ch 12: deductive reasoning and decision making
A coin has been tossed six times, and has landed on "heads" five out of the six times. Haley comments that the coin must not be a fair coin, but Zhanna says that this conclusion is unwarranted. Haley has fallen victim to the a. small-sample fallacy. b. base rate fallacy. c. anchoring and adjustment heuristic. d. false algorithm.
a
A family has three children, all of whom are boys. Everyone predicts that their next child will be a girl. Which heuristic does this demonstrate? a. Representativeness b. Availability c. Anchoring and adjustment d. Denying the consequent
a
A professor knows that if it is raining outside, the window of her office will be wet. She looks at her window and notices that it is wet. She, therefore, concludes that it must be raining outside. Which kind of reasoning is she using? a. Affirming the consequent b. Affirming the antecedent c. Denying the consequent d. Denying the antecedent
a
According to the discussion of representativeness, a. we believe that random-looking outcomes are more likely than orderly-looking outcomes. b. we take sample size into account when we make decisions. c. we take base rates into account when we make decisions. d. we are underconfident when we make decisions in a laboratory setting.
a
According to the discussion of the representativeness heuristic in Chapter 12, people often commit the small-sample fallacy in social situations. An example of this point is that a. people may form a stereotype, based on only a few members of a particular ethnic group. b. people frequently try to confirm their current hypothesis. c. people judge others in terms of personal characteristics that are easy to remember. d. people judge the conjunction of two events to be more likely than just one of those events.
a
According to the research on the classic "selection task" (involving the cards that contain a letter and a number), a. accuracy often depends on factors such as the concreteness and familiarity of the problem. b. performance is better when people use top-down processing. c. surprisingly, people perform better when the task is abstract than when it is concrete. d. people prefer to use syllogisms, rather than conditional reasoning.
a
According to the social cognition approach to stereotypes, we form stereotypes primarily a. because of our normal cognitive processes. b. because we dislike certain categories of people. c. because we feel guilty, and we want to blame other categories of people for some problems. d. because of factors that evolutionary psychology can explain.
a
An important difference between reasoning and decision making is that a. reasoning tasks are more likely to use established rules to reach a conclusion. b. reasoning tasks are more likely to generate ecologically valid research. c. decision-making tasks are more likely to emphasize abstract premises. d. decision-making tasks are more likely to include all the necessary information.
a
An important difference between reasoning and decision making is that in reasoning, a. we have well-established rules for arriving at conclusions. b. the premises are more likely to be ambiguous. c. the problem has greater ecological validity. d. we are not as likely to know whether our conclusions are correct.
a
Cynthia has developed an informal hypothesis: "If a student is a psychology major, then that student favors gun control." She questions 20 psychology majors and all 20 do favor gun control. However, she does not pursue additional information. Specifically, she does not seek out people who oppose gun control to determine whether they are psychology majors. From the perspective of deductive reasoning, Cynthia has a. demonstrated confirmation bias. b. relied too heavily on the belief-bias effect. c. relied too heavily on counterexamples. d. overused the availability heuristic.
a
Here is a reasoning problem: "Some vegetables have seeds. Some things that have seeds are fruits. Therefore, some vegetables are fruits." What kind of reasoning does this represent? a. A syllogism b. Conditional reasoning c. Propositional reasoning d. The availability heuristic
a
Heuristics in decision making a. may become a liability when they are applied inappropriately. b. always lead us to the correct decision. c. are mathematical formulas that precisely predict how people will perform on decision-making tasks. d. are helpful in decision-making situations, but people rarely apply them.
a
Julio has been told, "If your name appears on the list outside Dr. Forest's office, you'll be in the psychology honors class next semester." Julio's name does indeed appear on the list. Julio concludes that he will be in the psychology honors class next semester. Julio is using a. conditional reasoning. b. the framing effect. c. decision making. d. hindsight bias
a
People who often watch soap operas are likely to believe that amnesia, extramarital affairs, and mysterious disappearances occur more often than they actually occur in real life. A likely explanation for this finding is that a. familiarity influences availability. b. these events are actually underreported by the media. c. frightening events are more likely to be handled by deductive reasoning. d. they are overusing the crystal-ball technique.
