Cognitive Bias – Less-is-better effect

Here are the four problems that biases help us address, per Buster Benson ^{Reference 1} :

What to remember
Too much information
Not enough meaning
Need to Act Fast

And their sub-categories in table form. I've bolded and italicized the sub-category in which the less-is-better effect falls:

What should we remember	Too much information	Not enough meaning	Need to act fast
We store memories differently based on how they were experienced	We notice things already primed in memory or repeated often	We find stories and patterns even in sparse data	To act, we must be confident we can make an impact and feel what we do is important
We reduce events and lists to their key elements	Bizarre/funny/visually-striking/anthropomorphic things stick out more than non-bizarre things	We fill in characteristics from stereotypes, generalities, and prior histories	To stay focused, we favor the immediate, relatable thing in front of us
We discard specifics to form generalities	We notice when something has changed	We imagine things and people we’re familiar with or fond of as better	To get things done, we tend to complete things we’ve invested time and energy in
We edit and reinforce some memories after the fact	We are drawn to details that confirm our own existing beliefs	We simplify probabilities and numbers to make them easier to think about	To avoid mistakes, we’re motivated to preserve our autonomy and status in a group, and to avoid irreversible decisions
	We notice flaws in others more easily than flaws in ourselves	We think we know what other people are thinking	We favor simple-looking options and complete information over complex, ambiguous options
		We project our current mindset and assumptions onto the past and future

We favor options that appear simple or that have more complete information over more complex, ambiguous options.
As Buster Benson says

We’d rather do the quick, simple thing than the important complicated thing, even if the important complicated thing is ultimately a better use of time and energy.

What is Less is Better?

The less-is-better heuristic is the phenomenon of ascribing more value (better-ness) to something smaller in quantity (less-ness) in certain situations that we don’t have a good baseline for needed comparisons.

In Thinking, Fast and Slow Danial Kahneman refers to it as the less-is-more effect.

Here is Hsee’s 1998 technical definition: ^{Reference 2}

Briefly, the hypothesis postulates that when a person judges an option in isolation, the judgment is influenced more by attributes that are easy to evaluate than by attributes that are hard to evaluate, even if the hard-to-evaluate attributes are more important. An attribute is said to be hard to evaluate if the decision maker is not aware of its distribution information (e.g. its effective range, its neutral reference point, etc.), and consequently does not know whether a given value on the attribute is good or bad. Conversely, an attribute is said to be easy to evaluate if the decision maker knows its distribution information and thereby knows whether a given value on the attribute is good or bad.

Examples of Less is Better in Experiments

For example, researchers found that people ascribe higher value to a complete dinnerware set of medium size than to a complete dinnerware set of the same size and quality plus a few extra unmatched pieces of dinnerware. Here is a table outlining the experiment by Hsee in 1998 ^{Reference 2}

	Set A: 40 Pieces	Set B: 24 Pieces
Dinner plates	8 good	8 good
Soup/salad bowls	8 good	8 good
Dessert plates	8 good	8 good
Cups	8, 2 broken
Saucers	8, 7 broken
Total good/broken:	31/9	24/0

Hsee, who in his paper distinguishes between joint and single evaluation, found Set A valued slightly higher in joint evaluation, but Set B valued much higher in single evaluation.

As Kralik et al. (2012) point out: ^{Reference 3}

The affect heuristic is limited by how readily stimulus attributes can be mapped to a point on a one-dimensional valence scale. That is, the heuristic will normally be applied to attributes that are readily evaluable as good or bad, such as item quality (are broken dishes bad?), and will not be applied to attributes that are difficult to evaluate, such as absolute quantity (exactly how good or bad is 24 of something?). Thus, when evaluating the dinnerware, quantity is neglected, and the lower quality items reduce the appeal of the entire set.

Less is more in real life

When googling the Less-Is-More Effect, I found this reddit post, and the author provided an example. S/he stopped watching The Simpsons after Season 9 because s/he felt there was a serious decline in quality. However, s/he notes that bad subsequent quality shouldn’t detract from earlier good quality, right?
I’ve noticed this same trend in myself. After Marissa Cooper was killed off in Season 3 I stopped watching The O.C.

