Thinking Exam 2 (copy2)

What studies demonstrate the theory of mind deficit?

-- the juice-box false-belief task covered in the video -- The false photograph task (Zaitchick, 1990) -- The curse of knowledge (Birch & Bloom, 2007) -- The tapping study (Newton, 1990)

Possible explanations for why there is a delay in understanding of false beliefs?

-Domain-Specific deficit: difficulty in understanding other people's minds -Domain-general deficit: Difficulty in inhibiting any salient representation

Challenge Question: We covered three cues to causal reasoning: (1) temporal contiguity, (2) spatial contiguity, and (3) association/contingency. Be sure to understand whether each of these cues is necessary and/or sufficient for inferring causality. Being necessary means that you always have to have that cue to infer causality. Being sufficient means that having that cue is always sufficient to infer causality.

1)Temporal contiguity: Temporal gap breaks causal perception. Eg. Red ball hits green ball. Three seconds later. Green ball moves. Not necessary and not sufficient. Eg. When plant seeds, there is a large temporal gap between planting the seeds and the tree growing, but planting the seeds caused the seed to grow (with the help of water, etc.). Thus, one does not need temporal continuity. In addition, it is not sufficient. Just because I snap my hand and the sprinklers go on automatically, it is not sufficient to believe that I turned on the sprinklers. 2)Spatial contiguity is not necessary and not sufficient to infer causality. For instance, pressure from home might be the cause of my anxiety, even though I live halfway across the globe. Thus, spatial contiguity is not necessary to infer causality. Additionally it is not sufficient. If a battery operated control car rams into another battery operated control car, and the second one starts moving, it is possible that someone used a control to cause the second one to move. Thus, spatial contiguity is not sufficient. 3) Association / Contingency (If Y occurs when X occurs and if Y does not occur when X does not occur, X is a cause of Y) is necessary but not sufficient. Needs to be relationship. But correlation does not imply causation. will explain more.

Understand the results and the implications of the following studies on the theory of mind deficit. -- The tapping study (Newton, 1990

120 songs were tapped out. Listeners guessed only 3 songs out of the 120. Tappers estimated that listeners would identify the song correctly 50% of the time -The tune is so salient in your head while tapping -Difficult to believe that listeners cannot recognize the tune -Clearly an illusion Availability heuristic: what we see/think/know is too salient for us. Theory of mind deficit (difficulty attributing mental states - beliefs, intents, desires, knowledge - to people (oneself or others). Difficulty understanding that others have beliefs, desires, and intentions that are different from one's own

What are the three different forms of confirmation bias?

1. Information seeking: Bias in information-seeking 2. Overweighting: Bias in weighting of evidence 3. Assimilation: Bias in interpretation of evidence

7. Illusion of skill acquisition: When do we experience it? When would it go away?

1. The more people merely watch others perform (without actually practicing themselves), the more they nonetheless believe they could perform the skill, too. 2. However, people's actual performances do not improve after merely watching others. Happens with dance moves, easily written papers, elegant lectures, master performance Goes away when you actually try it and realize you haven't acquired the skill as well as you thought

No A are B

= No B are A. Tip: no conclusion can be drawn from two negative premises

Some A are B

= Some B are A

Someone who tries to win support for an argument or die any exploiting her or his opponent's feelings of pity/guilt Eg. But I worked so hard for that project

Appeal to pity

Target is persuaded to agree by pride Eg. Any intelligent person knows that...

Appeal to pride

24. Be prepared to answer what the Rescorla-Wagner model predicts under certain situations and how it works. You don't need to memorize the formula, but you should be able to identify each term, and know each term's meaning.

A model for animal conditioning.

26. Exceptions

Abnormal events are more mutable than normal events. Eg. Make left the bar and got mugged. Two conditions: he either took the usual route home or he took a new route home. Participants felt greater sympathy for the victim given the second because it is easier to undo an exceptional event than a normal event Macrae, et al. 1993

Challenge question: Explain how each of the 3 different forms of confirmation bias can account for each of the following phenomena: -- the above average effect -- planning fallacy (NOTE: The 3 forms of confirmation bias were covered on October 23rd.)