a
Psychologists have published an article which shows that many U.S. residents avoided flying in airplanes after the 2001 terrorist attacks. In fact, for several months afterwards, many people decided to drive, rather than fly. This phenomenon can best be explained by a. the influence of recency on availability. b. the conjunction fallacy. c. the illusory correlation effect. d. too much emphasis on the likelihood ratio.
a
Suppose that a doctor decides that a patient has a cold, rather than a much rarer disease, Disease X. She decides the disease is a cold, even though one symptom is fairly typical of Disease X and fairly atypical of a cold. This doctor is a. paying attention to the base rate of the diseases. b. showing the confirmation bias. c. demonstrating the small-sample fallacy. d. combining the availability heuristic with the representativeness heuristic.
a
Suppose that you are trying to decide whether to take a course from Professor Jones or Professor Smith. Your friends have made many positive comments about both professors. You decide to take a course with Professor Jones, because today you heard more praise about Professor Jones. You are using a. the availability heuristic. b. the anchoring and adjustment heuristic. c. the representativeness heuristic. d. the recognition heuristic.
a
Suppose that you are working as an industrial/organizational psychologist for a company. You've determined that the employees tend to be too confident about sales decisions that later turn out to be unwise. Remembering what you learned in your cognitive psychology course, your wisest decision would be to a. use the crystal-ball technique. b. use the meta-analysis technique. c. emphasize that the employees should try to find more information that confirms their beliefs, rather than disconfirming those beliefs. d. emphasize that the employees need to review the principles of propositional calculus.
a
Suppose that you hear someone say, "I don't care how many days I am sick; I just care how many days I am well." Which of the following concepts from decision making would be most relevant to this statement? a. The framing effect b. The hindsight bias c. The my-side bias d. The conjunction fallacy
a
When we make judgments based on the ease with which examples come to mind, we are using a. the availability heuristic. b. the representativeness heuristic. c. the anchoring and adjustment heuristic. d. the conjunction fallacy.
a
Which of the following kinds of propositional reasoning is actually valid? a. Affirming the antecedent b. Affirming the consequent c. Denying the antecedent d. Disproving the antecedent
a
Which of the following students has the best explanation for illusory correlations? a. Tim: "Illusory correlations arise when people focus their attention on only one set of characteristics, and they do not consider the other sets of characteristics." b. Joanne: "Illusory correlations are based on the inappropriate use of confidence intervals." c. Sophie: "Illusory correlations resemble the conjunction fallacy, in which we believe that two psychological characteristics or categories are related to each other." d. Ingo: "Actually, a recent meta-analysis showed that—ironically—illusory correlations are illusory."
a
Which of the following students provides the most accurate information about the research on overconfidence? a. Solange: "Overconfidence applies to many other cognitive tasks, in addition to decision making." b. Igor: "The research on overconfidence shows that participants are consistently overconfident, no matter what kind of questions they are asked." c. Steve: "Individual differences are surprisingly small in this area; both experts and novices show similar levels of overconfidence." d. Amber: "The overconfidence effect can be traced to illusory correlations."
a
Which of the following students' statements best summarizes the research on the belief-bias effect? a. Petra: "The belief-bias effect shows us how top-down processing influences logical reasoning; we should emphasize the actual information in the reasoning problem." b. Chris: "The belief-bias effect illustrates how people systematically keep trying to confirm a hypothesis, rather than trying to disconfirm it." c. Josh: "According to the belief-bias effect, people systematically prefer a conclusion that is stated in the positive form, rather than a conclusion that uses the word not." d. Cynthia: "The belief-bias effect shows us that people draw conclusions in logical reasoning on the basis of how frequently their prior beliefs come to mind."
a
Why is the concept of base rate important in decisions that involve the representativeness heuristic? a. People usually don't pay enough attention to base rate when making these decisions. b. People are so aware of information about base rate that they typically make accurate decisions. c. People rarely make the small-sample fallacy when making these decisions. d. When people have a background in statistics, they are much more likely to make correct decisions on tasks involving the representativeness heuristic.
