Brainscape's Knowledge GenomeTM


Top Flashcards (Certified)
All Flashcards

Cognitive Psychology > Judgement, Decisions, and Reasoning > Flashcards

Judgement, Decisions, and Reasoning Flashcards

(105 cards)

Start Studying
1
Q

Define decisions.

A

The process of making choices between alternatives.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
2
Q

Define reasoning.

A

The process of drawing conclusions.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
3
Q

What are decisions based on?

A

Judgments we make.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
4
Q

Name one of the primary mechanisms involved in making judgments.

A

Inductive reasoning.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
5
Q

Define inductive reasoning. (2)

A

Reasoning based on observations or reaching conclusions from evidence.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
6
Q

What is inductive reasoning the basis of?

A

Scientific investigations in which observations are made, data collected, and conclusions drawn.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
7
Q

One of the characteristics of inductive reasoning is based on the observation that are conclusions we reach are:

A

Probably true.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
8
Q

Give three factors that can contribute to the strength of an inductive argument.

A

Representativeness of observations, number of observations, and quality of the evidence.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
9
Q

What are heuristics?

A

Shortcuts based on past experience that we use to guide behaviour, which are rules of thumb that are likely to provide the correct answer to a problem but are not foolproof.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
10
Q

Name two heuristics.

A

The availability heuristics and the representative heuristic.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
11
Q

What does the availability heuristic state?

A

Events that are more easily remembered are judged as being more probable that events that are less easily remembered.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
12
Q

How can the availability heuristic mislead us into reaching the wrong conclusion?

A

When less frequently occurring events stand out in memory.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
13
Q

When do illusory correlations occur?

A

When a correlation between two events appears to exist, but in reality there is no correlation or it is weaker than assumed.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
14
Q

What may illusory correlations take the form of?

A

Stereotypes.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
15
Q

Define stereotype.

A

An oversimplified generalisation about a group or class of people that often focuses on the negative.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
16
Q

A stereotype about the characteristics of a particular group may lead people to:

A

Pay particular attention to behaviours associated with that stereotype, which creates an illusory correlation that reinforces the stereotype.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
17
Q

How are stereotypes related to the availability heuristic?

A

Selective attention to the stereotypical behaviours makes the behaviours more available.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
18
Q

What is the difference between the availability heuristic and the representativeness heuristic?

A

While the availability heuristic is related to how often we expect events to occur, the representativeness heuristic is related to the idea that people often make judgements based on how much one event resembles another event.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
19
Q

Define the representativeness heuristic.

A

The probability that A is a member of class B can be determined by how well the properties of A resemble the properties we associate with class B.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
20
Q

What is the base rate?

A

The relative proportion of different classes in the population.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
21
Q

What happens when descriptive information is available, with reference to base rates?

A

People disregard base rate information, which can cause errors in reasoning.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
22
Q

What is the conjunction rule?

A

The probability of a conjunction of two events cannot be higher than the probability of the single constituents.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
23
Q

What is the law of large numbers?

A

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.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
24
Q

Give three influences of judgement.

