Conservatism Bias

[pianok]

As I understood, conservatism bias is the failure to integrate new information into the old analysis(which was based on logical resoning). and thus the overweighting of the initial probabilities. However, it is later mentioned that in conservatism bias, we can have both, over or underweighting of initial probabilities based on the cognitive costs. If the cost is too low, we tend to overwieigh new info and if the cost is high, the opposite is true.
This has gotten me confused. Is conservatism bias the overweighing of initial probabilities or is it dependent on the cognitive cost?

 

[maxbg91]

Generally it is the overweighing of initial probabilities. BUT you have to think of the cognitive cost (”how hard it is to think about the new information”). This type of bias can lead to too much (if the new information is easy to analyze) or too little change (if the new information is hard to analyze). You should simply evaluate the new information alone and not try to put it in relation to your prior information.

 

[cebrach]

This is my way of viewing it…
Conservatism refers to the unwillingness to make appropriate changes of probabilties based on new information. Whether it is under or over weighting probabilities, analyst wants to “conserv” his initial estimates of probabilities.
However, I must agree that it over or under weighting depends on the cognitive costs.

 

[difanchen]

Overstating the cost of cognitive processing as well as understating the probability of occurance for the given information.