a
You are trying to decide whether it will rain tomorrow, based on how many rainy days you remember from the last week. Which heuristic are you using? a. Availability b. Crystal-ball technique c. Anchoring and adjustment d. Representativeness
a
A friend tells you that drama majors tend to be extremely disorganized. However, when you actually make a tally of 10 friends who are drama majors and 20 friends who are not, you find no relationship. Your friend's error was most likely to be an example of a. the hindsight bias. b. an illusory correlation. c. the framing effect. d. the anchoring and adjustment heuristic.
b
According to the discussion in Chapter 12, the belief-bias effect a. is an example of overreliance on bottom-up processing. b. is likely to operate for people who have difficulty thinking flexibly. c. reveals that people provide irrational answers on logical reasoning tasks. d. arises from the general human tendency to answer "true," rather than "false."
b
According to the discussion of the availability heuristic, a. this heuristic is consistently more accurate than the representativeness heuristic. b. we use this heuristic when we try to estimate probability by thinking of relevant examples. c. this heuristic emphasizes that we ignore the conjunction fallacy. d. this heuristic explains why we typically provide confidence intervals that are too narrow.
b
According to the research on overconfidence, a. overconfidence can be easily demonstrated in the laboratory, but not in real-world situations. b. politicians—like other people—are frequently overconfident. c. overconfidence is limited to decision making; it does not seem to apply to other cognitive tasks. d. overconfidence seems to apply to about 40% of the population; about 30% are accurate, and the remaining 30% are underconfident.
b
According to the research on prospect theory, a. people generally avoid risks. b. when the situation involves possible losses, people usually seek risks. c. most people can overcome the framing effect because they naturally focus on the risks involved. d. people consistently make decisions that are correct from a statistical point of view.
b
Anchoring and adjustment is relevant when we estimate confidence intervals because a. we are overconfident about the adjustment process. b. we rely too heavily on the anchor. c. we make adjustments in our estimates that are larger than they should be. d. we should apply the adjustment prior to the anchor.
b
At midterm, a college determines that 300 of its students are at risk for suspension this semester. Its tutoring center argues that, with a series of targeted emails encouraging students to come in for help, it can promise to certainly save 100 of those students from suspension. However, an external firm approaches the college with an offer to start a new program, with a 1/3 chance of preventing all 300 students from being suspended (and a 2/3 chance of saving none of these students). Under which circumstances is the college most likely to hire the external firm? a. the tutoring center and the external firm emphasize the number of students to be "saved" in their presentations b. the tutoring center and the external firm emphasize the number of students who will be suspended under each of their programs c. the tutoring center emphasizes the potential number of students to be suspended, while the external firm emphasizes the potential number of students saved from suspension d. both the tutoring center and the external firm place equal emphasis on the students to be "saved" and the students who will be suspended under each approach
b
Barnett believes that "most people" share his political views. However, Barnett is basing his judgment on the views of his close friends, with whom he discusses politics most frequently, and with whom he shares core values and attitudes. Barnett is relying on the _____ heuristic. a. representativeness b. availability c. anchoring and adjustment d. conjunction
b
Here is a reasoning problem: If Mary is a psychology major at your college then she must take statistics. Mary graduates from your college without taking statistics. Therefore, Mary is not a psychology major. What kind of problem is this? a. Analogy b. Conditional reasoning problem c. The crystal-ball technique d. Syllogism
b
Heuristics are relevant when we try to answer a reasoning problem because a. we carefully assess the logic behind each reasoning problem, rather than responding quickly. b. we often answer a reasoning problem by using a heuristic that a conclusion is a "good bet," even if it is not always true. c. we are especially accurate on reasoning problems that involve "affirming the consequent." d. we are significantly more accurate if we try decision-making strategies in trying to solve reasoning problems.
b
On the classic selection task in conditional reasoning, people work on the problem, "If a card has a vowel on one side, then it has an even number on the other side." Research on variations of this task indicates that a. people consistently seek out negative information rather than positive information. b. the problem is easier to solve if it describes something concrete, such as drinking age. c. this is one of the few tasks that people can solve more accurately in their heads than when the problem is represented with concrete objects. d. people are systematically influenced by the representativeness heuristic.
b
One reason that decision makers often use the representativeness heuristic inappropriately is that a. they pay too much attention to the base rate. b. they do not pay enough attention to sample size. c. their decisions are influenced too greatly by a large sample size. d. they estimate frequency in terms of how easily they can think of examples that have a particular characteristic.