Above Average Effect: 1. Information Seeking-Positive-test bias-People look for the consequences that they would expect their hypothesis to be true (X), rather than what would happen if they were false (not X). When people are thinking about whether they are a good driver, they think about all of the cases in which they were a safe driver, and when they think of these situations, they conclude it is true. However, they do not think of the situations when they were unsafe drivers, leading them to conclude they are above average. Seek only for X but do not check not-X. Think about how they follow rules (already assume they are a good driver). Shown by Wason Carad Selection Task, just look for confirming cases. 2. Overweighting-when judging a relationship between two variables (eg. driving and safety), all four cells should be considered. But, people seem to attend largely to the presence/presence cell (when safe while driving), and overweight that, and do not pay attention to the other cells (eg. when unsafe while driving). 3. Assimilation- people who supported or did not support capital punishment, after reviewing full studies on capital punishment, returned back to their initial beliefs, reflecting biased assimilation of details of study. Participants commented that these studies disconfirming their initial beliefs were not well conducted and undermined the reported results. Thus, in instances when they did not drive safely, when thinking about the whole situation, people would likely think it was an exception and a unique situation, not a credible experience (eg. roads were exceptionally busy that day). Biased assimilation Planning Fallacy: 1. Information Seeking-Positive-test bias-People look for the consequences that they would expect their hypothesis to be true (X), rather than what would happen if they were false (not-X). People look for consequences of them being able to complete a paper/essay in that due time, but don't think of the consequences that would lead them not to. Seek only for X but do not check not-X. Think about how they would submit it on time (which already assumes they would submit it on times).Shown by Wason Carad Selection Task, just look for confirming cases. 2. Overweighting: Overweighting-when judging a relationship between two variables (eg. writing a paper and finishing it in approximate time period), all four cells should be considered. But, people seem to attend largely to the presence/presence cell (when in the past they did finish it in the time period they thought, ,even if it was rare, they overweight that) and don't think about the other cells (like when they wrote a paper in the past and they did not finish it in expected time). 3 .Assimilation- people who supported or did not support capital punishment, after reviewing full studies on capital punishment, returned back to their initial beliefs, reflecting biased assimilation of details of study. Participants commented that these studies disconfirming their initial beliefs were not well conducted and undermined the reported results. Thus, if people think about situations when they did not hand the paper in on time, they would like think of those experiences as special situations that are irrelevant (eg. was especially busy that time or that was an especially hard paper).

Links the validity of a premise to an irrelevant characteristic or belief of the person advocating the premise .eg. You can't believe Jack when he says God exists. He doesn't even have a job.

Argument against the person

27. Action vs. Inaction

Actions are more mutable than inactions. Time moderates action effect. College study: Dave and Jim both considering transferring, Dave opts to stay and Jim decides to transfer, and bot their decisions turn out badly. Most think Jim (action) would most regret his decision the most upon learning that it was a mistake. Most thought in the long run Dave (inaction) would regret his decision the most. Various ways to reduce pains of regrettable actions: -may have been repaired by now, silver linings, rationalization

attempts to justify an argument by citing a highly admired or well-known (but not necessarily qualified) figure who supports the conclusion being offered Eg. celebrities advertising acne brands

Appeal to authority

31. In Smedslund's study (1963), what was the best predictor for the participants' judgments of contingency)? You should be able to apply this to a novel situation such that you can tell which data pattern will make people conclude whether or not there is a positive contingency.

Change in P did not predict participants judgements. The best predictor was the number of XY. Attentional bias summary: When judging a relationship between variables, all four cells should be considered But, if the symptom and disease were both frequently present, participants tended to think that there was a relationship They seem to attend largely to this presence/presence cell, when they should be attending to the whole table

The rationale for the argument is merely a restatement of the conclusion in different words Eg. We need to raise the speed limit because the current legal speed limit is too slow.

Circular reasoning

Some A are not B

DOES NOT mean Some B are not A

All A are B

DOES NOT mean all B are A

18. Be prepared to judge whether specific arguments are examples of deductive or inductive reasoning.

Deductive reasoning: is concerned with whether a condition fellows from premises by necessity. eg. All A are B. All B are C. Therefore, all A are C. Inductive reasoning is concerned with whether the conclusion is supported by (rather than being logically required by) other beliefs or observations. Conclusion does not necessarily follow from premises. eg. New Haven winter was warm 2 years ago. New Haven winter was warm last year. Therefore, it's going to be a warm winter this year.

