Ch. 8: Thinking, Decisions, Intelligence, and Language (8.1-8.12)

Question 1

cognitive psychology

Answer 1

the study of mental functions
such as intelligence, thinking, language, memory, and decision making. In
short, this branch of psychology studies cognition, which can be broadly
defined as the mental processes involved in acquiring knowledge and
comprehension through thought and experiences.

Question 2

two ideas about thinking

Answer 2

1) Knowledge about the world is stored in the brain in representations, and
(2) thinking is the mental manipulation of these representations.
In other words, we use representations to understand objects we encounter in our environments.

Question 3

cognition

Answer 3

The mental activity that includes thinking and the understandings that result from thinking.

Question 4

thinking

Answer 4

The mental manipulation of representations of knowledge about the world.

Question 5

analogical representations

Answer 5

Mental representations that have some of the physical characteristics of what they represent.

Question 6

symbolic representations

Answer 6

Abstract mental representations that do not correspond to the physical features of objects or ideas.

Question 7

categorization

Answer 7

Grouping things based on shared properties. This mental activity reduces the amount of knowledge we must hold in memory and is therefore an efficient way of thinking.

Question 8

concept

Answer 8

A category, or class, of related items consisting of mental representations of those items.

Question 9

prototype model

Answer 9

A way of thinking about concepts: Within each category, there is a best example—a prototype—for that category.

Question 10

exemplar model

Answer 10

A way of thinking about concepts: All members of a category are examples (exemplars); together they form the concept and determine category
membership

Question 11

Gender roles

Answer 11

the prescribed behaviors for females and males within a culture. They represent a type of schema that operates at the unconscious level.

Question 12

script

Answer 12

A schema that directs behavior over time within a situation. (e.g. the cinema, a restaurant or casino)

Question 13

stereotypes

Answer 13

Cognitive schemas that allow for easy, fast processing of information about people based on their membership in certain groups

Question 14

confirmation bias

Answer 14

focusing only on information that support your views

Question 15

Hindsight bias

Answer 15

tendency to look back at an event that we could not predict at the time and think the outcome was easily predictable.

Question 16

loss aversion

Answer 16

an individual’s tendency to prefer avoiding losses to acquiring equivalent gains.

Question 17

base rate

Answer 17

how frequently an event occurs (in a given time/space)

Question 18

decision making

Answer 18

A cognitive process that results in the selection of a course of action or belief from several options.

Question 19

problem solving

Answer 19

Finding a way around an obstacle to reach a goal.

Question 20

heuristics

Answer 20

Shortcuts (rules of thumb or informal guidelines) used to reduce the amount of thinking that is needed to make decisions.

Question 21

anchoring

Answer 21

The tendency, in making judgments, to rely on the first piece of information encountered or information that comes most quickly to mind.

Question 22

framing

Answer 22

In decision making, an emphasis on the potential losses or potential gains from at least one alternative.

Question 23

availabilty heuristic

Answer 23

Making a decision based on the answer that most easily comes to mind.

Question 24

representativeness heuristic

Answer 24

Placing a person or an object in a category if that person or object is similar to one’s prototype for that category.

Question 25

Kahneman and Tversky (1979)

Answer 25

They shattered many intuitions and theories about how people make decisions by focusing less on what people should do and more on what they actually do. Through their research, Kahneman and Tversky helped us understand that people are far from calm and rational thinkers. Rather, decision makers are biased, use irrelevant criteria, and can be unduly influenced by their emotions.

Question 26

integral emotions

Answer 26

emotions that are caused by the decision itself. They arrive, for example, when you think about the parameters of the decision or its implications.

Question 27

incidental emotions

Answer 27

the emotions we carry with us to the decision that have nothing to do with the decision. For example, the way you feel because you had an extremely frustrating drive to work, may affect the way you great your coworkers.

Question 28

endowment effect

Answer 28

the tendency to value things we own more than we would pay to buy them—as if the fact that we own
something endows it with some additional value in our minds. (mostly when feeling happy)

Question 29

appraisal tendency framework

Answer 29

moods elicit tendencies. These mood-related tendencies influence how we appraise unrelated information and choices encountered while in that affective state.

Question 30

affective forecasting

Answer 30

The tendency for people to overestimate how events will make them feel in the future.

Question 31

subgoal

Answer 31

a goal that is involved in achieving a larger goal. A step to get to a final goal.

