Abstract
In this chapter Cognitive Interpretation is explored in terms of a micro-cognitive psychology (MiCP). This relates the Intentional Interpretation to neuroscience and metacognitive functioning in which a rapidly operating impulsive mode of decision making must be brought into balance by a slower executive mode. At least it must if the problems associated with impetuous and imprudent consumption are to be avoided. This chapter identifies the need for a cognitive interpretation as the explication of intra-personal, inter-agent communication and cooperation. Its mission is to show how this can be effected in the individual in a manner that is consistent with neurophysiological functioning while remaining sensitive to the influence of environmental stimulation on behavior.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
- 2.
Although supra-personal metacognition is compatible with intra-personal, inter-agent metacognition, it is not obvious that it is historically or logically prior to it; nor is intra-personal metacognition necessarily a side effect. However, it is probable that cultural evolution played a dominant role in the development of S2 metacognition as a cognitive control mechanism that overcomes impulsiveness by engendering cooperation between short- and longer-term interests. The modification of temporal horizon from that predisposing toward impulsiveness to that in which consumption can be delayed is traceable to the transition from hunter-gathering to agriculture and more recent religiously based community, hence from early hominins to modern humans (Bickel and Marsch 2000).
- 3.
The economic modeling of the interests proposed by picoeconomics (Ainslie 1992) reaches similar conclusions. These interests or subagents may behave synchronously on the basis of either their contradictory utility functions or their incompatible temporal preferences (Ross 2012). The hyperbolic time preference in the second case reflects rivalry between “limbic regions” exhibiting steep, exponential discounting and “cognitive regions” showing less steep exponential discounting (Ross 2012, p. 720). Alternatively, the interests may be understood as residing in a person who is “diachronically composed of multiple selves” that have varying utility functions and incomplete knowledge of one another. Consideration of supra-personal cognitive control and metacognition emphasizes reconciliation and cooperation; the economic portrayal, conflicting interests.
- 4.
I am tempted to make the assumption that the Type 1 and Type 2 processing to which Stanovich refers correspond broadly to S1 and S2 metacognitive systems especially functionally. This suggestion of correspondence, however tentatively it is made, must be viewed with a critical eye. While there may be some functional similarity, it is not clear that the systems involved are identical (Evans 2010).
- 5.
Bibliography
Ainslie, G. (1992). Picoeconomics: The strategic interaction of successive motivational states within the person. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Baddeley, A. (2007). Working memory, thought, and action. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bickel, W. K., & Marsch, L. A. (2000). The tyranny of small decisions: Origins, outcomes, and proposed solutions. In W. R. Bickel & R. E. Vuchinich (Eds.), Reframing health behavioral change with behavioral economics (pp. 341–391). Mahwah: Erlbaum.
Bickel, W. R., & Yi, R. (2008). Temporal discounting as a measure of executive function: Insights from the competing neuro-behavioral decisions systems hypothesis of addiction. Advances in Health Economics and Health Services Research, 20, 289–309.
Bickel, W. K., Jarmolowicz, D. P., Mueller, E. T., Gatchalian, K. M., & McClure, S. M. (2012). Are executive function and impulsivity antipodes? A conceptual reconstruction with special reference to addiction. Psychopharmacology, 221, 361–387.
Damasio, A. R. (1994). Descartes’ error: Emotion, reason and the human brain. New York: Putnam.
Elster, J. (2015). Explaining social behavior: More nuts and bolts for the social sciences. Revised edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Evans, J. S. B. (2010). Thinking twice: Two minds in one brain. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Foxall, G. R. (2014a). Neurophilosophy of explanation in economic psychology: An exposition in terms of neuro-behavioral decision systems. In L. Moutinho et al. (Eds.), Routledge companion to the future of marketing (pp. 134–150). London/New York: Routledge.
Foxall, G. R. (2014b). Cognitive requirements of competing neuro-behavioral decision systems: Some implications of temporal horizon for managerial behavior in organizations. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 8, 184.
Foxall, G. R. (2016a). Addiction as consumer choice: Exploring the cognitive dimension. London/New York: Routledge.
Foxall, G. R. (2016b). Metacognitive control of categorial neurobehavioral decision systems. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 170.
Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. London: Allen Lane.
Kirton, M. J. (2003). Adaption-innovation: In the context of diversity and change. London: Routledge.
Madden, G. J., & Bickel, W. K. (2010). Impulsivity: The behavioral and neurological science of discounting. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
McClure, S. M., Laibson, D. L., Loewenstein, G., & Cohen, J. D. (2004). Separate neural systems value immediate and delayed monetary rewards. Science, 306(5695), 503–507.
McKim, T. H., & Boettiger, C. A. (2015). Addiction as maladaptive learning, with a focus on habit learning. In T. S. Wilson (Ed.), The Wiley handbook on the cognitive neuroscience of addiction (pp. 1–xx). Chichester: Wiley.
Norman, D. A., & Shallice, T. (1986). Attention to action: Willed and automatic control of behaviour. In R. J. Davidson, G. E. Schwarts, & D. Shapiro (Eds.), Consciousness and self-regulation: Advances in research and theory (Vol. 4, pp. 1–18). New York: Plenum.
Redish, A. D. (2013). The mind within the brain: How we make decisions and how those decisions go wrong. New York: Oxford University Press.
Redish, A. D. (2015). Addiction as a symptom of failure modes in the machineries of decision making. In T. S. Wilson (Ed.), The Wiley handbook on the cognitive neuroscience of addiction (pp. xx–xx). Chichester: Wiley.
Rolls, E. T. (2014). Emotion and decision-making explained. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ross, D. (2012). The economic agent: Not human, but important. In U. Mäki (Ed.), Philosophy of economics (pp. 691–736). Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Shallice, T., & Cooper, R. P. (2011). The organization of mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Shea, N., Boldt, A., Bang, D., Yeung, N., Heyes, C., & Frith, C. D. (2014). Supra-personal cognitive control and metacognition. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 18, 186–193.
Stanovich, K. E. (2009a). Distinguishing the reflective, algorithmic, and autonomous minds: Is it time for a tri-process theory? In J. S. B. T. Evans & K. Frankish (Eds.), In two minds: Dual processes and beyond (pp. 55–88). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Stanovich, K. E. (2009b). What intelligence tests miss: The psychology of rational thought. New Haven/London: Yale University Press.
Stanovich, K. E. (2011). Rationality and the reflective mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2016 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Foxall, G.R. (2016). Consumer Choice as Decision: Micro-Cognitive Psychology. In: Perspectives on Consumer Choice. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-50121-9_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-50121-9_8
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-50119-6
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-50121-9
eBook Packages: Business and ManagementBusiness and Management (R0)