29. Controllability

Events that are under their own control are perceived more mutable. Eg. Steve arrives home too late to save his dying wife 1. Bc of traffic jam (less controllable) 2. He stopped by a supermarket (more controllable) 2 is judged more mutable than 1 (If only he hadn't stop by easier to think about than if only there weren't a traffic jam). Practical implications: Explains why victims of crime often blame themselves. A victim wants to understand how the victimization could have bee avoided. More likely to focus on controllable events (their own behavior) than on less controllable behavior of the perpetrator (the casually more significant). "I couldn't have prevented the outcome" becomes "I should have been able to prevent it." .

only two alternatives are considered, when in fact there are other options Eg. "If you are not with us, you are against us." "You need to go to the party or you'll be bored."

False dichotomy

Learning Curve

Good explanation for animal conditioning, human learning. RW model is sensitive to how "surprising" an event is. The more surprising an event is (ie. the greater the prediction error), the more you learn (ie. the greater the change is)

Associating a person or a position with an undesirable position or person in order to create a negative impression Eg. You say the gap between the rich and the poor is unacceptable, but communists also say this

Guilt by association

20. Wason card selection task: Clearly understand what choices are valid and WHY. What are the implications of the content effect in the Wason card selection task?

If a card has a vowel on one side, then it has an even number on the other side. Select the cards that you definitely need to turn over to find out whether or not the rule is true. Cards: A D 4 7 Most choose A and 4. Correct answer A and 7. Confirming cases (4) cannot validate a general rule. Subjects' choices (descriptive): P, Q Correct choices (normative): P, ~Q

19. What are valid conclusions in conditional syllogisms?

If p then q. p (affirming the antecedent)- p is true q (affirming the consequent)- q is true not-p (denying the antecedent)- ~P not-q(denying the consequent)- conclusion Affirming the antecedent-Valid (Modus Ponens) Affirming the consequent-Invalid Denying the Antecedent-Invalid Denying the Consequent-Valid (Modus Tollens)

A number of studies were covered, each demonstrating that our behaviors are caused by implicit priming. Be prepared to explain these studies as examples of this phenomenon or to recognize the findings and the implications. - The study that took 17 years to complete (Mitchell, 2006)

In 1982, participants in an Intro Psych class were shown black-and-white drawings of animals. 17 years later, they were shown fragmented pictures and asked to name the picture. For a control group that was not exposed to the pictures previously, there was no difference in percentage priming (accuracy on "old" - accuracy on "new), but for those in the longitudinal group, there was significant percentage priming (Old > New), despite virtually no explicit recollection of the 1982 experiment. Implicit priming can last a very long time.

15. What were the results of Wu and Keysar's study (2007) on cross-cultural differences in perspective-taking? Based on the results, which society is better at taking other people's perspective?

In a communication game, there was a subject and a "director" that sit opposite each other, with a grid in between with some objects placed in, where it was evident the director only had view of the blue block whereas the subject had a view of a red and blue block. When the director asked the subject to move the block one side up, Americans looked at the red block significantly more than other objects. However, Chinese participants did not look at the red cube significantly longer than any other of the baseline objects. In addition, when the red block was present, it took Americans longer for their eyes to settle on the blue block, whereas there was no signifiant difference for Chinese participants if the red block was there or not. 65% of American subjects asked "which block?". Only one out of 20 Chinese subjects asked for clarification. Chinese society seems to be better at perspective taking (more individualistic society)

9. Be prepared to describe or recognize a study demonstrating an optimism bias in non-human animals (Harding et al., 2004).

In a study, mice underwent a training. When they heard a food tone and pressed a lever, there was a positive event (food). When they heard a noise tone and refrained from pressing the lever, they avoided a negative event (white noise). There were tones that had frequencies intermediate between food tone and noise-avoidance tone, and on a tone that falls in the middle, they are more likely to press it (bias towards optimism).

6. How does excessive internet searching affect our ability to self-assess our knowledge? How was it demonstrated (Fisher et al. 2015)?

