Comparison

Evaluating

The evaluating (sifting) sub-system establishes the relative value of any piece of information by comparing it to some other information that has already been valued against criteria deemed relevant to the circumstances by the currently activated meaning schema. It may compare present perceptions to predictions, real experiences to remembered or imagined ones, one abstract concept to another one, etc.

The valuations of the Evaluating sub-system are relative — better/worse, higher/lower, bigger/smaller, stronger/weaker, before/after, etc.

In business-as-usual mode the Evaluating system uses criterion scales within the currently active meaning schema to assess the relative value of new information (against its predicted value).

When we encounter incomparable phenomena or when our predictions of value are inaccurate, the Evaluation system can be called on to do a reappraisal or it may have to identify new evaluation criteria and construct new reference scales to process the discrepancy.

Evaluating discrepancies

Discrepancies originating in the Evaluating sub-system could result from:

• Anchoring effect — making comparisons against an arbitrary reference value, perhaps because we encountered that value recently

• Framing effect — evaluating the same information differently depending on how it is presented to us

• Negativity bias — ascribing more significance to negative phenomena than to positive phenomena

• Affect heuristic — making valuations based on the intensity of your current emotional state (interestingly, there isn't a named bias for ignoring emotions when they are actually relevant)

• Inappropriate criteria — under or over-valuing phenomena because you are focusing on the wrong aspects

• Halo or horn effect — valuation on one criterion distorting the valuation of a different criterion (e.g. assuming someone is morally good because they are attractive).

Grouping

The function of the Grouping (sorting) system is to compare the characteristics of different phenomena to identify similarities and differences between them in order to group them into linked categories.

This sub-system creates mental classifications that help us to:

• categorise new experiences based on their similarity to previous experiences

• identify general characteristics from specific experiences or examples

• create taxonomies and hierarchies of concepts

 For the sake of efficiency and simplicity, we tend to group phenomena into the smallest number of categories we can. This often means that we end up dividing things into two diametrically opposite categories — good/bad, true/false, clean/dirty, relevant/irrelevant, friend/foe.

In business-as-usual mode, it uses existing categorical structures from active meaning schemas to quickly assign new information to established groups. This process helps us to efficiently process information by relating it to what we already know.

When we encounter information that doesn't fit neatly into our existing categories, the Grouping system may be triggered to reorganise or expand our categorical frameworks through processes of accommodation (during which process it may call on the Encoding system to label the categories and the Evaluating system to assess their relative suitability).

Grouping discrepancies

Discrepancies linked to the Grouping sub-system could result from:

• Category error — putting things in the wrong box based on a misunderstanding of the phenomenon (e.g. misreading the situation)

• Accentuation effect — the tendency to over-emphasise the similarities between things in the same category and over-emphasise the difference between things in different categories (see also in-group and out-group classification for examples of how this relates to social cognition)

• Stereotyping — projecting your generalised beliefs about the category onto the individual whom you have placed in that category (this could apply to situations as well as people)

• Black-and-white thinking — rigidly using two, polarised, mutually-exclusive categories to classify phenomena when the reality is more complex and nuanced