Chapter 13: Judgement, Decisions, and Reasoning Flashcards
Judgement
making a decision or drawing a conclusion
Reasoning
cognitive process by which people start with information and come to conclusions that go beyond that information
Decision
making choices between alternatives
Inductive Reasoning
reasoning in which a conclusion follows from a consideration of evidence
this conclusion is stated as being as probably true rather than definitely true, as can be the case for the conclusions from deductive reasoning
Availability Heuristic
events that are more easily remembered are judged to be more probable than events that are less easily remembered
Illusory Correlations
a correlation that appears to exist between two events, when in reality there is no correlation or it is weaker than it is assumed to be
Stereotypes
an oversimplified generalization about a group or class of people that often focuses on negative characteristics
Representativeness Heuristic
the probability that an event A comes from class B can be determined by how well A resembles the properties of class B
Base Rate
the relative proportions of different classes in a population
failure to consider base rates can often lead to errors of reasoning
Conjunction Rate
the probability of the conjunction of two events (such as feminist and bank teller) cannot be higher than the probability of single constituents (feminist alone or bank teller alone)
Law of Large Number
the larger the number of individuals that are randomly drawn from a population, the more representative the resulting group will be of the entire population
Myside Bias
type of confirmation bias in which people generate and test hypotheses in a way that is biased toward their own opinions and attitudes
Confirmation Bias
the tendency to selectively look for information that conforms to our hypothesis and to overlook information that argues against it
Deductive Reasoning
reasoning that involves syllogisms in which a conclusion logically follows from premises
Syllogism
a series of three statements; two premises followed by a conclusion
the conclusion can follow from the premises based on the rules of logic
Premises
the first two statements in a syllogism
the third statement is a conclusion
Categorical Syllogisms
a syllogism in which the premises and conclusion describe the relationship between two categories by using statements that begin with All, No or Some
Validity
quality of a syllogism whose conclusion follows logically from its premises
Belief Bias
tendency to think a syllogism is valid if it conclusion is believable or that it is invalid if the conclusion is not believable
Mental Model Approach
in deductive reasoning, determining if syllogisms are valid by creating mental models of situations based on the premises of the syllogism
Mental Model
a specific situation that is represented in a person’s mind
Conditional Syllogisms
syllogisms with two premises and a conclusion, like a categorical syllogism, but whose first premise is an “If … then” statement
Wason Four-Card Problem
a conditional reasoning task developed by Wason that involves four cards
various versions of this problem have been used to study the mechanisms that determines the outcomes of conditional reasoning tasks
Falsification Principle
the reasoning principle that to test a rule, it is necessary to look for situations that would falsify the rule
Permission Schema
a pragmatic reasoning schema that states that if a person satisfies condition A, then they get to carry out action B
the permission schema has been used to explain the results of the Wason four-card problem
Expected Utility Theory
the idea that people are basically rational, so if they have all of the relevant information, they will make a decision that results in the most beneficial result
Utility
outcomes that achieve a person’s goals
in economic terms, the maximum monetary payoff
Expected Emotions
emotion that a person predicts he or she will feel for a particular outcome of a decision
Risk Aversion
the tendency to make decisions that avoid risk
Incidental Emotions
in a decision-making situation, emotions not directly caused by the act of having to make a decision
