Deck 12: Making Social Decisions

Question 1

If cheaters could be immediately detected, cooperators would only deal with other cooperators, and cheaters would die out. But if cheaters were to die out, so would the ability to detect cheaters. Thus, cheater and cooperator aspects of individual behaviors have remained in a form of dynamic tension, which can be called forth depending on _____.

A) environmental conditions
B) genetic predispositions
C) personal aspirations
D) societal norms

Answer 1

environmental conditions

Question 2

Humans and other animals display a non-rational set of rules when entering economic transitions, suggesting that factors other than traditional logic come into play. In fact, both humans and pigeons prefer _____ over _____

A) cooperation, defection
B) heuristics, reason
C)immediate gains, delayed rewards
D) social decisions, logical decisions

Answer 2

immediate gains, delayed rewards

Question 3

Pinker (2008) suggested that the nature of moral judgments is different from other types of thinking. Which of the following is NOT one of them?

A) Moral judgments are different from decisions about what is imprudent.
B) People believe that immoral behavior should be punished.
C) There is a sense that moral judgments are universal.
D) We learn our sense of morals from our parents and teachers.

Answer 3

We learn our sense of morals from our parents and teachers.

Question 4

In comparing hunter-gathers to chimpanzees, Wilson and Wrangham (2003) suggest both share three tendencies. Which of the following is NOT one of them?

A) Both are willing to fight to the death instead of surrendering.
B) Both avoid intensive aggressive confrontation by retreating.
C) Both show a tendency to respond aggressively to members of other groups.
D) Both take advantage of imbalances of power when killing males of other groups.

Question 5

Researchers found that preschool children made a distinction between moral and conventional transgressions, finding the moral events more serious, wrong, and deserving of punishment. These results suggest that

A) conventional rules are learned later than moral rules.
B) culture has a greater influence on morals than conventions.
C) moral and conventional judgments rely on different cognitive systems.
D) preschool children did not understand conventional transgressions.

Question 6

When the Wason card selection task is presented as a social problem, about _____% of participants respond correctly; when it is presented as a non-social problem, about _____% respond correctly.

A) 10, 90
B) 21, 75
C) 75, 21
D) 90, 10

Question 7

Which of the following is NOT one of the common themes of domain-specific problem-solving strategies?

A) Consistency is no longer a hallmark of successful decision making.
B) Most decisions humans make are performed with limited information.
C) People make better decisions when they are not influenced by others.
D) These decisions are based on evolutionarily earlier events, not the present.

Question 8

Daly and Wilson (2001) speculated that framing evolved in the context of social _____, in which it would be seen as a sign of weakness to relinquish prior gains and may even invite future demands for concessions.

A) adaptions
B) bargaining
C) conformity
D) hierarchies

Question 9

Initially, it was assumed that war was somehow unique to humans and resulted from the development of weapons or the denseness of population; however, the observation that _____ changed that view.

A) chimpanzees also engage in lethal attacks on one another
B) even primitive societies with no weapons engage in warfare
C) many species, from rats to rabbits, engage in organized violence
D) wars occur more frequently in less densely populated areas

Question 10

Studies on framing effects show that people are _____ when the situation is framed in terms of a possible gain but _____ when the situation is framed in terms of a possible loss.

A) emotional, rational
B) happy, unhappy
C) less cautious, more cautious
D) risk averse, risk seeking

Question 11

The _____ cortex is an area in the front of the brain involved in encoding the emotional value of sensory information as well as emotional components of human actions; it has been shown to be activated when someone chooses to give money to a charity or views pictures of hungry children.

A) anterior cingulate
B) dorsolateral prefrontal
C) orbitofrontal
D) ventromedial prefrontal

Question 12

Simon suggested that one could learn about human decision making by noting how the _____ in which decisions were made could allow for simplifications in adaptive decision making.

A) emotional state
B) environment
C) social situation
D) time frame

Question 13

Male chimpanzees will attack unknown females and may even kill their infants unless the females

A) give submission displays.
B) offer them food.
C) outnumber the males.
D) show signs of estrus.

