Question 1

Eighty percent of people who live in your community are politically conservative. At a town event you are introduced to Jim who tells you he is pro-choice on the issue of abortion. Based on this information, you incorrectly conclude that Jim is politically liberal. Your failure to take into account the number of people who are coservatives when making your judgment about Jim illustrates an example of:

Accepted Answer

The base rate fallacy is the tendency to ignore the overall frequency or "base rate" of a particular trait or behavior in a population when making judgments or predictions about individuals within that population. In this case, the base rate of conservatism in the community is relevant to understanding the likelihood of Jim being politically liberal or conservative, but it was not taken into account.

Question 2

Your friend Jane is trying to decide if she wants to go on a camping trip for the weekend. You know that Jane thinks camping is fun but you also remember that the last two times Jane went camping she got sick. Based on your knowledge of how the availability heuristic impacts judgments and decisions, what could you say to Jane that would be most likely to convince her to stay home?

Accepted Answer

Using the availability heuristic, Jane is likely to base her decision on her most recent experiences (getting sick while camping). By reminding her of these experiences, she is more likely to decide against going on the camping trip. Option A might not be effective as it does not address her concerns about getting sick while camping. Option B is not an accurate statement and might not be convincing. Option D is a neutral suggestion that does not provide a specific reason for Jane to stay home.

Question 3

John likes to read books and spends a great deal of time in the library. The tendency to conclude that John is more likely to be a university professor than a mechanic is an example of using the _____________ heuristic.

Accepted Answer

The representativeness heuristic involves making judgments about the likelihood of an event based on how well it matches a typical example or prototype. In this case, the prototype of a university professor is more closely associated with spending time in a library and reading books than a mechanic.

Question 4

Which heuristic involves deciding the probability that object A belongs to category B or that event A is a result of process B?

Accepted Answer

The representativeness heuristic involves judging the probability of an event or object belonging to a certain category based on how closely it resembles our mental representation of that category. This heuristic is used to judge the probability of an object belonging to a certain category or the likelihood that an event is a result of a specific process. Therefore, option B is the correct answer. The anchoring and adjustment heuristic involves starting with an initial estimate (the anchor) and adjusting it based on additional information, while the availability heuristic involves estimating the likelihood of an event based on how easily it comes to mind. Both of these heuristics are not relevant to the given question.

Question 5

The _____________ heuristic refers to the notion that we use a number as a starting point on which to anchor our judgment.

Accepted Answer

The anchoring and adjustment heuristic refers to our tendency to rely on an initial piece of information (the "anchor") when making a judgment, and then adjust our subsequent judgments based on that initial anchor. This can lead us to be biased towards the anchor, and make judgments that are less accurate than if we had started with a neutral point of reference.

Question 6

Tversky and Kahneman (1974) provided participants with personality descriptions of engineers or lawyers and asked them to choose whether the individual was a lawyer or engineer. Out of a supposed sample of 100 engineers and lawyers, half of the participants were told that there were 70 engineers and 30 lawyers, while the other half were told that there were 30 engineers and 70 lawyers. Tversky and Kahneman (1974) found that participants did not consider information about the ratio of engineers to lawyers when making their judgments. In other words, participants failed to take into account which of the following?

Accepted Answer

Participants failed to consider the base rate information about the ratio of engineers to lawyers when making their judgments.

Question 7

Which of the following is an example of the availability heuristic?

Accepted Answer

The availability heuristic refers to the tendency for people to rely on information that comes to mind easily when making decisions or judgments. In this case, Sam is avoiding going into the ocean because he can easily recall two recent shark attacks that were reported in the media. This decision is influenced by the availability of information in his memory, rather than a rational assessment of the actual risk of a shark attack.

Question 8

Tversky and Kahneman (1974) provided participants with personality descriptions of engineers or lawyers and asked them to choose whether the individual was a lawyer or engineer. Out of a supposed sample of 100 engineers and lawyers, half of the participants were told that there were 70 engineers and 30 lawyers, while the other half were told that there were 30 engineers and 70 lawyers. What was the main finding of this study?

Accepted Answer

The main finding of this study was that people often do not use the base rate when provided with descriptive information about people. This is known as the base rate fallacy. In this case, participants relied too heavily on the descriptive information (i.e. the personality descriptions) instead of considering the base rate (i.e. the ratio of engineers to lawyers).

Question 9

You have developed a new medical device that can diagnose a deadly disease with 80% accuracy. According to information on the framing heuristic, which of the following is the LEAST effective way to present this new device to doctors?

