Cognitive Sophistication and the Development of Judgment and Decision-Making

Cognitive Sophistication and the Development of Judgment and Decision-Making reviews the existing literature on the development of reasoning, judgment and decision-making, with a primary focus on measures from the heuristics and biases tradition. The book presents a model based on cognitive sophistication to examine the development of judgment and decision-making, including age related differences in developmental samples, associations with intellectual abilities and executive functions, and associations with dispositional tendencies that support judgment and decision-making. Additional sections cover the empirical findings of a longitudinal study conducted over seven years that tie together the discussed aspects related to cognitive sophistication.

This book will provide a much-needed description of the theoretical and conceptual issues, a review of empirical findings, and an integrative summary of the implications for developmental models of reasoning, judgment and decision-making.

• Explores whether individual heuristics and biases are associated
• Reviews individual differences in cognitive abilities and thinking dispositions
• Examines reasoning from the lens of cognitive sophistication
• Discusses the implications for models, including dual process models
• Tests and elaborates using empirical findings from a longitudinal study

Dr. Toplak’s research spans cognitive science and clinical research. She studies cognitive science models of rational thinking and decision-making in typically developing samples and in developmental psychopathology. She has published over 50 peer-reviewed papers and book chapters across the fields of decision-making and clinical research, including two books: Individual Differences in Judgement and Decision-Making: A Developmental Perspective (Psychology Press, 2016) and The Rationality Quotient: Toward a Test of Rational Thinking (MIT Press, 2018), the latter of which won the 2017 PROSE Award in Education Theory.