions. There's probably evolutionary reasons for this. But the reasons for it don't really matter. We do tend towards bias in the way we make decisions, in the way we think, and if you're a fan of the idea of rational thought it's important to recognize these natural biases and to guard against them.
There's a human decision making bias that psychologists call anchoring bias.
Let me explain it with an example.
Suppose I spin a Wheel of Fortune device as you watch, and it comes up pointing to 65. Then I ask: Do you think the percentage of African countries in the UN is above or below this number? What do you think is the percentage of African countries in the UN? Take a moment to consider these two questions yourself, if you like, and please don't Google.
Tversky and Kahneman (1974) recorded the estimates of subjects who saw the Wheel of Fortune showing various numbers. The median estimate of subjects who saw the wheel show 65 was 45%; the median estimate of subjects who saw 10 was 25%.
If I try to determine the best strategy for a given situation by a focus on adjustment from some baseline strategy you'll likely not arrive at the best strategy, your judgement will be biased no matter how hard you try to compensate for the bias.
Debiasing manipulations for anchoring have generally proved not very effective. I would suggest these two: First, if the initial guess sounds implausible, try to throw it away entirely and come up with a new estimate, rather than sliding from the anchor. But this in itself may not be sufficient - subjects instructed to avoid anchoring still seem to do so (Quattrone et. al. 1981). So second, even if you are trying the first method, try also to think of an anchor in the opposite direction - an anchor that is clearly too small or too large, instead of too large or too small - and dwell on it briefly.
The best approach for poker players is to focus on the current situation rather than a baseline strategy. What is it about the current situation that creates value or risk? Don't ask yourself How should I play suited connectors in general and how should I adjust that for my position? Ask yourself What is it about my current position that creates value then look at your hand and see if you have a hand that can exploit that value.
It really does make a difference how you think about something. It might seem silly and trite and unimportant to think about things in a certain way, but it's important if you want to avoid mistakes generated by psychological bias.
Labels: psychology
posted by Gary Carson at 2:40 PM
4 Comments:
Do you believe this post is correct even if the base strategy is an unexploitable game theoretic equilibrium (or it's near-analog, for multiplayer games)?
While I think situational play is very valuable, I wouldn't be quick to say you're making a mistake by adopting an equilibrium solution regardless of what your opponents are doing.
Of course.
Experiments and observations have found the anchoring bias to be pretty consistent.
Based on what we know about the way humans make judgements the only time it would be okay to start with an anchor intentionally is when the new solution is very close to the anchor. But you won't know that unless you first consider the situation independently of a baseline anchor, something that's actually hard to do.
btw, There is no reason to think there is an equilibrium point for multi-player games, btw. I've talked about that often at mathandpoker.com
Multi-player games are not non-cooperative. Equilibrium points are not exploitable by a single opponent acting independently of others, but if two players decided to gambool up then the theorems about non-cooperative games no longer apply.
Economists have written about problems with thinking about opponent cooperation as binary, it's not a concept that's unique to me. You could read up on it.
You're picking on an irrelevant nit. I know there are complexities related to game theory with ring games, but they're not nearly as big as people make them out to be. In practice you can probably still adopt strategies that your opponents will have a negative or zero expectation against that make no attempt whatsoever to adjust to opposing play.
Given that, it's not clear to me that being "anchored" to such a strategy is necessarily bad. In fact, it seems such a bias would serve a protective purpose if your judgment were ever off.
Gary: you should play situationally and not just adapt a strategy.
Wayne: would that be true if your strategy was game-theoretically unexploitable?
Gary: it can't be and this is why.
Wayne: you're just picking a nit.
Who the fuck is Wayne Vinson?
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