In the first phrase of the experiment, participants were asked questions like "Why are there leap years?" or "Why are there time zones?". In one condition, participants could use the internet to find explanations, and in the second condition, they could not use the Internet. In the second phase, participants were asked completely unrelated questions (eg. Why does Swiss cheese have holes/) and self-rated their ability to answer these unrelated questions. Those in the internet condition first rated their ability to answer these questions significantly higher than those in the non-internet condition. Searching the Internet for explanatory knowledge creates an illusion whereby people mistake access to information for their own personal understanding of the information Why? The Internet provides immediate and reliable access to a broad array fo expert information. The Internet's unique accessibility, speed, and expertise causes us to lose track of our reliance upon it, distorting how we view our own abilities

16. While taking another person's perspective is often beneficial, in class, we learned about a few studies that have demonstrated some negative consequences of perspective-taking. Describe two of those studies (Pierce et al., 2013; Catapano et al., 2019). In your description, be precise about under what context these negative consequences were obtained, and what the negative consequences were.

MBA students were asked to imagine being involved in a negotiation with a company, and they would rate the extent to which they would be willing to use unethical negotiation tactics. In the Cooperative condition, participants were asked to recall and describe time they had collaborated with a company. In the competitive condition, participants were asked to recall and describe a time they had competed with a company. In the baseline trials, there was no significant difference in "willingness to use ethnically questionable negotiation tactics" in either group. But, when participants were asked to engage in perspective-taking (try to imagine what the company wold be thinking as they approach the negotiation and what type of tactics they would use), people in the competitive condition were more willing to use questionable negotiation tactics. Results: Taking the perspective of a competitor can foster greater unethical behavior. Do unto others as you think they will try to do unto you. In competitive contexts, perspective taking is akin to adding gasoline to a fire: it inflames competitive impulses Effects of perspective taking on self-persuasion. Self persuasion method (consider arguments that contradict one's own beliefs, can shift attitudes in the opposite direction.) Reddit users would interact with another user on universal health care. At T1 they would rate their own attitude toward UHC> They would receive information about their interaction partner (opposite opinion_. In the control condition, they would then generate an argument that the interaction partner might give for his position, and then rate their own attitude again at T2. In the perspective taking condition, after receiving information about their interaction partner, the participant is asked to consider the perspective of the individual and reflect on their intentions and interests and visualize their experiences and feelings, and then would generate an argument the partner might give and rating their own feelings again at T2. For the control condition, T2- T1 was greater than 0, evidence of a self persuasion effect. In PT condition, T2- T1 was about 0. No self persuasion PT as an inhibitor for self-persuasion-can make people generate arguments even less aligned with their own values

Are people good at conditional syllogism? Why?

More than half say denying antecedent and accepting consequent are true. -Biconditoinal interpretation: If p, then q → If q, then p. Content effect- if put in content-makes it easier. Implications: People do not rely on formal, abstract inference rules. Instead, people rely on domain-specific or content-dependent rules of inference. In particular, people seem to be good at conditional syllogism if the rule fits with the action-precondition scheme. If an action is to be taken, the precondition must be satisfied If the precondition is not satisfied, then the action must not be taken

4. Describe the above-average effect, the magnitude of the effect, and who is affected. Why do we still feel inadequate and insecure despite the above average effect? (Davidai & Deri, 2019)

Often, more than 50% of people think of themselves as above average for possessing a certain skill or talent. When testing one million HS students, 70% they were above average in terms of leadership ability and 60% they were above the median in terms of athletic ability. 94% of professors say they do above average work. For driving skill, 93% of the US sample put themselves in the top 50%. Why does the above average effect occur? 1. Availability Heuristic: Your actions are more available in your mind than other people's actions are (eg. you know you drive safe most of the time). If everybody else is similar to you, you aren't above average 2. Egocentrism: -People tend to focus on self-relevant assessments at the expense of other relevant assessments -self-relevanat assessments (eg. thoughts/projections about their own performance) are over-weighted more heavily than other relevant assessments Even when participants were told that they would be graded on aa curve for an exam, adversities or benefits the would affect everybody taking the exam still affected participants' predictions about their own performance. People tend to focus on self-relevant information and neglect other-relevant information even when it's available. For instance, you are told the class is graded on a curve and you are an average student. There are several conditions. In the Adversity condition, you are told the class is behind and instead of using days in class for review, they will cover material. In the Benefit condition, they say the final unit material is dropped and we will use those days as review. People thought they had a higher likelihood of aa B or better and a higher rank in the class if in benefit condition, even though affects everyone. Why do we still feel insecure? 1. People do indeed they are above average 2. They also hold themselves to standards of comparison that are well above average. In one study, they were accepted for their lowest comparison standard, their self-perception, and their typical comparison standard for each trait (like friendliness, intelligence, honesty, etc.) and their lowest comparison standard and typical standard comparison were both above the 50th percentile, where their typical comparison standard was also above average, at or greater than the 70th percentile

What are three examples of optimism bias?