A

Knowledge, attitudes and preconceptions.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
25
What is the myside bias?
The tendency for people to generate and evaluate evidence and test their hypotheses in a way that is biased towards their own opinions and attitudes.
26
What is the myside bias a type of?
Confirmation bias.
27
How is a confirmation bias different from a myside bias?
A confirmation bias is broader than the myside bias because it holds for any situation in which information is favoured that confirms a hypothesis.
28
What was the early theorising on decision making influenced by?
Expected utility theory.
29
What does expected utility theory assume?
People are rational.
30
According to expected utility theory, how do people behave if they have all the relevant information?
They will make a decision that results in the maximum expected utility.
31
Define utility.
Outcomes that achieve a person's goals.
32
Give the advantages of the utility approach.
It specifies procedures that make it possible to determine which choice results in the highest payoff.
33
Subjects preference for the lower probability choice shows that:
They are influenced by considerations other than their knowledge of probabilities.
34
What are Deal or No Deal contestant's choices determined by?
Not the amounts of money left in the briefcases but by what has happened leading up to their decision.
35
What evidence is there that emotions play a role in decision making?
People with damage to an area of their prefrontal cortex suffer from flattened emotions and an inability to respond to emotional events have impaired decision making.
36
Give an explanation for why damage to the prefrontal cortex causes impaired decision making.
These people find it difficult to evaluate the emotional outcomes that may result from different decisions.
37
Why do anxious people avoid making decisions?
They could potentially lead to large negative consequences.
38
How does optimism lead to poor decision making?
Optimists are more likely to ignore negative information and focus on the positive, leading to decisions made on incomplete information.
39
One of the most powerful effects of emotion in decision involves:
Expected emotions.
40
What are expected emotions?
Emotions that people predict they will feel for a particular outcome.
41
Expected emotions are one of the determinants of what"
Risk aversion.
42
What is risk aversion?
The tendency to avoid taking risks.
43
What increases the chance of risk aversion?
The tendency to believe that a particular loss will have a greater impact than a gain of the same size.
44
Why do people overestimate what their negative feelings will be?
When making their prediction, they don't take into account the various coping mechanisms they may use to deal with adversity.
45
What do the results of Kremer's experiment show about emotions and decision making?
The inability to correctly predict the emotional outcome of a decision can lead to inefficient decision making.
46
What are incidental emotions?
Emotions that are not caused by having to make a decision.
47
What can incidental emotions be related to? (3)
General disposition, daily events, or the environment.
48
What does Lerner suggest disgust is related to?
A need to expel things.
49
What does Lerner suggest sadness is related to?
A need for change.
50
Where does evidence that decisions can be influenced by context come from?
Experiments that show that adding alternatives to be considered as possible choices can influence decisions.
51
What can being faced with a difficult decision result in?
No decision at all.
52
What are the patient's chances of undergoing a cesarean influenced by?
The immediate prior experiences of the physician.
53
What is an opt-in procedure?
Something that requires an active step.
54
What is the status quo bias?
The tendency to do nothing when faced with making a decision.
55
What is the framing effect?
Decisions are influenced by how the choices are stated.
56
Why are people's decisions affected by framing?
The way a problem is stated can highlight some features of the situation and deemphasise others.
57
What does neuroeconomics combine?
Research from psychology, neuroscience and economics.
58
What does neuroeconomics study?
How brain activation is related to decisions that involve potential gains or losses.
59
Explain the ultimatum game.
Involving two players, where one is the proposer and one the responder. The proposer is given money and makes an an offer to the responder as to how it should be split between them. If the responder accepts they get the money, and if they reject it neither gets anything.
60
According to utility theory, what should the responder do in the ultimatum game, and why?
The responder should take the proposer's offer no matter what it is because accepting the offer guarantees something, but if you refuse you get nothing.
61
According to Sanfey, why do people reject low offers?
They are angry because they feel the offers are unfair.
62
What did Sanfey find about people's responses to a computer instead of a person, in reference to the ultimatum game? (2)
People are less likely to get angry with an unfair computer than an unfair person, and accepted more low offers.
63
What brain area did Sanfey implicate in rejection of offers and what evidence is there for this?
The right anterior insula (between the parietal and temporal lobes) was activated three times more strongly when an offer was rejected than when it was accepted, and subjects with higher activation in this area rejected more offers.
64
What is the right anterior insula associated with?
Negative emotional states, like pain, distress, hunger, anger and disgust.