Question 32

algorithm

Answer 32

a guideline that, if followed correctly, will always yield the correct answer. If you wanted to know the area of a rectangle, for example, you could get the right answer by multiplying its length times its width.

Question 33

working backward

Answer 33

When the appropriate steps for solving a problem are not clear, proceeding from the goal state to the initial state can help yield a solution.

Question 34

analogical problem solving (finding an appropriate analogy)

Answer 34

using a strategy that works in one context to solve a problem that is structurally similar in another context. To accomplish this kind of transfer, you must pay attention to the structure of each problem. For this reason, analogous problems may enhance our ability to solve each one.

Question 35

restructering

Answer 35

A new way of thinking about a problem that aids its solution.

Question 36

mental sets

Answer 36

Problem-solving strategies that have worked in the past.

Question 37

functional fixedness

Answer 37

In problem solving, having fixed ideas about the typical functions of objects.

Question 38

insight

Answer 38

The sudden realization of a solution to a problem.

Question 39

maximizers

Answer 39

want the choice that is maximally beneficial. They seek to identify the perfect choice among a set of options

Question 40

satisficers

Answer 40

go with a choice that is satisfactory enough. They seek to find a “good enough” choice that meets their minimum requirements

Question 41

psychometric approach to measuring intelligence

Answer 41

focuses on how people perform on standardized tests that assess mental abilities. These tests examine what people know and how they solve problems. For much of the past century, the psychometric approach to intelligence has been dominant and influential. This approach has especially affected how we view intelligence in everyday life, at least within industrialized nations.

Question 42

Achievement tests

Answer 42

assess people’s current levels of skill and of knowledge

Question 43

Aptitude tests

Answer 43

seek to predict what tasks, and perhaps even what jobs, people will be good at in the future.

Question 44

intelligence

Answer 44

The ability to use knowledge to reason, make
decisions, make sense of events, solve problems, understand complex ideas, learn quickly, and adapt to environmental challenges.

Question 45

mental age

Answer 45

An assessment of a child’s intellectual standing compared with that of sameage peers; determined by comparing the child’s test score with the average score for children of each chronological age.

Question 46

intelligence quotient (IQ)

Answer 46

An index of intelligence computed by dividing a child’s estimated mental age by the child’s chronological age, then multiplying this number by 100.

Question 47

factor analysis

Answer 47

In this statistical technique, items similar to one another are clustered. The clusters are called factors.

Question 48

Analytical intelligence (Sternberg)

Answer 48

similar to that measured by psychometric tests —being good at problem solving, completing analogies, figuring out puzzles, and other academic challenges.

Question 49

Creative intelligence (Sternberg

Answer 49

involves the ability to gain insight and solve novel problems—to think in new and interesting ways.

Question 50

Practical intelligence (Sternberg)

Answer 50

refers to dealing with everyday tasks, such as knowing whether a parking space is large enough for your vehicle, being a good judge of people, being an effective leader, and so on.

Question 51

general intelligence (g)

Answer 51

The idea that one general factor underlies intelligence.
Raymond Cattell (1971) proposed that g consists of two types of intelligence: Fluid and Crystallized intelligence.

Question 52

fluid intelligence

Answer 52

Intelligence that reflects the ability to process information, understand relationships, and think logically, particularly in novel or complex circumstances.

Question 53

crystallized intelligence

Answer 53

Intelligence that reflects both the knowledge acquired through experience and the ability to use that knowledge.

Question 54

Emotional intelligencce (EI)

Answer 54

A form of social intelligence that emphasizes four abilities: managing one’s emotions, using one’s own emotions to guide thoughts and actions, recognizing other people’s emotions, and understanding emotional language.

Question 55

savant

Answer 55

a person who has an exceptional aptitude in one particular field, such as music or mathematics, despite having significant impairment in other areas of intellectual or social functioning.

Question 56

social multiplier

Answer 56

an environmental factor or an entire environment that increases what might have started as a small advantage

Question 57

Flynn effect

Answer 57

IQ scores have risen dramatically during the past
century of intelligence testing.
Since genes cannot have changed much in modern humans, the increase in cognitive performance and IQ during this period must be due to environmental factors.
One possible explanation for the increase in IQ scores across generations is that, since every generation needs more education than the preceding one, and since work and leisure activities require more complex
cognitive processing than they did in earlier times, cognitive abilities escalate within the span of one generation. Other explanations include better nutrition, better health care, the refinement of education methods, longer school years, prosperity, and smaller families with more intensive parenting, as well as exposure to technology such as computers.