b
Research on the availability heuristic shows that a. when medical journals contain many articles about a particular disease, physicians are likely to believe that it is easily curable. b. estimates for a country's population are distorted by the frequency with which the country is mentioned in the news. c. more recent events tend to be given relatively little weight in making frequency estimates, compared with events that occurred long ago. d. people almost always select answers that are consistent with deductive reasoning.
b
Research on the base rate in connection with the representativeness heuristic has demonstrated that a. people pay too much attention to the base rate in making probability judgments. b. people often reach the correct decision when the question is worded differently. c. training sessions are generally unsuccessful at getting students to use base-rate information appropriately. d. the conjunction fallacy explains why people pay so little attention to the base rate.
b
Suppose that a friend is wondering what ever happened to a classmate named Bob who attended your high school and was on the wrestling team. You say that Bob is now a banker. Your friend says, "Well, Bob is likely to be a banker who is still interested in sports, rather than just a plain banker." Your friend has just demonstrated a. the availability heuristic. b. the conjunction fallacy. c. an illusory correlation. d. the confirmation bias.
b
Suppose that you are having a serious argument with a friend, and you are convinced that your own perspective is correct. According to the discussion in Chapter 12, this situation is an example of a. hindsight bias. b. my-side bias. c. the crystal-ball technique. d. the conjunction rule.
b
Suppose that you see a male student on your campus who is wearing a suit and a tie. You conclude, "He must be a business major; he couldn't be a psychology major." However, your college has twice as many psychology majors as business majors. Your decision is apparently guided by a. confirmation bias. b. the representativeness heuristic. c. my-side bias. d. the anchoring and adjustment heuristic.
b
Theme 2 argues that people are usually fairly accurate on cognitive tasks. How does this theme apply to deductive reasoning tasks? a. People are not very accurate on everyday deductive-reasoning tasks, so the theme doesn't apply here. b. The reasoning tasks we encounter in our daily lives are generally more concrete, so we are more likely to be accurate. c. People typically change these reasoning tasks into decision-making tasks, which are easier to solve quickly and accurately. d. People really are quite accurate on reasoning tasks, even when these tasks are abstract.
b
We often tend to see psychological patterns in the pictures that people draw. For example, we might think that suspicious people would tend to draw exaggerated eyes. What error in judgment does this represent? a. The confirmation bias b. Illusory correlation c. Law of small numbers d. The my-side bias
b
What is one of the difficulties with the availability heuristic? a. It seldom leads to a correct decision in everyday life. b. Frequency estimation may be distorted by the familiarity of the examples. c. People rely too much on adjustments and not enough on the anchor. d. People rely too much on abstract evidence, rather than concrete evidence.
b
When people draw a logical conclusion on the basis of whether it agrees with their everyday knowledge, they are demonstrating the a. affirming-the-consequent error. b. belief-bias effect. c. small-sample fallacy. d. Wason selection-task effect.
b
Which of the following statements about factors affecting conditional reasoning is correct? a. The length of a problem is more important in determining problem difficulty than is the abstractness of the problem. b. People typically make more errors with abstract problems than with concrete problems. c. People have more difficulty with sentences containing a single negative than they have with double-negative sentences. d. If a problem contains the word not in the antecedent, people have difficulty; however, the word not in the consequent does not influence response speed.
b
Which of the following students provides the most accurate perspective on the availability heuristic? a. Barbara: "The availability heuristic is actually very accurate, and it almost always leads us to the correct decision." b. Harley: "The availability heuristic is generally accurate, but recency and familiarity can distort our decisions." c. Angela: "The availability heuristic is generally accurate, except that we should be cautious about the recognition heuristic, which is not very accurate." d. Magda: "Unfortunately, the availability heuristic is the least accurate of the three major heuristics, especially because of the hindsight bias."
b
Which of the following students' statements provides the best overview of the research on decision making? a. Samantha: "People consistently make correct decisions based on the information they are given; problems arise when some crucial information is missing."" b. Nayan: "People's use of heuristics in decision making is usually adaptive, unless the heuristics are applied inappropriately."" c. Arthur: ""People consistently make incorrect decisions, unless the material is extremely concrete."" d. Shirley: "The most common kinds of decision-making errors involve belief-bias errors; otherwise, decision making is reasonably accurate."