65
Sanfey hypothesises that the function of the prefrontal cortex may be:
To deal with the cognitive demands of the task, which involves the goal of accumulating as much money as possible.
66
In the ultimatum task, what is handled by the right anterior insula, and what is handled by the prefrontal cortex?
The emotional goal of resenting unfairness, and the cognitive goal of accumulating money.
67
What is Sanfey's ultimatum game experiment an example of?
Neuroeconomics.
68
How is deductive reasoning different from inductive reasoning?
In inductive reasoning we draw conclusions from observations, but deductive reasoning focuses on determining whether a conclusion logically follows from statements called premises.
69
Who introduced the basic form of deductive reasoning?
Aristotle.
70
What is the basic form of deductive reasoning?
Syllogism.
71
Define syllogism.
Two premises followed by a third statement called the conclusion.
72
What is a categorical syllogism?
Where premises and conclusions are statements that begin with all, no or some.
73
When is a syllogism valid?
When the form of the syllogism indicates its conclusion follows logically from its two premises.
74
What is not involved in validity?
Truth.
75
What is the belief bias?
The tendency to think a syllogism is valid if its conclusion is believable.
76
Who developed a way to determine whether a syllogism is valid or invalid, and what is it called?
Johnson-Laird, and the mental model approach.
77
The idea that people can ____ is the basis of Johnson-Laird's proposal.
Imagine situations.
78
What is a mental model?
A specific situation represented in a person's mind that can be used to help determine the validity of syllogisms in deductive reasoning.
79
Explain the steps involved in a mental model.
People create a model, or representation of the situation for a reasoning problem, and then generate a tentative conclusion and look for exceptions that falsify the model..
80
According to the mental model approach, what happens when people find an exception that falsifies their model?
They modify the model.
81
According to the mental model approach, when do people decide the syllogism is valid?
When they can find no more exceptions.
82
Why is the mental model theory attractive?
It can be applied without training in the rules of logic, and it makes predictions that can be tested.
83
What does the mental model theory predict?
Syllogisms that require more complex models will be more difficult to solve.
84
Explain conditional syllogisms.
Two premises and a conclusion like categorical syllogisms, but the first premise has the form "If...then."
85
What does the Latin modus ponens mean?
The way that affirms by affirming.
86
What does the Latin modus tollens mean?
The way that denies by denying.
87
When are people better at judging syllogisms?
When real-world examples are used.
88
Explain the Wason four-card problem.
Four cards are shown, and each card has a letter on one side and a number on the other side, and the subject has to indicate which cards need to be turned over to test the following rule: if there is a vowel on one side, then there is an even number on the other side.
89
Define the falsification principle.
To test a rule it is necessary to look for situations that would falsify the rule.
90
What is a permission schema?
States that if a person satisfies a specific condition, then he or she gets to carry out an action.
91
Give another explanation for the results of the Wason four-card problem.
Performance of the task is governed by a built-in cognitive program for detecting cheating.
92
Name two psychologists who have a evolutionary perspective on cognition.
Cosmides and Tooby.
93
Explain the evolutionary perspective on cognition.
Many properties of our minds are the result of natural selection, so a highly adaptive feature of the mind would become a basic characteristic.
94
Name a basic characteristic of the mind, according to the evolutionary perspective on cognition.
Social exchange theory.
95
Explain social exchange theory.
An important aspect of human behaviour is the ability for two people to cooperate in a way that is beneficial to both people.
96
According to the evolutionary perspective on cognition, why is it important that we detect cheating?
If we detect cheating behaviour, we can avoid it, so we have a better chance of surviving.
97
According to the evolutionary perspective on cognition, why do people do well in the Wason and cholera tasks?
They can detect cheating behaviour.
98
Explain the dual systems approach to thinking.
There are two mental systems, a fast, automatic and intuitive system, and a slower, more deliberate system, which is used when we think about problems carefully.
99
What is the evidence that System 1 (of the dual systems approach) is involved in the belief bias?
Evaluating syllogisms under time pressure increases the belief bias effect.
100
When is System 2 of the dual systems approach likely to operate?
When subjects are given instructions that encourage them to take time to focus on the problem behind a syllogism.
101
May of the things we do are controlled by System _?
1.
102
How does Kahneman see System 1?
As providing information to System 2.
103
When does System 2 take over? (2)
When close attention is needed, or when System 1 cannot provide an answer.
104
Why is the abstract version of Wason four-card problem out of System 1's league?
It involved thoughtful reasoning.
105
How does System 1 solve realistic scenarios?
With intuition.

Cognitive Psychology (6 decks)

Brainscape helps you reach your goals faster, through stronger study habits.
© 2025 Bold Learning Solutions. Terms and Conditions