Question 1

Many Americans believed in October of 2016 that Hillary Clinton would win the presidential election.However,after Donald Trump won a narrow victory,many people argued that they "knew all along" that his opponent had no chance.This is an illustration of the ______.

Accepted Answer

This is an example of hindsight bias, which is the tendency to believe, after an event has occurred, that one would have predicted or expected the outcome. In this case, after Donald Trump's victory, people claimed they knew he would win, even though many believed Hillary Clinton would win before the election results.

Question 2

People overestimate the frequency of words beginning with the letter L,as compared to words that have L as the third letter,because of the heuristic of ______.

Accepted Answer

This is due to the availability heuristic, where people judge the frequency or probability of events based on how easily examples come to mind. Words beginning with "L" are easier to recall than words with "L" as the third letter, leading to an overestimation of their frequency.

Question 3

Expected utility theory is usually regarded as a ______ model of decision making.

Accepted Answer

Expected utility theory is considered a normative model of decision making because it prescribes how decisions should be made based on rational criteria, rather than describing how decisions are actually made.

Question 4

Normative models of decision making describe ______.

Accepted Answer

Normative models of decision making describe ideal performance under ideal circumstances, focusing on how decisions should be made to achieve the best outcomes.

Question 5

When we assess probability by judging the ease with which relevant examples come to mind,we are using the heuristic of ______.

Accepted Answer

The availability heuristic is a mental shortcut that relies on immediate examples that come to a person's mind when evaluating a specific topic, concept, method or decision. The ease with which examples come to mind is a key component of this heuristic.

Question 6

Research on framing suggests that we treat losses ______.

Accepted Answer

Research on framing, particularly the work by Kahneman and Tversky, shows that people tend to treat losses more seriously than gains of an equivalent amount. This is known as loss aversion, where the pain of losing is psychologically about twice as powerful as the pleasure of gaining.

Question 7

Past events seem "inevitable" due to the action of the ______.

Accepted Answer

Hindsight bias is the psychological phenomenon where, after an event has occurred, people believe that the outcome was predictable or inevitable, even if they had no basis for predicting it beforehand. This bias can lead to an oversimplification of cause and effect and a misunderstanding of how events unfold.

Question 8

Research on illusory correlations has shown that our tendency to see relationships that are not really present occurs ______.

Accepted Answer

Illusory correlations occur when people perceive a relationship between two variables that are not actually related. This is often due to prior associations in our minds, such as the association between race and crime.

Question 9

Because of the representativeness heuristic,we are likely to erroneously assume that which of the following sequences of coin flips is more probable?

Accepted Answer

The representativeness heuristic leads people to believe that sequences which appear more random (like B, with an alternating pattern of heads and tails) are more probable than sequences that do not appear random (like A, C, and D, which have runs of the same outcome), even though all sequences are equally likely.

Question 10

Changing the description of a decision can cause us to change our reference points,leading to illogical preferences.This phenomenon is referred to as ______.

Accepted Answer

This phenomenon is referred to as framing. Framing effects occur when the way information is presented (or "framed") influences our decisions and judgments, even if the underlying information remains the same.

Question 11

Which of the following is NOT one of the five phases of decision making,according to Galotti?

Accepted Answer

Random choice is not considered one of the five phases of decision making according to Galotti. The recognized phases include goal setting, information gathering, and planning, among others, but random choice does not align with the structured approach to decision making that Galotti outlines.

Question 12

You are a participant in an experiment in which you answer a long list of general knowledge questions.After answering each question,you are asked to rate your probability of being correct.If you are like the typical participant in such experiments,you will probably be correct on what percentage of questions for which you estimated "60% probability correct"?

Accepted Answer

The typical participant in such experiments is overconfident, meaning they tend to rate their probability of being correct higher than it actually is. Therefore, if a participant estimates a 60% probability of being correct, they are likely to be correct on a lower percentage of questions, such as 55%.

Question 13

According to research on the anchoring phenomenon,______.

Accepted Answer

Research on the anchoring phenomenon shows that people tend to rely heavily on the initial piece of information (the anchor) and are often unwilling to adjust significantly from it, even when the anchor is arbitrary.

Question 14

You have just spent 10 minutes trying to figure out the answer to a single problem on your math quiz.In spite of your lack of success,you continue to struggle,neglecting to continue on to other problems because you've already invested so much time and effort in this problem.You have fallen victim to ______.

Accepted Answer

The sunk cost effect describes the phenomenon where individuals continue a behavior or endeavor as a result of previously invested resources (time, money, or effort), even if they're not achieving the desired outcome. In this scenario, continuing to work on the problem despite not making progress, because of the time already spent, is a classic example of the sunk cost effect.

Question 15

Cognitive illusions ______.

Accepted Answer

Cognitive illusions reveal insights into the workings of our cognitive systems, showing us how our minds process information and sometimes lead us to erroneous conclusions. This understanding can help in designing better decision-making processes and tools.

Question 16

The gambler's fallacy is thought of as a special instance of ______.

Accepted Answer

The gambler's fallacy is a specific example of the belief in the law of small numbers, which is the incorrect assumption that small samples will closely reflect the properties of the larger population they are drawn from. In the context of gambling, this fallacy leads individuals to believe that if, for example, a coin has landed on heads multiple times in a row, it is "due" to land on tails, mistakenly applying the law of large numbers to small sequences of events.

Question 17

According to psychologists,human decision making often falls short of optimality because ______.

Accepted Answer

Human decision making often falls short of optimality because the information available can overwhelm the cognitive processes, leading to bounded rationality where individuals make satisfactory rather than optimal decisions.

Question 18

Anita is blonde,extremely attractive,and lives in an expensive condo.If we judge the probability of Anita's being a model as quite high because she resembles our stereotype of a model,we are using the heuristic of ______.

Accepted Answer

The representativeness heuristic is used when making judgments about the probability of an event under uncertainty. In this case, because Anita fits the stereotype of a model (blonde, extremely attractive, lives in an expensive condo), the judgment of her being a model is based on how well she represents the stereotypical characteristics of a model, which is an example of the representativeness heuristic.

Question 19

You are offered a chance to buy a lottery ticket.The probability of winning is 1 in 100.If you win,the prize is $100,000.According to expected value,a "fair" price for this lottery ticket would be ______.

Accepted Answer

The answer of You are offered a chance to buy...

Question 20

The phase of decision making that involves finding a way to organize information is called ______.

Accepted Answer

Structuring the decision is the phase in decision making where information is organized to help in making a choice or decision. This involves laying out the options, criteria, and any other relevant information in a structured manner.

Quiz 12: Reasoning and Decision Making