Question 14

The murder rate in Europe has _____ since the Middle Ages.

A) dropped
B) gone through cycles
C) increased
D) stayed the same

Question 15

Which of the following is NOT one of the five basic principles all heuristics rely on?

A) Examining fewer cues.
B) Integrating less information.
C) Reducing memory load.
D) Simplifying the alternatives.

Question 16

Because humans have limited time, knowledge and resources when they need to make most decisions in daily life, they need to rely on the use of _____ in decision making.

A) algorithms
B) heuristics
C) logic
D) norms

Question 17

A runaway trolley is speeding toward five workers on the tracks. The only way to stop the trolley is to push a large person off a bridge onto the tracks in front of it.

A) Children say it is morally acceptable, but adults do not.
B) Most people say this is morally acceptable.
C) Most people say this is not morally acceptable.
D) People disagree whether this is morally acceptable or not.

Question 18

Solve the following Wason card selection task. The rule is: "If there is a vowel on one side of the card, then there is an even number on the other side." There are four cards in front of you, showing: A, C, 4, 7. Which two cards do you need to turn over to test this rule?

A) A and 4
B) A and 7
C) C and 4
D) C and 7

Question 19

In a variety of studies, patients with ____ lobe lesions perform poorly on social exchange Wason tasks as compared to individuals without brain damage.

A) frontal
B) occiptal
C) parietal
D) temporal

Question 20

Researchers have estimated that the average group size of humans during prehistoric times was no more than

A) 50
B) 150
C) 250
D) 350

Question 21

The evolutionary perspective gives greater insight into the question of _____ or why we may help someone even if it puts us at an apparent disadvantage.

A) altruism
B) attribution
C) conformity
D) cooperation

Question 22

Similar body movements, including gaze aversion, smiling, head movement, self-touching, and grooming are seen in nonhuman primates in appeasement displays, in which one individual seeks to pacify the other and keep the social bond intact; thus, the social emotion of _____ may have had its origins in appeasement.

Question 23

When the performance of a patient with damage to the limbic system was compared with performance of individuals without brain damage on a social-exchange problem and a social-protection problem, the result was that the patient performed worse on

A) both problems.
B) neither problem.
C) the social-exchange problem.
D) the social-protection problem.

Question 24

Kahneman and Tversky (1979) showed that people make economic decisions differently depending on whether the outcomes are _____ as either gains or losses.

Question 25

In the Wason card selection task, you should test the rule if P then Q by turning over cards representing

A) P and not-P
B) P and not-Q
C) Q and not-P
D) Q and not-Q

Question 26

Simon suggested that one could learn about human decision making by noting how the environment in which these decisions must be made can allow for simplifications in adaptive decision making. _____ was the term he chose to reflect this process lying between the rational and the psychological.

Question 27

When a graphic version of the Wason card selection task was presented to the Shiwiar, an isolated group inhabiting the Ecadorian Amazon, they performed _____ Harvard undergraduates in their ability to detect violations of social requirements, that is, to detect cheaters.

A) not nearly as well as
B) quite differently from
C) similarly to
D) twice as well as

Question 28

_____ is cooperation for mutual benefit; examples include economic trades, reciprocal gift giving, and helping with the expectation that someday the favor will be returned.

Question 29

_____ are methods that help humans perform mental tasks with minimum effort; they can provide an alternative to complex algorithms, and they can be computed so quickly they often operate outside of awareness.

Question 30

If social exchange has been important over our evolutionary history, then we should be sensitive to those who accept benefits without fulfilling their side of the exchange. This assumed cognitive mechanism is referred to as the

A) bounded rationality heuristic
B) cheater detection module
C) hazard management system
D) social contract algorithm

Question 31

Because guilt and shame involve transgression against the conventions of the group, they have been called _____ emotions. Feelings of sympathy and guilt have been seen to motivate cooperative behavior and altruism.