Overconfidence, planning fallacy, and above-average effect

13. Understand the results and implications of Kruger et al.'s study (2005) on recognizing sarcasm.

Participants completed the experiment in pairs, and a member in each pair would generate statements that the other person would later be asked to identify as either sarcastic or serious. We are pretty bad at reading emails- receivers' accuracy was close to chance level (50%). We are also bad at guessing how bad others are at detecting sarcasm in our emails )senders predicted the accuracy would be closer to 80%). Predicted accuracy becomes closer to actual accuracy if you hear the person's voice. Implications: Do not make sarcastic jokes over email. Use voice.

A number of studies were covered, each demonstrating that our behaviors are caused by implicit priming. Be prepared to explain these studies as examples of this phenomenon or to recognize the findings and the implications. -"Florida" study (Bargh, Chen, & Burrows, 1996)

Participants had to unscramble sentences. There was an elderly prime group (that had words like Florida, bingo, lonely, grey) and a neutral prime group that had neutral words (sky, desk). When measuring walking time from the doorway to the elevator, participants in the elderly prime group walked significantly slower. Simple priming can influence our everyday actions in unexpected ways.

17. Be prepared to describe the studies on the negative consequences of explaining our minds in terms of biological mechanisms (Vohs & Schooler, 2008; Lebowitz & Ahn, 2013; Mehta & Farina, 1997).

Participants were asked to solve math problems and were given a dollar for each problem solved correctly. In the baseline condition, the experimenter scored the problems, and in the other two conditions, participants scored themselves. In the participant scored condition where they were led to believe that they can have free will and control over their behavior, there was no significant difference in the number of problems solved compared to baseline, indicating no heating. In the participant-scored determinism condition, where participants were led to believe that they do not have free will and that all actions are determined by a combination of genetics and environmen (biological mechanisms)t, there was significantly more cheating. Determinism (no free will) increases cheating Practicing clinicians received descriptions of symptoms in a hypothetical patient, either described in psychosocial terms (like frequently teased and bullied...never learned to trust anyone) or biological terms (low levels of chemical called serotonin). Result: Mental health clinicians' empathy is reduced given biological explanations for mental disorders (psychosocial descriptions yielded higher empathy ratings) Participants either interacted with a confederate in the Normal condition, where the confederate said their life was ordinary, the Psychosocial condition, where the confederate explained nervous breakdowns due to personal experiences, or the Medical condition, where the confederate explained they had nervous breakdowns because they had a disease that affected biochemistry/metabolism. To provide feedback on the confederate's performance on a learning task, the increase in electric shock from initial trials to final trials was greatest in the medical condition. Result: Laypeople's punishment in a learning feedback situation is harsher when the learner is described to have mental disorders caused by biological factors

3. Describe the study we discussed in class that coined "the big fish in a small pond effect" Alicke et al. (2010); what were the findings?

Participants were tested in a group of 10, and they were randomly assigned to one of two 5-person groups. They watched a videotape of peers, judging whether they were lying or tell the truth. They then received ranking information that a was made up (how well they did compared to other people). Then asked how they would rate their lie detection ability. If they were 5th and worst in their 5 person group, they rating themselves significantly worse than if they were 5th out of 10 ppl. When they were 6th and best in their 5-person group, they rated their lie detection higher than being 6th or 5th in the 10 person group. Thus, being last in the superior group led to lower self-evaluations than being first in the inferior group.

1. A number of studies were covered, each demonstrating that our behaviors are caused by implicit priming. Be prepared to explain these studies as examples of this phenomenon or to recognize the findings and the implications. · "Tide" experiment (Nisbett & Wilson, 1977)

Participants were told to learn word pairs. In Group 1, the pair of Moon-Ocean was included, and in Group 2, that pair was not included. Participants were then told to list their favorite detergent, and Group 1 were significantly more likely to list Tide than Group 2, primed by moon and ocean, since tide is related to those words. But when asked why they did so, few in Group 1 mentioned priming (eg. "Moon-Ocean reminded me of Tide." Some said they like the box or their mother uses or it's the best detergent. Implication: We are not always aware of why we are acting in certain ways. We are unaware of the priming effect

14. Understand the results and implications of Savitsky et al.'s study (2001) on interpreting ambiguous phrases.

Participants who attempted to convey particular meanings with ambiguous phrases overestimated their success more when communicating with aa friend or spouse than with strangers 1. We are not necessarily better at reading minds of friends (actual friend vs stranger, actual spouse vs stranger) 2. We are overconfident (predicted they would be more successful in general) 3. We are even more overconfident about people we know People commonly believe that that they communicate better with close friends than with strangers. → Overconfidence about your communication abilities with acquaintances.

