The Two Settings of Kind and Wicked Learning Environments
Abstract
Inference involves two settings: In the first, information is acquired (learning); in the second, it is applied (predictions or choices). Kind learning environments involve close matches between the informational elements in the two settings and are a necessary condition for accurate inferences. Wicked learning environments involve mismatches. This conceptual framework facilitates identifying sources of inferential errors and can be used, among other things, to suggest how to target corrective procedures. For example, structuring learning environments to be kind improves probabilistic judgments. Potentially, it could also enable economic agents to exhibit maximizing behavior.
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Hiring is close to a textbook wicked learning environment: outcomes for rejected candidates are never observed, outcomes for those hired are confounded by onboarding, manager quality, and team composition, and feedback arrives 6 to 18 months late.
“Hiring is close to a textbook wicked learning environment.Outcomes for rejected candidates are never observed, outcomes for those hired are confounded by onboarding, manager quality, and team composition, and feedback arrives 6 to 18 months late [41,42].”
From Borrowed Competence: When AI-Driven HR Builds Startups’ People Capability and When It Hollows It Out (2026) · cites this paper as [41]
Split into 2 atoms — 0 confirmed, 2 partially supported, 0 disputed, 0 misattributed, 0 unverifiable. Expand the claim to see per-atom verdicts.
Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Cites
Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1974) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.185.4157.1124 · Cited by 28,810 · see citing works
On the psychology of prediction.
Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1973) · Psychological Review · doi:10.1037/h0034747 · Cited by 6,202 · cited 1× · see citing works
“People often use a default strategy that projects a match from L to T (Kahneman & Tversky, 1973).”
When and where do we apply what we learn?: A taxonomy for far transfer
Barnett, S. M., & Ceci, S. J. (2002) · Psychological Bulletin · doi:10.1037/0033-2909.128.4.612 · Cited by 2,076 · cited 1× · see citing works
“The importance of matches between two settings is acknowledged in the literature on transfer of learning (Barnett & Ceci, 2002).”
BackgroundModels of ecological rationality: The recognition heuristic.
Goldstein, D. G., & Gigerenzer, G. (2002) · Psychological Review · doi:10.1037/0033-295x.109.1.75 · Cited by 1,352 · see citing works
Prospection: experiencing the future
Gilbert, D. T., & Wilson, T. D. (2007) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1144161 · Cited by 1,238 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Research works printed but not linked: 16
- Chapman, L. J., & Chapman, J. R. (1969). Illusory correlations as an obstacle to the use of valid psychodiagnostic signs. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 74, 271-280.
- Einhorn, H. J., & Hogarth, R. M. (1978). Confidence in judg- ment: Persistence of the illusion of validity. Psychological Review, 85, 395-416.
- Elton, E. J., Gruber, M. J., & Blake, C. R. (1996). Survivorship bias and mutual fund performance. The Review of Financial Studies, 9, 1097-1120.
- Elwin, E. (2013). Living and learning: Reproducing beliefs in selective experience. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 26, 327-337.
- Erev, I., & Roth, A. E. (2014). Maximization, learning and eco- nomic behavior. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, 111(Suppl. 3), 10818-10825.
- Fiedler, K. (2000b). Illusory correlations: A simple associative algorithm provides a convergent account of seemingly divergent paradigms. Review of General Psychology, 4, 25-58.
- Fiedler, K., & Juslin, P. (2006). Taking the interface between mind and environment seriously. In K. Fiedler & P. Juslin (Eds.), Information sampling and adaptive cognition (pp. 3-32). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
- Fiedler, K., & Kutzner, F. (in press). Information sampling and reasoning biases: Implications for research in judgment and decision making. In G. Keren & G. Wu (Eds.), Wiley Blackwell handbook of judgment and decision making.
- Gigerenzer, G. (1991). From tools to theories: A heuristic of discovery in cognitive psychology. Psychological Review, 98, 254-267.
- Gigerenzer, G., & Gaissmaier, W. (2011). Heuristic decision making. Annual Review of Psychology, 62, 451-482.
- Goldstein, D. G., Johnson, E. J., & Sharpe, W. F. (2008). Choosing outcomes versus choosing products: Consumer- focused retirement investment advice. Journal of Consumer Research, 35, 440-456.
- Hogarth, R. M. (1981). Beyond discrete biases: Functional and dysfunctional aspects of judgmental heuristics. Psychological Bulletin, 90, 197-217.
- Hogarth, R. M. (2001). Educating intuition. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
- Hogarth, R. M., & Karelaia, N. (2007). Heuristic and linear models of judgment: Matching rules and environments. Psychological Review, 114, 733-758.
- Hogarth, R. M., & Soyer, E. (2011). Sequentially simulated out- comes: Kind experience vs. non-transparent description. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 140, 434-463.
- Soll, J. B., Milkman, K. L., & Payne, J. W. (in press). A user's guide to debiasing. In G. Keren & G. Wu (Eds.), Wiley Blackwell handbook of judgment and decision making.
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Thinking forensics: Cognitive science for forensic practitioners
Edmond, G., Towler, A., Growns, B., Ribeiro, G., Found, B., White, D., Ballantyne, K., Searston, R. A., Thompson, M. B., Tangen, J. M., et al. (2017) · Science & Justice · doi:10.1016/j.scijus.2016.11.005 · Cited by 95 · see citing works
Schulze, C., & Hertwig, R. (2021) · Cognition · doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2020.104580 · Cited by 36 · see citing works
Procedural Memory Is Not All You Need: Bridging Cognitive Gaps in LLM-Based Agents
Wheeler, S., & Jeunen, O. (2025) · Adjunct Proceedings of the 33rd ACM Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization · doi:10.1145/3708319.3734172 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
Borrowed Competence: When AI-Driven HR Builds Startups’ People Capability and When It Hollows It Out
Ben Oz, R., Granot, N., Tzabbar, D., & Tzafrir, S. (2026) · doi:10.2139/ssrn.7489654
- Authors
- Hogarth, R. M., Lejarraga, T., & Soyer, E.
- Affiliations
- Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra
- Center for Adaptive Rationality, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany
- Faculty of Business, Ozyegin University
- Venue
- Current Directions in Psychological Science
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2015-10
- Volume
- 24
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 379-385
- ISSN
- 0963-7214
- 1467-8721
- Cited by
- 142
- References
- 5
- Language
- en
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
