chapter 8

simons theory of bounded rationality a

*the work that earned Herbert Simon the 1978 Nobel Prize in economics showed that peo- ple don't always live up to these goals. Before Simon's work, most traditional theories in economics assumed that people made rational choices to maximize their economic gains. Simon (1957) noted that people have a limited ability to process and evaluate information on numerous facets of possible alternatives.* -Simon's theory of bounded rationality asserts that people tend to use simple strategies in decision making that focus on only a few facets of available options and often result in "irrational" decisions that are less than optimal.

creativity

- Creativity involves the generation of ideas that are original, novel, and useful.

gambler's fallacy

- Laura's behavior illustrates the gambler's fallacy—the belief that the odds of a chance event increase if the event hasn't occurred recently.

The normal distribution

- Many characteristics are distributed in a pattern represented by this bell-shaped curve. The horizontal axis shows how far above or below the mean a score is (measured in plus or minus standard deviations). The vertical axis is used to graph the number of cases obtaining each score. In a normal distribu- tion, the cases are distributed in a fixed pattern. For instance, 68.26% of the cases fall between -1 and 11 standard deviation. Modern IQ scores indicate where a person's measured intelligence falls in the normal distribution. On most IQ tests, the mean is set at an IQ of 100 and the standard deviation at 15. Any deviation IQ score can be converted into a percentile score. The mental classifications at the bottom of the figure are descriptive labels that roughly correspond to ranges of IQ scores.

the interaction of Heredity and environment

- Theorists use the term reaction range to refer to these genetically determined limits on IQ (or other traits).

mental age

- mental age indicated that he or she displayed the mental ability typical of a child of that chronological (actual) age.

insight

-. Insight occurs when people suddenly discover the correct solution to a problem after struggling with it for a while.

Heritability estimates

-A heritability ratio is an estimate of the proportion of trait variability in a population that is determined by variations in genetic inheri- tance. Heritability can be estimated for any trait. *The concept of heritability. A heritability ratio is an estimate of the portion of variation in a trait determined by heredity—with the remainder presumably determined by environment—as these pie charts illustrate. Heritability estimates for intelligence range between a high of 80% and a low of 40%. The consensus estimate tends to hover around 50%. Bear in mind that heritability ratios are estimates and have certain limitations, which are discussed in the text.*

Cognitive benefits of bilingualism.

-A meta- analysis (Adesope et al., 2010) of research on the cognitive correlates of bilingualism uncov- ered some interesting benefits associated with bilingualism. The data shown here are mean effect sizes for five cognitive variables. An effect size is an estimate of the magnitude of one variable's effects on another. An effect size from .20 to .50 is considered meaningful but small, from .50 to .80 is characterized as moderate, and above .80 is regarded as large. Obviously, the effects sizes vary, but the data suggest that bilingualism enhances, rather than undermines, cognitive development.

incubation

-An incubation effect occurs when new solutions surface for a previously unsolved problem after a period of not con- sciously thinking about the problem.

intelligence quotient

-An intelligence quotient (IQ) is a child's mental age divided by chronological age, multiplied by 100.

availability heuristic

-Availability is one such heuristic. The availability heuristic involves basing the estimated probability of an event on the ease with which relevant instances come to mind.

herusitics

-Because trial and error is inefficient, people often use shortcuts called heuristics in problem solving. A heuristic is a guiding principle or "rule of thumb" used in solv- ing problems or making decisions.

bilingualism

-Bilingualism is the acquisition of two languages that use different speech sounds, vocabulary, and grammatical rules.

decision making

-Decision making involves evaluating alternatives and making choices among them. Most people try to be systematic and rational in their decision making.

percentile

-Deviation IQ scores can be converted into percentile scores, as shown in Figure 8.16. A percentile score indicates the percentage of people who score at or below the score one has obtained.

unnecessary Constraints

-Effective problem solving requires specifying all the constraints governing a problem without assuming any constraints that don't exist.

interactionist theories of language acquisition.

-Interactionist theories of language acquisition. The inter- actionist view is that nature and nurture are both important to language acquisition. Maturation is thought to drive language development directly and to influence it indirectly by fostering cognitive development. Meanwhile, verbal exchanges with parents and others are also thought to play a critical role in molding language skills. The complex bidirectional relations depicted here shed some light on why there is room for exten- sive debate about the crucial factors in language acquisition.

Interactionist Theories

-Like Skinner, Chomsky has his critics (Bohannon & Bonvillian, 2009). They ask: What exactly is a language acquisition device? What are the neural mechanisms involved? They argue that the language acquisition device concept is awfully vague.

types of Problems

-Problem solving refers to active efforts to discover what must be done to achieve a goal that is not readily attainable. -Problems of inducing structure. The person must discover the relations among the parts of the problem. The series completion problems and the analogy problems in Figure 8.3 are examples of problems of inducing structure. -Problems of arrangement. The person must arrange the parts in a way that satisfies some criterion. The parts can usually be arranged in many ways. However, only one or a few of the arrangements form a solution. The string problem and the anagrams in Figure 8.3 fit in this category. -Problems of transformation. The person must carry out a sequence of transformations in order to reach a specific goal. The hobbits and orcs problem and the water jar problem in Figure 8.3 are examples of transformation problems. Transformation problems can be challenging. Even though you know exactly what the goal is, it's often not obvious how the goal can be achieved.

representativeness heuristic

-Representativeness is another guide in estimating probabilities identified by Kahneman and Tversky (1982). The representativeness heuristic involves basing the estimated probability of an event on how similar it is to the typical prototype of that event.