2. What is stereotype threat? How was it demonstrated? What makes stereotype threat disappear? (You may want to watch Claude Steele's video again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=failylROnrY).

People conform to stereotypes about their social group, which can lower performance of negatively stereotyped groups. In one study, participants engaged in tasks "typical of everyday trips to a shopping mall" and tried on clothes. Men and women were asked to do math problems when wearing either a sweater or a swimsuit. When wearing a sweater, math performance was not significantly different, but when wearing the bathing suits, females did significantly worse than males. Swimsuit activates negative stereotype about women→ not good at math In another instance, a GRE verbal exam was given to black participants and white participants. When the test was described as a test diagnostic of intellectual ability, white participants performed significantly better, because "intellectual ability" perhaps activated a negative stereotype for blacks about their intelligence. However, when the test was described sa being "a laboratory problem-solving task that was non diagnostic of ability," there was no significant difference between groups. Give men and women math test. Women do worse. If take stereotype out, by telling them that on this particular test, women do as well as men. Performed as well as men. Stereotype threat diseases when they build aa sense of identity safety. If say "on this test math test, females do as well as males" or "this is just a lab test not indicating of ability" . Person can trust they won't be exposed to negative experiences based on having that identity. Safe enough to perform without pressure.

5. What is illusion of explanatory depth and how was it demonstrated (Rozenblit & Keil, 2002)?

People feel they understand complex phenomena with far greater precision, coherence, and depth than they really do Participants were asked to to make self-ratings of knowledge at a different points: an original rating (do you know how a toilet/helicopter/greenhouse works?), a rating after being asked to write a causal explanation (eg. write a detailed, step-by-step casual explanation), and after asked to answer a diagnostic question step-by step (eg. how does a helicopter change from hovering to forward flight). Ratings of self knowledge significantly decreased from T1 to T3. How to avoid? Do T2/T2 at T1

30. A positive-test bias in information-seeking What is it? (You should be able to recognize it in an example.) Why is it irrational? What information should one seek in order to avoid this?

People look for the consequences that they would expect if their hypothesis were true (X), rather than what would happen if they were false (not-X) Eg. Blood letting. Found that people who bloodlet, more people recover. Well, people tend to recover in general (bc of immune system). Need to see what happens when people don't use blood letting. More people actually recover We only seek for only X, but we also need to check not-X. Eg. People were asked to ask certain questions (from a list) to test whether someone was an extrovert, or in the other condition, an introvert. There were siginnifcantly more Extraverted questions in E condition and significantly more I questions in I condition. The target was more extraverted in the extravert condition bc already assumed extravert.

8. Planning fallacy: Be prepared to describe or recognize methods that have been empirically demonstrated (i.e., by an actual study) to be effective in reducing planning fallacy.

People underestimate time needed to complete a future task. Eg. Sydney Opera House took 10 years longer and went from 7 million to costing 102 million for a scaled down version In a study when participants were asked when they can complete Christmas shopping, participants that formulated a highly specific plan for competing their target task predicted they would be able to shop 7.5 days on average before Christmas. In actuality, it took people 3 days. Ironically, instructing participants to adopt a "future focus" in which they generated concrete, specific plans for the task at hand0led them to make more optimistic predictions. -Possibly because they ignore potential obstacles more; a sort of illusion of fluency Don't: When focusing on details of the specific task, people are more likely to ignore obstacles. Increasing the focus on specific plans produced more optimistic forecasts. Participants had a interactive computer tutorial assignment and they predicted when they would finish the assignment. The people in the control condition demonstrated planning fallacy, underestimating the amount of time they would need. Those in the Recall condition, before making their predictions, asked about past experiences with similar assignments. Participants still demonstrated similar planning fallacy to those in the control condition, since people treated them as irrelevant. In the Recall-RElevant condition, participants would indicate when they would finish the current assignment if they completed it as far before its deadline sa they typically completed assignments and to describe aa plausible scenario-based on their past experiences- that would result in their completing the assignment at their typical time, reducing planning fallacy and increasing the number of people who predicted it in proper time. DO: Recall the past experience AND make it relevant Visualization exercise. Imagine yourself riding a bike in first person perspective (see it through your own eyes) or third person perspective (see the event unfolding from an observer's perspective, see yourself nd surroundings). Said a 15 page research essay due in 30 days and asked how long it would take. Those in third person demonstrated less planning fallacy (predicting it would take a longer time). Do: Take a third person perspective. Observers may be more likely to "step back" and contemplate a broader spectrum of information, including potential obstacles to task completion.