b
A likely explanation for the illusory correlation effect is that a. people choose a stereotype as an anchor, and they make only small adjustments based on that anchor. b. people believe that correlations are illusions, somewhat similar to optical illusions. c. we pay too much attention to just one cell in the matrix, rather than the three other possible combinations of variables. d. we select the least available cell as an anchor, and then we make adjustments away from that anchor.
c
A professor asks students to guess what percent of people in homeless shelters are parents and children. Before you can consider your answer, another student shouts out "about 10%." Your answer may be either higher or lower than it would be otherwise because of a. the belief-bias effect. b. the confirmation bias. c. the anchoring and adjustment heuristic. d. the hindsight bias.
c
According to the discussion of logical reasoning, a. conditional reasoning does not seem to require the use of working memory. b. conditional reasoning is the one area in which negative information and positive information are equally easy to process. c. people usually perform better on conditional reasoning problems if the statements are concrete, rather than abstract. d. surprisingly, people actually have more trouble solving a concrete problem than an abstract problem.
c
According to the discussion of the confirmation bias in deductive reasoning, a. the confirmation bias slightly increases the accuracy of answers for novices. b. the confirmation bias typically occurs when people rely too strongly on the crystal-ball technique. c. the confirmation bias means that people prefer to demonstrate that a hypothesis is true, rather than to demonstrate that it is false. d. typically only about 10% of college students tend to show the confirmation bias.
c
According to the research on the confirmation bias, a. people would rather focus on the antecedent than on the consequent. b. people would rather think in terms of what is not true than in terms of what is true. c. people would rather confirm a hypothesis than disprove it. d. people would rather deny the consequent than affirm the antecedent.
c
According to the research on the reasons for overconfidence, a. people are aware that their knowledge is based on uncertain assumptions. b. people are typically conscientious about searching for examples to contradict a conclusion. c. people often have trouble recalling the alternate hypotheses. d. people are overly eager to think of situations in which some alternative hypotheses would be correct.
c
Chapter 12, on reasoning and decision making, emphasizes that we frequently endorse our current hypotheses and thoughts, rather than questioning them. Which of the following topics is least likely to show an overemphasis on our current hypotheses? a. The confirmation bias b. Illusory correlations c. The recognition heuristic d. The anchoring and adjustment heuristic
c
Consider the following problem: "Some college students are bright. All bright people are hard working. Therefore, all college students are hard working." What kind of thinking task does this problem represent? a. Propositional reasoning b. Problem solving c. A syllogism d. Decision making
c
Here is a reasoning problem: "If today is Tuesday then my cognition class meets this morning. Today is not Tuesday. Therefore, my cognition class does not meet this morning." What kind of reasoning does this represent? a. Affirming the consequent b. Denying the consequent c. Denying the antecedent d. Affirming the antecedent
c
How could the illusory correlation effect produce a stereotype? a. People use the prospect theory to predict the likelihood of the stereotype. b. People use the representativeness heuristic to determine whether a particular stereotype seems likely for a particular group of people. c. People pay too much attention to a group of people who have a particular combination of characteristics, and they ignore the other three possible combinations of characteristics. d. People overemphasize the estimate provided by anchor, and they pay too little attention to bottom-up processing.
c
Imagine that your professor is discussing the prevalence of psychological disorders in the general population, and he says, "A study conducted in 2012 estimated that about 11% of the population has a psychological disorder at any one time." If you were to estimate a confidence interval, based on this number—11%—you would be most likely a. to use the confirmation bias inappropriately. b. to estimate this range by using the availability heuristic, which would be biased because of recent examples. c. to rely too heavily on an anchor, and not make large enough adjustments to that anchor. d. to use decision frames inappropriately.
c
In contrast to the representativeness heuristic, the availability heuristic a. begins with a specific situation, and you must judge its likelihood. b. begins with a set of assumptions. c. involves recalling some examples of a general category. d. is related to hindsight bias.
c
Research on the belief-bias effect shows that a. it is especially likely to operate for experts. b. people who earn high scores on a test of flexible thinking are especially likely to demonstrate the belief-bias effect. c. familiar statements often lead people to use "common sense" rather than logical reasoning. d. it emphasizes how people exaggerate their bottom-up processing.
