Lecture 7 Flashcards
What is reasoning?
drawing conclusions or inferences from observations, facts, and assumptions
What are the seven barriers to rational thinking?
exaggerating the improbable, the conjunction fallacy, framing effects, sunk cost fallacy, hindsight bias, confirmation bias, the need for cognitive consistency
What is availability heuristic?
the tendency to judge the probability of a type of event by how easily it is to think of examples or instances
What does availability heuristic help us do?
make quick decisions when not enough time/resources to investigate
Why do catastrophes easily come to mind?
they stand out in memory
What do people irrationally ignore?
dangers that are hard to visualize
What is conjunction fallacy?
the tendency for people to think two events are more likely to occur together than either individual event
What is the overarching theme of conjunction fallacy?
better chances of one condition being met than two conditions being met
What are framing effects?
the tendency for people to give different answers to the same problem depending on how the problem is phrased or framed
What is avoiding loss?
people try to avoid or minimize loss when making decisions
What is an example of framing effects?
Option A: save 200 people
Option B: 33% chance to save all, 66% chance of all death
_______
Option A: 400 people die
Option B: 33% chance of no death, 66% all will die
What is sunk cost fallacy?
the tendency of people to make decisions about current situation based on what they have previously invested in the situation
What is hindsight bias?
the tendency to overestimate one’s ability to have predicted an event once the outcome is known
What are common phrases associated with hindsight bias?
“I knew it all along”
“I knew they wouldn’t last”
“I knew Trump wouldn’t get re-elected”
What is the problem with hindsight bias?
you are less likely to learn how to make accurate decisions in the future
What is conformation bias?
the tendency to pay attention only to information that confirms one’s beliefs
What are examples of confirmation bias?
politicians bragging about their high success record and the failing record of opponents, jury members quickly creating story of events and finding evidence that supports it
What is cognitive dissonance?
the state of tension that occurs when a person holds two cognitions that are psychologically inconsistent or when a person’s belief is incongruent with his behavior
What is the motive behind cognitive dissonance?
inconsistencies and tension is so uncomfortable, we are motivated to resolve it
When are people more likely to reduce dissonance?
you need to justify a choice or decision you freely made, you need to justify a behavior that conceits with our view of ourselves, and you need to justify the effort you put into a decision or choice
What is intelligence?
a mental ability that enables people to direct their thinking, adapt to their circumstances, and learn from their experiences
What was the 1800s French effort?
to educate all children and determine who needed additional assistance
Who is Alfred Binet?
he developed first objective testing aiming to give unbiased assessments of child’s ability to determine their “mental age”
Who was Lewis Terman?
a man at Stanford who modified Binet’s test for American children (created the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale)