33. Understand the methods and the results of Lord, Ross, and Lepper's study (1979), which used people's beliefs about the deterrent effects of the death penalty. In particular, when did biased assimilation occur?

Proponents and opponents to the death penalty read results of studies confirming or disconfirming the deterrent effect of death penalty. They answered questions about attitude change. They then read the detailed procedures and results of each study and answered questions about attitude change. After exposure to brief results, both groups move toward the findings form the data (although they somewhat more affected those who were already predisposed to the position) When they reviewed the full studies, they returned back to their initial beliefs, resulting in polarization even in the presence of disconfirming results. Their comments reflected biased assimilation of the details of the studies; participants commented that studies disconfirming their initial beliefs were not well-conducted and undermined the reported results.

We discussed four factors affecting counterfactual reasoning. For each factor, make sure you understand what the phenomenon is, and be prepared to describe the studies supporting the phenomenon

Recent Events, Exceptions, Action vs Inaction, Controllability

Suggesting that if one step or action is taken, it will invariably lead to similar steps or actions, the end results of which are negative or undesirable It ignores the possibility of middle ground and assumes a discrete transition from category A to category B

Slippery slope

23. The following lists the reasoning fallacies covered under inductive reasoning. If you are given a concrete example, you should be able to recognize the fallacy and provide the correct label on your own.

Slippery slope False dichotomy Straw person argument Circular reasoning Argument against the person Guilt by association Appeal to authority Appeal to pity Appeal to pride

Arguing against a position which you create specifically to be easy to argue against, rather than the position actually held by those who oppose your point of view Eg. Parent tells daughter to eat vegetables. "You won't be happy until I'm a vegetarian

Straw person argument

Understand the results and the implications of the following studies on the theory of mind deficit. -- The curse of knowledge (Birch & Bloom, 2007)

The curse of knowledge bias: adults' own knowledge of an event's outcome can compromise their ability to reason about another person's beliefs about that event. Can adults fail in a false-belief task? Adults were told that a Vicki put her violin in a blue container and went outside to play. In the Ignorance condition, Denise rearranges the container in the room until the room looks like the picture below (red box took the spot of the blue box). In the knowledge condition, they were told that a denise moved the violin to the red container. They were then asked where Vicki will first look for her violin. 23% of the people in the Ignorance condition chose Red. 34% of the people in the Knowledge container chose red. Conclusions: Adults show some deficits in a false-belief task similar to the one sued with young children. Curse of knowledge.

25.Recent events

The most recent event in a temporal sequence of independent events is more mutable. Imagine two individuals asked to toss a coin. If the two coins come up the same, they win $1000. Jones goes first and tosses a head, Cooper goes next and gets a tail. 86% of undergrads predicted Cooper would experience more guilt, 92% predicted Cooper would be blamed more by Jones than vice versa More recent events tend to evoke counterfactual alternatives more strongly, and hence tend to be blamed more for when negative outcomes occur, than do earlier occurrences. Participants identified the questions they thought a teacher might include on a test. Participants were less critical of a teacher whose test questions did not match their own when the teacher generated his or her questions before they did, then when he or she generated them after they did.

34. Understand what is wrong with the typical responses to Wason's 2-4-6 task, and how you can get out of that trap and find the correct rule in that task. You should also be able to apply this logic in a novel situation.