c
Research on the conjunction fallacy shows that a. people pay more attention to statistical probability than to heuristic strategies. b. people pay too much attention to sample size. c. people sometimes believe that the probability of a combination of two attributes is statistically more likely than the probability of one of those attributes. d. people simply misunderstand the instructions because the material is so vivid; when the task is explained, the conjunction fallacy disappears.
c
Suppose that Oksana is driving in a car to a friend's house. As she pulls into the friend's driveway, she sees that the odometer shows the number 2222.2 miles. She says to herself, "This number is weird...something really unusual is going to happen today when I am with my friend." This reaction would be an example of a. the consistency bias. b. the law of large numbers. c. the representativeness heuristic. d. the anchoring-and-adjustment heuristic.
c
Suppose that a student named John is asked to judge how many students are enrolled in his introductory biology class. He replies, "about 100....well, maybe between about 90 and 110." Based on the discussion of confidence intervals, you predict that a. John's estimate probably relies too heavily on the ease with which examples come to mind. b. John is likely to be heavily influenced by the confirmation bias. c. John probably relied too heavily on the initial anchor of 100 students. d. John probably would have been wiser to use the representativeness heuristic to estimate the confidence intervals.
c
Suppose that you are trying to decide whether to buy tomatoes or cucumbers in a grocery store. You think about the wide variety of recipes that use tomatoes, compared with only a few recipes that use cucumbers. You are using a. the representativeness heuristic. b. the anchoring-and-adjustment heuristic. c. the availability heuristic. d. the confirmation bias.
c
Suppose that you are watching television just after a Congressional election, and your favorite candidate has won—although the election was close. You say to a friend, "Well, I was really quite confident that he would win." This might be an example of a. a conjunction fallacy. b. the framing effect. c. the hindsight bias. d. the representativeness heuristic.
c
Suppose you have a friend who is just beginning college, and she plans to go to school half-time. She estimates that she will earn her bachelor's degree in about 7 years, rather than 8 years. It is most likely that she a. is avoiding the use of the recognition heuristic. b. is using a syllogism inappropriately. c. is falling victim to the planning fallacy. d. should make better use of conditional reasoning.
c
The research on logical reasoning shows that the confirmation bias is especially likely to operate when the participants a. are working on an ecologically valid task, rather than a task in the psychology laboratory. b. use a diagram to solve the problem, rather than solving it "in their heads." c. are working on a task that focuses on arbitrary stimuli, rather than on human interactions. d. rely too heavily on bottom-up processes.
c
When people commit the base-rate fallacy, they often a. rely too heavily on the availability heuristic. b. believe that the conjunction of two events is more likely than either event by itself. c. pay too little attention to information about relative frequency. d. are especially likely to demonstrate the hindsight bias.
c
Which of the following heuristics is most likely to produce a correct decision? a. The availability heuristic b. The representativeness heuristic c. The recognition heuristic d. The anchoring and adjustment heuristic
c
Your text discussed a classic study in which people were asked which cards they would need to turn over in order to find out whether a rule about the letters and numbers on the cards was true or false. What did the study show? a. People rely too heavily on denying the consequent. b. People have difficulty understanding double negatives. c. People typically avoid trying to disproving their hypotheses. d. People overuse bottom-up processing.
c
A physician is trying to convince a man that he must give up smoking. The man initially believes that the probability of lung cancer is increased by only 10% if he smokes. Why are decision-making heuristics relevant to this situation? a. The situation will encourage the conjunction fallacy. b. The probability of an illusory correlation is increased. c. Familiarity distorts availability judgments. d. The man's estimate will be influenced by a low anchor
d
According to the discussion of sample size and representativeness, a. a small sample is more reliable than a large sample. b. when a sample is large, people trust the results more than they should. c. people tend to pay too much attention to the base rate. d. people frequently commit the small-sample fallacy.
d
According to the framing effect, a. under some circumstances, the framework of a question encourages too much reliance on the representativeness heuristic. b. when people make decisions, the deep structure—or frame—is more important than the surface structure. c. decision-makers show a clear-cut tendency to assume that the same frame holds true for all the decisions in a particular set. d. the way in which a question is asked has an important influence on people's decisions.
