Deck 8: Decision Making

Question 1

There are three major classes of decision research. Which of the following is NOT one of these:

A) normative
B) cognitive/information processing
C) Structural
D) Naturalistic.

Answer 1

C

Question 2

Estimation of risk depends upon:

A) probability and value
B) availability and representativeness
C) heuristics and biases
D) anchoring and value

Answer 2

A

Question 3

"Front end" decision making most closely corresponds to which concept related to memory:

A) recognition memory
B) event memory
C) transactive memory
D) situation awareness

Answer 3

D

Question 4

Each cue that potentially bears on the hypothesis can also be characterized by three important properties. Which of the following is NOT one of them?

A) cue diagnosticity
B) cue reliability
C) physical features
D) psychological features

Question 5

The task of troubleshooting is:

A) iterative
B) an example of diagnosis
C) vulnerable to the confirmation bias
D) all of the above

Question 6

Which of the following is considered a criterion of "good" decision making?

A) that made by the expert
B) that which has a positive outcome
C) that which maximizes expected value
D) all of the above

Question 7

Nickerson (1999) identified several possible reasons for this failure to seek disconfirmatory evidence. Which of the following are possible reasons for this failure?

A) people have more cognitive difficulty dealing with negative information than with positive information
B) there is a motivational factor related to the desire to believe.
C) a motivational factor results when people focus more on the consequences of the logical choice of action that would follow from the initially favored hypothesis
D) in some instances it may be possible for people to influence the outcome of actions taken on the basis of the diag?nosis
E) all of the above

Question 8

The hindsight bias is most applicable:

A) when heuristics are NOT employed in decision making
B) to the aspect of good decision making based on who makes the decision (novice or expert)
C) to the aspect of good decision making related to the quality of the outcome (good bad)
D) to the aspect of good decision making related to the expected value "gold standard"

Question 9

When people project or predict an exponentially growing quantity into the future, they typically:

A) accurately predict the same increasing rate of growth.
B) predict a linear rate of growth
C) predict that the quantity rate will stop increasing
D) predict that the quantity will start decreasing.

Question 10

Statistics show that a basketball player with a "hot hand" who has made 5 shots in a row will be ________ likely to hit the next shot than if she had made 2 shots in a row.

A) more likely
B) just as likely
C) less likely

Question 11

The tendency to ______ the frequency of very rare events has important implications for ______.

A) over estimate, personal experience
B) under estimate, choice behavior
C) over estimate, choice behavior
D) under estimate, personal experience

Question 12

There are three important properties of cues to be integrated in making a diagnosis. Which of the following is NOT one of these?

A) availability
B) reliability
C) diagnosticity
D) salience

Question 13

Which of the following is NOT one of the four steps that the decision maker should carry out, in making a choice that will maximize the consumer's overall satisfaction?

A) rank order the importance of each attribute
B) assess the value of each object on each attribute
C) for each object assess the subtraction of the product of (value x importance)
D) chose to purchase the object with the highest sum of products

Question 14

The "as if" heuristic can describe people's discounting or ignoring differences in:

A) outcome utility
B) data representativeness
C) salience
D) sample size

Question 15

The information value of a cue will be maximum when:

A) diagnositicity is maximum
B) reliability is maximum
C) either reliability or diagnosticity is maximum
D) both reliability and diagnosticity are maximum *

Question 16

When people demonstrate the representativeness heuristic in diagnosis, they are found to:

A) ignore salience
B) ignore base rate probability
C) overweight recency (recent cues)
D) Overweight primacy (anchoring)

Question 17

Anchoring tends to be likely when:

A) several cues are presented in sequence
B) cues are simple
C) a single inference/judgment is made after each cue
D) all of the above

Question 18

Two heuristics heavily depend upon long term memory. These two are:

A) as-if, availability
B) availability, recency
C) availability, representativeness
D) anchoring, as-if

Question 19

What makes hypotheses more available to be considered when making a diagnosis?

A) recently experienced
B) of high value
C) of low probability
D) all of the above.

Question 20

Which of the following is a variable that creates overconfidence?

A) diagnostic or problem difficulty
B) evidence reliability
C) progressively more sources of information
D) all of the above

Question 21

Anchoring and the confirmation bias tend to be amplified by the influence of the:

A) salience bias
B) overconfidence bias
C) framing bias
D) as-if heuristic

Question 22

Action choice involves _______ while diagnosis does not:

A) working memory
B) values and utilities
C) probabilities
D) long term memory

Question 23

Elimination by aspects (EBA) is typically employed as a heuristic in choice, instead of:

A) compensatory calculations
B) considering base-rate probabilities
C) considering the "age" of information
D) considering values or utilities.

Question 24

A choice that maximizes expected values involves:

A) adding probabilities and utilities
B) adding values and utilities
C) multiplying values by probability
D) multiplying values by utility.