Neurobiology of Less Is More (Sugrue et al. 2005)

This hasn’t been studied directly, but the neurobiology of valuation and decision making has been extensively studied, so I will outline a small part of a very narrowly defined decision-making experiment. Sugrue et al. (2005) ^{Reference 4} studied single neurons in monkeys and found some interesting results. A lot of the neurons involved in decision-making are in the ocular regions of the brain, which isn’t that surprising since humans are such visual creatures. In the visuo-oculomotor cortex, there are three fundamental transformation implemented, specifically in the “context of a typical two-alternative forced-choice discrimination task.”

1. Sensory transformation: this generates a higher-order visual representation from a primary visual input.
2. Decision transformation: this generates a map of the sensory transformation onto a probability of one or the other operant responses.
3. Behavioural response: this probabilistic representation is implemented as a discrete behavioural response

It turns out that sensory and decision-making neurons are pretty easy to differentiate. However:

It is more difficult to dissociate decision-related activity from premotor signals, which might reflect the outcome of a decision but not the process of deliberation itself.

To distinguish between premotor and decision-related activity, Sugrue et al. had to look at factors involved in decision-making but not necessarily factors involved in a motor response.

For example, decisions vary in their certainty: subjects are very certain about decisions that relate to suprathreshold stimuli but are much less certain when stimuli are at, or below, the psychophysical threshold. By contrast, the motor responses that subjects use to indicate their choices can be highly stereotyped and largely independent of the strength of the evidence on which the underlying decision was based.

The Intraparietal Sulcus, in which the LIP is found. Note its proximity to the ocular region of the brain (all the stuff labeled occ.)
Specific areas of the brain have been isolated for decision-making. The Lateral Intraparietal Area, (LIP), is likely involved in eye movement, contributes to working memory, and activity here covaries with final decisions. It has been proposed that the LIP, in collaboration with other areas, implements the decision transformation (number 2 from above) in this task.
My take-home from briefly studying the neurobiology of this experiment is that a lot more neurobiological work needs to be done. Of course, the human brain is all-encompassing, so tasks like these will probably keep us humans busy for the next few millennia.

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Conclusions about Less Is More

The Less Is More cognitive bias makes me think strongly of Occam's Razor, which I learned in freshman biology. It argues that simpler explanations are usually correct. The rule of parsimony is closely related, that is, the fewer steps you take to reach a conclusion the better (more parsimonious). Our brains are designed to take advantage of simplicity; in other words, simple things are easy for us, complex things are difficult. It sounds stupid when I say it like that, but this is a well-demonstrated phenomenon of the human condition. We try to simplify everything we see and do, and this helps us act quickly and use our System 1.

Ways I can see around this bias are:

• Dig deeper. That is, don't dichotomize everything. Try to figure out the objective quality of decisions as opposed to the subjective.
• Recognize the good in parts, or, don't dismiss things simply because they're not whole (e.g., the dinnerware set).
• Try not to judge an option in isolation, because that leads to this bias. Whenever possible, put things in context and think through each part. That is, whenever possible, try to use System 2 as opposed to System 1.

Have you ever seen anyone else exhibit the Less is Better bias, or do you have your own personal example?

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Check out my Intro and Backgound for this series here.

This is a really ambitious writing project I've just begun. Let me know if you like it or have any praise/criticism on my style or voice.

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References:

1. Buster Benson’s Cognitive Bias Cheat Sheet. Because thinking is hard.
2. Hsee, Christopher. 1998. Less is better: When low-value options are valued more highly than high-value options. Because Occam’s Razor.
3. Kralik et al. 2012. When Less Is More: Evolutionary Origins of the Affect Heuristic. Because difficult things are difficult.
4. Sugrue et al. 2005. Choosing the greater of two goods: Neural currencies for valuation and decision making. Because monkey brain.

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Image Credits:

1. John Manoogian III and Buster Benson’s Cognitive Bias Codex. Because thinking is hard.
2. Leonardo da Vinci agrees that less is more.. Because why complicate things unnecessarily?
3. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Because diving bells should be freeing.
4. Intraparietal sulcus. Because neurobiology.
5. Stars wheeling overhead. Because infinity.
6. Occam's Literal Razor. Because who needs a shave?