d
Because of a recently passed law, in Oregon, everyone who gets a driver's license or state identification card is automatically registered to vote; they must choose to "opt out" if they do not wish to be registered. In most states, a person must take steps to register to vote. In the future, if voting statistics show that significantly more Oregonians than other U.S. citizens are registered to vote, we might say that this is a good example of the _______ heuristic in action. a. representativeness b. availability c. anchoring and adjustment d. default
d
Dr. Anna Smith is a clinical psychologist. She just heard about someone who had a bad reaction to a medication. She knows that this medication has worked well with many of her clients who have experienced depression during the last few months. With respect to decision-making heuristics, she should be concerned that her future decisions about this medication might be influenced by a. the conjunction fallacy. b. the relationship between illusory correlations and the representativeness heuristic. c. anchoring and adjustment. d. the tendency for recency to influence availability.
d
Here is a reasoning problem. "All writers are creative. Some actors are creative. Therefore, some actors are writers." This is an example of a. propositional reasoning. b. problem solving. c. decision making. d. a syllogism.
d
If a researcher wants to conduct a study on the framing effect, which of the following would be the most likely topic for the study? a. "How do math undergraduates and math professors differ in their confidence about decisions?" b. "How long do people maintain their commitment to an unsatisfactory decision?" c. "Under what circumstances do people overestimate their ability to predict events that have already occurred?" d. "Should a product that costs $300 and is marked down to $200 be advertised as only $200 or $100 off?"
d
In the hindsight bias, a. people rely too much on an anchor, and they fail to make appropriate adjustments. b. the availability heuristic is more useful than the representativeness heuristic. c. people believe that their foresight is more accurate than their hindsight. d. people overestimate their accuracy for predicting past events.
d
Jeff is concerned that the framing effect may be influencing his decision to study abroad next semester. According to Chapter 12, an effective way to correct for the framing effect is to a. see whether he can come up with some representative counter-examples. b. apply the anchoring-and-adjustment heuristic to see whether the decision can be appropriately adjusted. c. consider how many positive and how many negative examples come readily to mind. d. consider how he would feel about not studying abroad next semester.
d
Researchers such as Gerd Gigerenzer argue that people create a wide variety of heuristics that generally help them make adaptive decisions in the real world—a point of view referred to as a. anchoring and adjustment. b. irrational decision making. c. framing. d. ecological rationality.
d
Studies on the belief-bias effect conclude that a. in general, people select answers that are correct from a logical standpoint. b. the anchoring and adjustment heuristic often operates inappropriately. c. people typically have the biased belief that they ought to affirm the consequent. d. people often select answers that are "common sense" rather than logically correct.
d
Suppose that Joseph Brown is a U.S. diplomat who works in Country X, and he is trying to assess whether Country X poses a threat to the United States. The diplomat gathers evidence that Country X poses a threat, but he does not try to gather evidence that Country X does not pose a threat. This error is called a. the failure to transfer knowledge to a new task. b. the belief-bias effect. c. the anchoring-and-adjustment heuristic. d. the confirmation bias.
d
Suppose that a politician is drafting her position paper on the educational situation in her district. She is trying to decide whether she should say, "If we adopt Plan A, we estimate that 10% of our students will drop out of high school before graduating." Alternately, she might say, "If we adopt Plan A, we estimate that 90% of our students will graduate from high school." She would probably find that her audience responds differently to these two versions of her talk, because of a. the belief-bias effect. b. the anchoring and adjustment heuristic. c. the hindsight bias. d. the framing effect.
d
Suppose that a quiz show host asks a contestant which city in France has the greater population, Paris or Nantes. The contestant immediately responds, "Paris." According to the discussion of decision making, a. this is an example of an illusory correlation. b. people usually have difficulty in answering questions that use the anchoring and adjustment heuristic. c. this is a variant of the representativeness heuristic. d. this is an example of the recognition heuristic.
d
Suppose that someone asks you to name the most popular television situation comedies, and you respond with the names of two shows that you regularly watch. This would be an example of a. anchoring and adjustment. b. an illusory correlation. c. representativeness. d. availability.