Adoption Studies

-Research comparing adopted children with their biological parents also provides evidence about the effects of heredity (and of environment, as we shall see). If adopted children resemble their biological parents in intelligence even though they were not reared by these parents, this finding supports the genetic hypothesis. The relevant studies indicate that there is indeed some measurable similarity between adopted chil- dren and their biological parents

Nativist Theories

-Skinner's explanation of language acquisition soon inspired a critique and rival explana- tion from Noam Chomsky (1959, 1965). Chomsky pointed out that there are an infinite number of sentences in a language. It's therefore unreasonable to expect that children learn language by imitation. For example, in English, we add ed to the end of a verb to construct past tense. Children routinely overregularize this rule, producing incor- rect verbs such as goed, eated, and thinked. Mistakes such as these are inconsistent with Skinner's emphasis on imitation because most adult speakers don't use ungrammatical words such as goed. Children can't imitate things they don't hear. According to Chomsky, children learn the rules of language, not specific verbal responses, as Skinner proposed. An alternative theory favored by Chomsky (1975, 1986, 2006) is that humans have an inborn, or "native," propensity to develop language. Nativist theory proposes that hu- mans are equipped

Irrelevant Information

-Sometime, a problem may contain information which is either not needed at all to solve the problem, or needed but only if the problem is to be solved in the slowest of ways. Regardless of the case, irrelevant information can be misleading and confusing.

Behaviorist Theories

-The behaviorist approach to language was first outlined by B. F. Skinner in his book Verbal Behavior (1957). He argued that children learn language the same way they learn everything else: through imitation, reinforcement, and other established principles of conditioning. According to Skinner, vocalizations that are not reinforced gradually de- cline in frequency. -Behaviorists assert that by controlling reinforcement, parents encourage their children to learn the correct meaning and pronunciation of words (Staats & Staats, 1963). For example, as children grow older, parents may insist on closer and closer approxima- tions of the word water before supplying the requested drink. If children's imitations of adults' and older children's sentences are understood, parents are able to answer their questions or respond to their requests, thus reinforcing their verbal behavior.

conjunction fallacy

-The conjunction fallacy occurs when people estimate that the odds of two uncertain events happening together are greater than the odds of either event happening alone.

normal distribution

-The normal distribution is a symmetrical, bell- shaped curve that represents the pattern in which many characteristics are dispersed in the population.

trail and error

-Trial and error is a common, albeit primitive, approach to solving problems. Trial and error involves trying possible solutions sequentially and discarding those that are in error until one works. T

Validity

-Validity refers to the ability of a test to measure what it was designed to measure.

language acquisition

-a language acquisition device (LAD)—an innate mechanism or process that facilitates the learning of language. - According to this view, humans learn language for the same reason that birds learn to fly—because they're biologically equipped for it. The exact nature of the language acquisition device has not been spelled out in nativist theories.

mental state

-a mental set exists when people persist in using problem-solving strategies that have worked in the past.

correlation coefficient

-correlation coefficient is a numerical index of the degree of relationship between two variables

deviation

-deviation IQ scores that locate respondents precisely within the normal distribution. For most IQ tests, the mean of the distribution is set at 100 and the standard deviation (SD) is set at 15. These choices were made to provide continuity with the original IQ ratio (mental age to chronological age) that was centered at 100.

functional fixedness

-functional fixedness—the tendency to perceive an item only in terms of its most common use. Functional fixedness has been seen in the difficulties that people have with the string problem.

linguistic relativity

-linguistic relativity, the hypothesis that one's language determines the nature of one's thought.

reliability

-reliability refers to the measurement consistency of a test.

risky design making

-risky decision making, which involves making choices under conditions of uncer- tainty.

Understanding loss aversion

-the critical thinker appreciates that losses subjectively seem larger than gains of equal size.

recognizing framing effects

-the critical thinker is aware that how choices are posed or structured can influence subjective preceptions of probabilities.

Understanding the limitations of the representativeness heuristic

-the critical thinker understands that focusing on prototypes can lead to inaccurate probability estimates.

Understanding the limitations of the availability heuristic

-the critical thinker understands that the ease with which examples come to mind may not be an accurate guide to the probability of an event.

Framing

Framing refers to how decision is- sues are posed or how choices are struc- tured. P

divergent thinking

In divergent thinking one tries to expand the range of alter- natives by generating many possible solutions.

twin studies

Twin studies, which compare identical and fraternal twins, have played a major role in disentangling the effects of heredity and environment on intelligence.