Question 32

In one version of the trolley problem, most people say it is OK to kill one person if that meant five people would be saved. This type of scenario is generally classified as _____ because most people agree with the moral decision.

Question 33

The _____ error occurs when someone explains the behaviors of another as due to personality characteristics but explains his or her own identical behaviors as due to situational factors.

Question 34

In an experiment, pigeons were given the opportunity to press one button that would immediately give 2 seconds of access to a grain hopper or another button that would provide 4 seconds of access after a 4-second delay. The result was that almost all of the pigeons

A) alternated between the two keys.
B) chose the key that gave immediate access.
C) chose the key that gave more access after a delay.
D) learned to press both buttons simultaneously.

Question 35

One distinction that has been made regarding the social emotions is that shame is associated with the desire to undo aspects of the self, whereas guilt involves the desire to undo aspects of

A) affect.
B) behavior.
C) cognition.
D) sociality.

Question 36

Chimpanzees live in communities of around 150 individuals following a _____ pattern in which smaller subgroups are constructed and disbanded.

Question 37

If social exchange has been important throughout our evolutionary history, then we should be sensitive to those who accept benefits without fulfilling their side of the exchange; such an evolved cognitive mechanism is referred to as the _____.

Question 38

It has been suggested by a number of researchers that the availability of _____ is one set of circumstances that reduces the incidence of killing.

A) mates
B) resources
C) social support
D) weapons

Question 39

In fMRI studies on decision making, increased activation in the _____ was associated with being risk averse in the "gain" frame and risk seeking in the "loss" frame; these results suggest that at the basis of the framing effect is an emotional or value-related response to keeping gains and taking risks when losses are perceived.

Question 40

When the Wason card selection task is framed as a social exchange problem, people selected the correct cards _____ times more often than when the problems were presented in a logic format.

A) 2
B) 3
C) 5
D) 8

Question 41

Discuss the evolution and function of social and moral emotions.

Question 42

Discuss the evolution of interpersonal and intragroup violence.

Question 43

In framing studies, if participants choose to go against the traditional response and gamble with a sure thing or not take a risk with a perceived loss, the amygdala is silent and instead the _____ is active; this area is known to be involved in conflict detection as well as when an error has been detected.

Question 44

Many of the classic social psychology experiments of the twentieth century demonstrated the manner in which humans would _____ to the group; in terms of cognitive and emotional effort, it is cheaper and better to do what other people say than to figure out the way to do something on your own.

Question 45

Moral judgments are felt to be _____. Someone who thinks that rape or killing is wrong does not think that this only applies to his or her hometown but to the entire world; in this sense, they are experienced differently from cultural judgments.

Question 46

Evolutionary psychologists assume that economic transactions reflect _____ processes that have been with humans since our early history and that our history reflects greater certainty for immediate gains than for delayed rewards.

Question 47

The evolutionary perspective allows us to think about emotions such as fear as satisfying a self-preservation and emotions such as embarrassment, guilt, or shame as serving a more _____ function.

Question 48

What is the traditional view of human behavior in economics? What does psychology have to say about human economic behavior? Why study economics from an evolutionary perspective?

Question 49

The _____ card selection task was originally developed to study how humans perform logical operations, but it has also been used to study social reasoning.

Question 50

There is research to suggest that creating a feeling of ____ in a person will increase his or her sense of moral outrage or immorality.

Question 51

Describe the Wason card selection task. How is it used to study social exchange? What are the findings?

Question 52

Among the moral emotions, one distinction that has been made is that _____ is associated with the desire to undo aspects of the self, whereas guilt involves the desire to undo aspects of behavior.

Question 53

What is social exchange? What is needed cognitively for social exchange? What areas of the brain seem to be involved?

Question 54

Domain-specific problem-solving strategies make decisions based on evolutionarily earlier events or _____ for particular happenings rather than ones seen in our present environment. For example, if you hear a noise late at night, you are likely to feel afraid even though it is probably nothing dangerous.