Question 25

Mental simulation is a technique that is often used to:

A) replace the elimination by aspect heuristics
B) estimate the probability of hypotheses
C) eliminate anchoring
D) be employed in naturalistic decision making under stress

Question 26

When you choose to decline, rather than accept a gamble with a 50/50 chance of winning or losing a dollar, this choice reflects the effect of:

A) loss aversion
B) gain aversion
C) attribute substitution
D) framing.

Question 27

The Sunk Cost bias is most closely related to:

A) probability underestimation
B) decision fatigue
C) the framing effect
D) the availability heuristic

Question 28

Taking an immediate gain, rather than waiting to receive a possibly greater gain is known as:

A) attribute substitution
B) temporal discounting
C) loss aversion
D) framing

Question 29

Prospect Theory, developed by Kahneman & Tversky proposes that, regarding subjective and true probability, people tend to:

A) overestimate small probabilities
B) be closely calibrated when probabilities are low
C) underestimate small probabilities
D) be closely calibrated when probabilities are high

Question 30

When people behave in a risky fashion because of a high cost of compliance, they are demonstrating:

A) the anchoring heuristics
B) the framing effect
C) the sunk cost bias
D) the as-if heuristic

Question 31

People are more likely to choose the "sure thing" over the risky option:

A) always
B) never
C) when the choice is between losses
D) when the choice is between gains

Question 32

Which heuristic primarily relates to the choice between actions?

A) elimination by aspects
B) anchoring
C) representativeness
D) as-if

Question 33

The overconfidence bias is an example of a failure of:

A) framing
B) meta cognition
C) utility and value calibration
D) effort conservation

Question 34

Heuristics can be understood as more optimal than algorithms (e.g., compensatory decision rules) when the role of ________ is considered.

A) effort
B) utilities
C) subjective probability
D) overconfidence

Question 35

The planning fallacy illustrates the role of ________ in inference.

A) gain seeking
B) loss aversion
C) effort
D) overconfidence

Question 36

More sources of correlated cues in decision making will typically:

A) increase confidence and accuracy
B) increase confidence but not accuracy
C) increase accuracy but not confidence
D) increase accuracy and decrease confidence

Question 37

Overconfidence tends to become more prevalent as:

A) people receive more feedback on decision outcomes
B) decision problems become more difficult
C) decisions become more risky
D) all of the above

Question 38

Which of the following is NOT a characteristic of decision making that prevents it from offering it's usual assistance?

A) feedback is often ambiguous
B) feedback is frequent
C) feedback is often delayed
D) feedback is processed selectively

Question 39

Debiasing training is generally effective only when:

A) people are provided feedback on practiced decision outcomes
B) training focuses on biases, rather than heuristics
C) people are explained about how the biases operate
D) all of the above

Question 40

For which class of professional decision makers does increasing practice nearly always increase diagnostic accuracy?

A) weather forecasters
B) clinical psychologists
C) stock brokers
D) all of the above

Question 41

Ecological Interface Displays help decision makers most

A) in routine decisions
B) in fault diagnosis
C) in calibrating risky choices
D) in following procedures

Question 42

List and describe in one sentence each, each of the three features of "good" decision making.

Question 43

What are the effects of providing more cues to assist in a diagnosis, and why are these effects observed?

Question 44

What is the availability heuristic in diagnosis? Provide a real or hypothetical example of this heuristic in some diagnostic task.

Question 45

When several cues bearing on alternative hypotheses arrive over time, two different types of biases or heuristics may be observed. What are these called? List one factor each that might make one or the other more likely to be observed.

Question 46

List and briefly describe three factors that are suggested as to why people might demonstrate the confirmation bias.

Question 47

Carefully draw the graph that depicts the relation between objective and subjective value proposed by Prospect theory. Briefly describe the two most important features of this graph, as they pertain to people's choices.

Question 48

What is the phenomenon of temporal discounting in decision making?

Question 49

What is the relationship between framing and the sunk cost bias?

Question 50

List three manifestations of overconfidence in human performance (e.g., tasks or situations where this has been observed). Describe one factor that has been found to amplify overconfidence.

Question 51

In most skills, "practice makes perfect". However this does not appear to be the case in practicing decision making (experience does not necessarily imply improvement). List and briefly describe three factors that account for this failure to learn from experience.

Question 52

List the four steps involved in computing the optimum certain choice between objects having different attributes. Which decision heuristic applies to this process and how does it do so?

Question 53

Describe a scenario in which the three biases/heuristics of the confirmation bias, anchoring heuristic and overconfidence bias come into play. Show how these will "conspire" to influence the final diagnostic outcome.

Question 54

Describe each of three features of cues used in integrating information to reach a diagnosis or situation assessment. Show how these features are related to the "as-if" heuristic, and provide an example.

Question 55

Analyze the decision to behave safely in the context of the framing bias and the availability heuristic.

Question 56

Draw a graph, depicting the relationship between true probability and subjective probability, as proposed in Prospect theory. Briefly describe three features of this graph that affect human choice in risky environments.