d
Suppose that you are assigning eight college students to two committees. By chance, one committee has four students from the social sciences, and the other has four students from the humanities. If people protest that this arrangement does not seem to be random, they are following a. the confirmation bias. b. the base-rate fallacy. c. the availability heuristic. d. the representativeness heuristic.
d
Suppose that you are given several pieces of information, and you must infer whether the logical consequence of that information is correct. The task you are performing is called a. decision making. b. insightful problem solving. c. divergent thinking. d. deductive reasoning.
d
Suppose that you hear about a friend who graduated from your college in performing arts. In addition, suppose that you judge that she is more likely to be selling insurance and active in community theater than she is to be selling insurance. You have committed a. the anchoring and adjustment heuristic. b. the crystal-ball technique. c. the belief-bias effect. d. the conjunction fallacy.
d
The discussion about conditional reasoning pointed out that a. the easiest kind of conditional reasoning task is denying the consequent. b. conditional reasoning tasks are much more difficult to solve than syllogisms. c. negative terms (e.g., never) do not affect the difficulty of a conditional reasoning problem. d. the central executive is especially active on conditional reasoning tasks.
d
The research on the framing effect suggests that a. decisions are overly influenced by the availability heuristic. b. the hindsight bias is more influential than the representativeness heuristic. c. we tend to be overconfident about the accuracy of our decisions. d. we are influenced by the wording of a question and the background information.
d
When people estimate confidence intervals, they typically a. provide estimates that are too wide. b. rely too heavily on the representativeness heuristic. c. are not sufficiently confident about their decisions. d. provide estimates that are too narrow.
d
Which of the following students provides the most accurate information about the belief-bias effect? a. Tabitha: "The belief-bias effect means that novices are not as accurate as experts when solving reasoning problems." b. Pilar: "The belief-bias effect demonstrates that top-down processes are active when we use deductive reasoning." c. Joell: "Flexible thinkers are especially likely to make mistakes due to the belief-bias effect." d. Abilash: "The belief-bias effect operates for syllogisms, but not for conditional reasoning problems."
d
Which of the following students provides the most accurate information about the representativeness heuristic? a. Ko-Eun: "We use the representativeness heuristic when we judge frequency in terms of how easily we can think of examples of a category." b. Tianna: "The representativeness heuristic demonstrates that we initially make a guess, and then we make modest adjustments to that initial guess." c. Brandon: "When using the representativeness heuristic, we overemphasize the base rate and don't pay enough attention to the availability heuristic." d. Celia: "The representativeness heuristic typically works well, although we tend to ignore other relevant information that we should consider."
d
Which of the following students provides the most accurate summary of Type 1 and Type 2 processing, in connection with reasoning and decision making? a. Rika: "In Type 1 processing, we make very careful judgments; in Type 2 processing, we don't really care about our accuracy." b. Joe: "Adults consistently use Type 1 processing; children and adolescents consistently use Type 2 processing." c. Heather: "Type 1 processing is used for reasoning; Type 2 processing is used for decision making." d. Frank: "Type 1 processing doesn't require much conscious attention; Type 2 processing is slow, and we need to pay close attention."
d
Yesterday, Dr. Ling announced to his biopsychology class, "If we are going to have a review session on Tuesday, everyone in the class will receive an e-mail message on Friday." Elspeth is enrolled in the class, and she did not receive a message on Friday. Based on these premises, she concludes that the class will not have a review session on Tuesday. She is using the kind of reasoning known as a. affirming the antecedent. b. affirming the consequent. c. denying the antecedent. d. denying the consequent.
d
You decide that a bearded professor wearing a rumpled sports coat is a member of the art faculty, rather than the business school faculty (which actually has more members) because he looks like an artist. What judgment error have you committed? a. You relied too heavily on the anchoring and adjustment heuristic. b. You should not have trusted your hindsight so completely. c. You should have been more aware of the law of large numbers. d. You did not pay enough attention to the base rate.
d
You estimate the number of bottles of pop you'll need for the 4th of July picnic, based on the Christmas party consumption, but taking into account the fact that the weather will be warmer. Which heuristic does this example illustrate? a. Availability b. Base rate fallacy c. Anchoring and adjustment d. Representativeness
d