The series 2,4,6 conforms to a simple rule. The rule is concerned with a relation between the three numbers. You have to discover the rule by generating successive series of your own rule. After each series, feedback will be provided (yes it confirms to the rule or no it doesn't). When highly confident, announce the rule. People continually give examples that confirm their hypothesis (numbers increasing by 2) when they should try cases that they think might disconfirm their hypothesis

11. Understand the results and the implications of the following studies on the theory of mind deficit. -- the juice-box false-belief task covered in the video

Theory of mind involves attributing mental states (like beliefs) to people (oneself or others). Also involves understanding that others have beliefs, desires, and intentions that are different than their own. 2-3 year olds demonstrate a deficit in theory of mind: they still think others think/see what they think/see. In the juice-box false belief task, children were asked what is in the juice box. They would say juice. Then the experimenter would show them that there are actually ropes inside. The experimenter would then ask what they originally thought was in the juice box, and they would say ropes. When asked what someone else would think is inside the juice box, they would also say ropes.

Understand the results and the implications of the following studies on the theory of mind deficit. -- The false photograph task (Zaitchick, 1990)

There would be a blue base with a cookie on it and a red base with nothing on it. Babies would watch a picture taken of the cookie be taken, the cookie would then move to the red plate, and then they were asked "in the picture, where is the cookie?" Most thought that the cookie would be on the red plate. No beliefs involved, but young children still have difficulty. Evidence for a domain-general account -Young preschoolers cannot correctly attribute a false belief (eg. saying they thought there'd be a ribbon in a crayon box all along) -Some researchers claim that the problem is domain-specific: it is specific to the child's theory of mind and no such problem should appear in reasoning about non-mental representations -In the false photograph task: an actor takes a photograph of an object in location X, the object is then moved to location Y. Preschool objects are asked: 'In the picture, where is the object?" Children still made errors in the false photograph task -Thus, young children's failure on the false belief task is symptomatic of larger problem with salient representations (ie. the current state of the world(

35. Understand the results and the implications of Kahan et al. (2017), which examined contingency judgments using neutral and politically charged stimuli with Democrat and Republican participants.

Understanding contingency tables can be intellectually challenging and requires quantitative reasoning abilities and efforts. When given neutral stimuli (eg. effect of skin scream on rash), the accuracy increased as participants' numeracy scores increases for both liberal Democrats and conservative Republics. When given politically charged stimuli (relationship between gun ban and crime), the accuracy increased as participants' numeracy score increased, only if the data were consistent with the participant's existing beliefs. That is, only the "smart" people showed a confirmation bias in this study

How could we have evolved to have an optimism bias?

We know we will all die. Gives motivation to pursue and thrive. Optimists work harder and longer hours (success in life). Better mental health (pessimism can cause anxiety and depression)

12. What is the status signals paradox (Garcia, Weaver, & Chen, 2019)?

When making new friends, people tend to think that a displaying high-status markers of themselves will make them more attractive to others. From the perspective of would-be-friends, individuals who display high-status markers are found to be less attractive as new friends than those with neutral status markers

10. Can infants infer others' goals? Be prepared to describe a study or recognize the results and the implications. Woodward (1998)

Yes, even infants understand that people have intention (desire, goal). In one study, infants were habituated to watching a hand move to grab a ball instead of the adjacent ball. There are two interpretations: either the hand is moving from point X to point Y, or the person wants the ball. Then they tested the infant with one of two conditions: either the hand stayed on the same path with a new goal (grabbing bear), or went on a new path with the same goal (grabbing ball again). Infants looked longer when the hand stayed on the same path and grabbed the ball, indicating surprise, suggesting that they understand people as intentional agents with goals and desires. They categorize hand actions in terms of same goal rather than same path.

These studies are examples of: · "Tide" experiment (Nisbett & Wilson, 1977) -"Florida" study (Bargh, Chen, & Burrows, 1996) - The study that took 17 years to complete (Mitchell, 2006)

implicit priming

How to avoid underestimation in a big pond

know the effect is real, you aren't alone, find aa smaller group where you can make significant contributions

Overconfidence, planning fallacy, and above-average effect are all examples of

optimism bias

What is it called when: People look for the consequences that they would expect if their hypothesis were true (X), rather than what would happen if they were false (not-X)

positive-test bias

What are examples of studies that demonstrate our behavior is caused by implicit priming?

· "Tide" experiment (Nisbett & Wilson, 1977) -"Florida" study (Bargh, Chen, & Burrows, 1996) - The study that took 17 years to complete (Mitchell, 2006)