Accepted Answer

According to the framing heuristic, people tend to focus more on losses than gains. Therefore, presenting the accuracy of the device as "20% inaccurate" emphasizes the potential for error and may lead doctors to be less likely to use the device. It would be more effective to present the accuracy as "80% accurate" (choice B) or "the most accurate device" (choice D). Choice A is vague and does not provide any useful information about the device.

Question 10

_____________ refers to how common a behaviour or characteristic is in the population.

Accepted Answer

The base rate refers to the frequency or prevalence of a particular behaviour or characteristic in a given population. It is used in probability and statistics to determine the likelihood of an event occurring based on the existing frequency in the population.

Question 11

Which of the following is the most reasonable explanation for why people rely on mental shortcuts and schemas even though they can lead to biases?

Accepted Answer

Using careful thought for every single decision would be an inefficient use of mental energy, so relying on mental shortcuts and schemas is a more efficient way to make decisions.

Question 12

What can we conclude from research looking at the 'hot hand' in basketball?

Accepted Answer

Research on the 'hot hand' in basketball has consistently shown that there is no evidence to support the idea that a player is more likely to make a shot following a successful shot. This suggests that people who believe in the 'hot hand' are likely seeing patterns in random events, rather than actual streaks of good performance. This is consistent with the general tendency for humans to perceive patterns even in random data.

Question 13

You are asked to estimate the work productivity of an employee. If you under- or overestimated their productivity as a result of using your own level of productivity as a starting point, this would illustrate _____________.

Accepted Answer

This scenario illustrates the use of the anchoring and adjustment heuristic, where an initial estimate (in this case, the evaluator's own level of productivity) serves as an anchor, and adjustments are made from that starting point to estimate someone else's productivity.

Question 14

Tversky and Kahneman (1973) asked participants to estimate whether the letter 'R' more often held the first position of words or the third position of words. Most participants incorrectly estimated that the letter 'R' held the first position of words rather than the third position. What is the most plausible explanation for this finding?

Accepted Answer

Participants were more likely to recall words that started with 'R' more easily than words with 'R' in the third position. This is due to the availability heuristic, where people judge the frequency or likelihood of an event by the ease with which examples come to mind.

Question 15

When you base a conclusion about a situation on the framework in which it is presented, you are using the _____________ heuristic.

Accepted Answer

Framing heuristic is used to make a conclusion about a situation based on the way it is presented or framed. It is used to influence the decision-making process by manipulating the way information is presented to the individual. The availability heuristic is used to make decisions based on the information that comes to one's mind first. The representativeness heuristic is used to make a decision based on a prototype or stereotype. Context is the background or surrounding circumstances in which the decision is made.

Question 16

According to information presented in your textbook, which of the following best describes why the anchoring and adjustment heuristic leads to problems when making decisions or judgments?

Accepted Answer

The anchoring and adjustment heuristic leads to problems because people tend to stop adjusting their judgments once they reach a seemingly reasonable value, or the anchor. They do not consider other relevant factors or potential biases that may be affecting their judgments. This can lead to inaccurate or biased decisions.

Question 17

You have developed a new medical device that can diagnose a deadly disease with 80% accuracy. According to information on the framing heuristic, which of the following would be the best way to present this new device to doctors?

Accepted Answer

According to the framing heuristic, people tend to focus on the positive or negative aspects of a message depending on how it is framed. In this case, presenting the device as "80% accurate" focuses on the positive aspect of the device's diagnostic capabilities, which is more likely to be perceived favorably by doctors. Option A presents a positive message but lacks specificity, Option C presents a negative message, and Option D presents a superlative message that may be perceived as overpromising. Therefore, Option B is the best choice.

Question 18

Even though Christopher has lost a great deal of money gambling, he continues to place bets at the roulette table because he believes that he can predict the winning number. Christopher's perception that he can control events that are uncontrollable is known as:

Accepted Answer

Christopher's belief that he can control the outcome of a random event like roulette is an example of illusion of control. This refers to the tendency for people to overestimate their ability to control or influence events that are largely determined by chance or outside factors.

Question 19

Heuristics are useful mental shortcuts but they also have drawbacks. What could be considered one disadvantage of using the representativeness heuristic?

Accepted Answer

The representativeness heuristic may lead to neglecting important information such as the base rate. This means that people may rely too heavily on how closely something or someone matches their mental prototype or stereotype, rather than considering other relevant information, such as how common or rare the characteristic or behavior is in the population as a whole.

Question 20

Heuristics are useful mental shortcuts but they also have drawbacks. What could be considered one disadvantage of using the availability heuristic?

Accepted Answer

One disadvantage of using the availability heuristic is that people may give less weight to higher probability events compared with more vivid or scarier lower probability events. This is because the brain tends to focus more on easily retrievable or available memories, rather than objectively evaluating probabilities.

Quiz 3: Social Cognition