Chapter 6

Question 1

Perception

Answer 1

A process by which individuals organize and interpret their sensory impressions to give meaning to their environment. People’s behavior is based on their perception of what reality is, not on reality itself.

Question 2

Factors That Influence Perception

Answer 2

Perceiver - the person interpreting
Target - what is being interpreted
Context - all other factors surrounding the above two things when they interact with one another

Question 3

Attribution Theory

Answer 3

An attempt to explain the ways we judge people differently, depending on the meaning we attribute to a behavior, such as determining whether an individual’s behavior is internally or externally caused.

Attribution theory suggests that when we observe an individual’s behavior, we attempt to determine whether it was internally or externally caused. That determination depends largely on three factors: (1) distinctiveness, (2) consensus, and (3) consistency.

Question 4

Internally vs Externally caused behaviour

Answer 4

Internally caused behaviors are those an observer believes to be under the personal behavioral control of another individual.

Externally caused behavior is what we imagine the situation forced the individual to do.

Question 5

Distinctiveness

Answer 5

refers to whether an individual displays different behaviors in different situations.

Question 6

Consensus

Answer 6

If everyone who faces a similar situation responds (shows behaviour) in the same way

Question 7

Consistency

Answer 7

Repeated Behavior. The more consistent the behavior, the more we are inclined to attribute it to internal causes.

Question 8

Fundamental Attribution Error

Answer 8

The tendency to underestimate the influence of external factors and overestimate the influence of internal factors when making judgments about the behavior of others.

Question 9

Self-Serving Bias

Answer 9

The tendency for individuals to attribute their own successes to internal factors and put the blame for failures on external factors.

Question 10

Selective Perception

Answer 10

The tendency to choose to interpret what one sees based on one’s interests, background, experience, and attitudes. Seeing what we want to see, we sometimes draw unwarranted conclusions from an ambiguous situation.

Question 11

Halo Effect

Answer 11

The tendency to draw a positive general impression about an individual based on a single characteristic.

Question 12

Horns Effect

Answer 12

The tendency to draw a negative general impression about an individual based on a single characteristic.

Question 13

Contrast Effects

Answer 13

Evaluation of a person’s characteristics in contrast with other people recently encountered who rank higher or lower on the same characteristics.

“Never follow an act that has kids or animals in it.” Why? Audiences love children and animals so much that you’ll look bad in comparison.

Question 14

Stereotyping

Answer 14

Judging someone based on one’s perception of the group to which that person belongs.

Question 15

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

Answer 15

A situation in which a person inaccurately perceives a second person and the resulting expectations cause the second person to behave in ways consistent with the original perception.

Question 16

Pygmalion effect

Answer 16

A psychological phenomenon where higher expectations from others lead to improved performance in individuals. It suggests that when teachers or leaders believe in someone’s potential, that person is more likely to succeed.

Question 17

Decisions

Answer 17

Choices made from among two or more alternatives.

Question 18

Problem

Answer 18

A discrepancy between the current state of affairs and some desired state.

Question 19

Rational Decision-Making Model

Answer 19

A decision-making model that describes how individuals should behave to maximize some outcome. Assumes the decision maker has complete information, can identify all relevant options in an unbiased manner, and chooses the option with the highest utility.

Question 19

Rational

Answer 19

Characterized by making consistent, value-maximizing choices within specified constraints.

Question 20

Steps in the Rational Decision-Making Model

Answer 20

See Image

Question 21

Bounded Rationality

Answer 21

A process of making decisions by constructing simplified models that extract the essential features from problems without capturing all their complexity. We can then behave rationally within the limits of the simple model.

Question 22

Satisficing

Answer 22

A decision-making strategy or cognitive heuristic that entails searching through the available alternatives until an acceptability threshold is met, without necessarily maximizing any specific objective. It somewhat comes down to using the first acceptable answer you run into.

Question 23

Intuitive Decision Making

Answer 23

An unconscious process created out of distilled experience. Occurs outside conscious thought; relies on holistic associations, or links between disparate pieces of information; is fast; and is affectively charged, meaning it engages the emotions.

Question 24

Overconfidence Bias

Answer 24

Basically the dunning-krieger effect. People who are more confident about their answer are more likely to be wrong.

Question 25

Anchoring Bias

Answer 25

A tendency to fixate on initial information, from which one then fails to adjust adequately for subsequent information. Widely used by people in professions in which persuasion skills are important—advertising, management, politics, real estate, and law.

Question 26

Confirmation Bias

Answer 26

The tendency to seek out information that reaffirms past choices and to discount information that contradicts past judgments. We even tend to seek sources most likely to tell us what we want to hear, and we give too much weight to supporting information and too little to contradictory. Those who feel a strong need to be accurate in deciding are less prone to confirmation bias.

Question 27

Availability Bias

Answer 27

The tendency for people to base their judgments on information that is readily available to them.

Question 28

Escalation of Commitment

Answer 28

An increased commitment to a previous decision despite negative information. Refers to our staying with a decision even if there is clear evidence that it is wrong. Rewording of the Gamblers Falacy? Researchers suggest that a balanced approach includes frequent evaluation of the spent costs and whether the next step is worth the anticipated costs. What we want to combat is thus the tendency to escalate commitment automatically.

Question 29

Randomness Error

Answer 29

The tendency of individuals to believe that they can predict the outcome of random events.

Question 30

Risk Aversion

Answer 30

The tendency to prefer a sure gain of a moderate amount over a riskier outcome, even if the riskier outcome might have a higher expected payoff. TLDR: the tendency to prefer a sure thing over a risky outcome

Question 31

Hindsight Bias

Answer 31

The tendency to believe falsely, after an outcome of an event is actually known, that one would have accurately predicted that outcome. “What is clear in hindsight is rarely clear before the fact.”

Question 32

Utilitarianism

Answer 32

An ethical perspective in which decisions are made to provide the greatest good for all.

Question 33

Whistle-Blowers

Answer 33

Individuals who report unethical practices by their employer to outsiders.

Question 34

Deonance

Answer 34

A perspective in which ethical decisions are made because you “ought to” in order to be consistent with moral norms, principles, standards, rules, or laws.

Question 35

Behavioral Ethics

Answer 35

Analyzing how people behave when confronted with ethical dilemmas.

Question 36

Creativity

Answer 36

The ability to produce novel and useful ideas.

Question 37

The 4 steps to Creative Behavior

Answer 37

Problem Formulation - The stage of creative behavior that involves identifying a problem or opportunity requiring a solution that is yet unknown. Information gathering - The stage of creative behavior when possible solutions to a problem incubate in an individual’s mind. Idea Generation - The process of creative behavior that involves developing possible solutions to a problem from relevant information and knowledge. Idea evaluation - The process of creative behavior involving the evaluation of potential solutions to problems to identify the best one.