8.1-8.9: How People Think

Question 1

All of the mental activities associated with thinking, including knowing, remembering, solving problems, making judgements and decisions, and communicating

Answer 1

Cognition

Question 2

The scientific study of mental activities and how they operate

Answer 2

Cognitive psychology

Question 3

An internal mental symbol that stands for some object, event, or state of affairs in the world

Answer 3

Mental representation

Question 4

A mental category that groups similar objects, events, ideas, or people

Answer 4

Concept

Question 5

A best example or average member of a concept that incorporates most of the features most commonly associated with it

Answer 5

Prototype

Question 6

A step-by-step procedure for solving problems that guarantees a solution

Answer 6

Algorithm

Question 7

A sudden conscious change in a person’s understanding of some situation or problem

Answer 7

Insight

Question 8

A mental framework for how to solve a problem based on prior experience with similar problems

Answer 8

Mental set

Question 9

An obstacle to problem solving that involves focusing on an object’s typical functions, thus failing to recognize atypical functions that could help solve a problem

Answer 9

Functional fixedness

Question 10

The process of reorganizing one’s understanding of a problem to facilitate a solution

Answer 10

Restructuring

Question 11

The idea that rational decision making is constrained by limitations in people’s cognitive abilities, available information, and time

Answer 11

Bounded rationality

Question 12

The proposal that people have two types of thinking that they can use to make judgements and decisions: one that is slower, more effortful, and leads to more thoughtful and rational outcomes, and one that is fast, fairly effortless, and leads to decent outcomes most of the time

Answer 12

Dual processing theory

Question 13

A mental shortcut that allows people to efficiently solve problems and make judgements and decisions

Answer 13

Heuristic

Question 14

A mental shortcut for judging the likelihood of something based on how well it represents some category

Answer 14

Representativeness heuristic

Question 15

A mental shortcut for deciding how frequent or probable something is based on how easily examples come to mind

Answer 15

Availability heuristic

Question 16

A mental shortcut for making judgements and decisions that involves relying on affect - the good-for-me or bad-for-me feelings we associate with various objects and events in the world

Answer 16

Affect heuristic

Question 17

The tendency to look for and weigh evidence that confirms preexisting beliefs more strongly than evidence that is inconsistent with those beliefs

Answer 17

Confirmation bias

Question 18

The tendency for people to resist changing their beliefs, even when faced with disconfirming evidence

Answer 18

Belief perseverance

Question 19

The particular way that an issue, decision, or set of options is described. Framing can change decisions by shifting the decision maker’s reference point

Answer 19

Framing

Question 20

The tendency to make choices, including riskier ones, that minimize losses

Answer 20

Loss aversion

Question 21

The tendency to overestimate the accuracy of one’s knowledge and judgements

Answer 21

Overconfidence bias

Question 22

The tendency, once some outcome is known, to overestimate the likelihood that one would have predicted that outcome in advance

Answer 22

Hindsight bias