Overinclusive Thinking

Thinking Episode

Questions of thinking may start out with the consideration of an episode of thinking (or an episode of thought), and one can ask the question regarding what is considered within that thinking episode, what is excluded from that thinking episode, what cannot be included in a thinking episode, and what cannot be excluded from a thinking episode.

When an individual is presented a choice between two options A and B and asked to choose between the options, it is key to recognize that some thinkers may well ask themselves the basic question of why one of the alternatives was selected as label A and presented first and the other was selected as B and presented second. While this may be termed by some as overthinking the problem, there may well be reasons why the principal investigator (researcher) called one A and presented that option first and called the other B and presented that option second. Even if one tells the study volunteer that the labels A and B were randomly selected as the labels of the alternatives, the study volunteer may still have a lingering question in his or her mind about the ordering and may assume that the researcher is telling him or her about the ordering being randomly selected to distract the study volunteer from the “real reason” the labeling and ordering were selected as they were.

The above considerations bring up the notion of thinking and what is to be included within an episode of thinking and what is to be excluded from such an episode. Here, the capacity to include elements within thought or to exclude elements from thought may be difficult to do purely mentally and may need to rely on tools such as decision trees to structure decisions and keep track of information that goes into a decision and the information that is excluded, or pruned away, from a decision. Even decision scientists can be legitimately criticized for what information is included in a decision and what information is excluded from that same decision.

Positive Choice versus Rejection

When the thoughts under consideration are thoughts about choices among a set of items or options, the very notion of choice comes into question. What is a positive choice (choosing Option A over Option B) versus what is a negative choice (rejecting Option B and thus choosing Option A by default)?

Positive choice of one alternative over another or rejection of one alternative in preference of another can both be influenced by underinclusive and overinclusive representation of information in decision making affecting consumer choice in economics and patient choice and preference in medical decision making even when the structure of that decision is being overseen by a decision scientist.

Underinclusive versus Overinclusive Thinking

If someone were a betting man or woman, he or she might bet that most individuals in most economic and medical decision-making situations are more underinclusive in their thinking (not including enough or including fewer pieces of information in their thought processes than other reasonable people would include) rather than being overinclusive (including too much information in their thought processes or including more information than other reasonable people would include). This is why physicians have particular roles in helping patients understand what is going on in their care, and why professional decision scientists have a role in and are recompensed for their work in economics and medical decision making. But physicians and decision scientists can misrepresent choice to a patient in decision making by underinclusive and overinclusive representation of information in decision trees causing underinclusive and overinclusive thinking on the parts of patients.

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