Chapter 13: Decision-Making

Question 1

reasoning

Answer 1

the act of drawing new conclusions from existing information

Question 2

decision-making

Answer 2

the act of choosing a specific course of behavioural actions among multiple possibilities

Question 3

Expected utility hypothesis (EUT)

Answer 3

a theory from economics that holds that people make a decision in accordance with maximizing expected value

Question 4

criticisms of EUT

Answer 4

the theory was criticized by Kahneman and Tversky who demonstrated through many experiments that people are often irrational

Question 5

neuroeconomics

Answer 5

a field of research that combines economics, neuroscience, and psychology to understand the choices that humans make

Question 6

premises

Answer 6

an estimate about whether certain facts about the world are true

Question 7

propositions

Answer 7

any statement that can be true or false and can refer to properties of the external world or about our experiments

Question 8

two types of reasoning

Answer 8

deduction & induction

Question 9

deduction

Answer 9

a kind of reasoning process where the conclusion logically follows from the initial premises. it involves using general theories to reason about specific observations

Question 10

induction

Answer 10

a kind of reasoning process which relies on generalizing from a certain set of information and extending it to make an informed guess

Question 11

logic

Answer 11

concerned with determining what kinds of inferences can be made with certainty from a given set of statements

Question 12

who is credited with deduction

Answer 12

artistotle

Question 13

who is credited with logic

Answer 13

artistotle

Question 14

syllogism

Answer 14

a kind of reasoning that involves drawing a conclusion from two or more propositional statements

Question 15

categorical syllogism

Answer 15

a kind of syllogism consisting of three statements: two premises and one conclusion

Question 16

perfect syllogism

Answer 16

a kind of syllogism that is obviously true

Question 17

valid syllogism

Answer 17

the conclusion follows directly from the premises

Question 18

is a valid syllogism necessarily true?

Answer 18

no

Question 19

the truth of a syllogism depends on ___

Answer 19

whether the initial premises are true

Question 20

fallacies

Answer 20

an invalid syllogism

Question 21

Piaget, 1970 on deductive reasoning

Answer 21

the ability to reason deductively is a critical step in psychological development underlying many cognitive functions

Question 22

criticisms of Piaget’s account of deductive reasoning

Answer 22

humans often fail to reason deductively

Question 23

Evans & Feeney, 2004 belief bias experiment

Answer 23

found that believable syllogisms were much more accepted, whereas invalid, unbelievable syllogisms were rarely accepted

Question 24

belief bias

Answer 24

a tendency to rate conclusions that are more believable as more valid

Question 25

when does belief bias decrease?

Answer 25

when people were given as much time as they wanted to think about the syllogism compared with when they were given only a few seconds to respond

Question 26

atmosphere effect

Answer 26

a tendency to rate the conclusion as more valid as long as the qualifying words in the premises match those in the conclusion

Question 27

mental models

Answer 27

people construct mental simulations of the world based on statements to judge logic and validity

Question 28

who proposed mental models?

Answer 28

Phillip Johnson-Laird, 1983

Question 29

conditional/ hypothetical syllogism

Answer 29

a kind of syllogism that states a rule that relates two propositions. If P, then Q statements

Question 30

p

Answer 30

the antecedent

Question 31

q

Answer 31

the consequent

Question 32

Modus ponens/ affirming the antecedent

Answer 32

a rule in relation to conditional syllogisms in which the antecedent is observed to be true, then the consequent may be concluded to be true

Question 33

Modus tollens/ denying the consequent

Answer 33

a rule in relation to conditional syllogisms when we observe that the consequent is false and conclude that the antecedent must be false as well

Question 34

Affirming the consequent

Answer 34

an invalid conclusion from a conditional syllogism in which one concludes that the antecedent is true because the consequent is true

Question 35

denying the antecedent

Answer 35

a kind of invalid reasoning from a conditional syllogism in which one concludes that the consequent is false based on the antecedent being false

Question 36

accuracy of identifying modus ponens vs. tollens

Answer 36

People are nearly perfect at identifying modus ponens, but their performance drops dramatically for modus tollens

Question 37

accuracy of identifying valid vs. invalid syllogisms

Answer 37

People are worse at correctly identifying syllogisms as invalid than they are at establishing them as valid

Question 38

Wason, 1968 confirmation bias experiment procedure

Answer 38

presented participants with a set of four cards with letters printer on one side and numbers on the other, along with a simple rule that may or may not be true about each of these four cards. He asked participants to turn over all the cards that are relevant to determining whether the stated rule is true or not

Question 39

Wason, 1968 confirmation bias experiment findings

Answer 39

The correct answer was E & 7. Most participants get this task wrong because they are more likely to look for confirming rather than disconfirming information

Question 40

confirmation bias

Answer 40

the tendency for people to find supporting evidence for a hypothesis or belief

Question 41

Griggs & Cox, 1982 confirmation bias experiment

Answer 41

used a logically identical version of the four-card task and found that participants performed much better than in Watson’s original task. They hypothesized it is because people perform logical reasoning more effectively when dealing with concrete, real-world examples

Question 42

David Hume on induction

Answer 42

even things that we consider to be certain are really based on inferential guessing

Question 43

induction involves

Answer 43

making more general assumptions

Question 44

generalization

Answer 44

extrapolation from a limited number of observations to draw a conclusion about the broader population or category

Question 45

statistical syllogism

Answer 45

a form of inductive reasoning in which observations about a group lead to inferences about an individual

Question 46

argument from analogy

Answer 46

a form of inductive reasoning in which the observation that two things share some set of properties and conclude that they must share a different property

Question 47

real-world implication of induction

Answer 47

induction underlies much of learning, including learning the meaning of words

Question 48

one-shot learning

Answer 48

when a concept is learned from a single example

Question 49

Bayesian inference

Answer 49

a mathematical model for updating existing beliefs called “a prior with new data”

Question 50

heuristics

Answer 50

Mental shortcuts for drawing inferences based on limited information without slow deliberation

Question 51

Daniel Kahneman on reasoning

Answer 51

we engage in two different reasoning systems under different conditions

Question 52

slow system

Answer 52

engages in serial, logical analysis of information

Question 53

fast system

Answer 53

relies on heuristic shortcuts and is more akin to pattern matching than logical thought

Question 54

availability heuristic

Answer 54

a tendency to rely on information that quickly comes to mind when making a decision

Question 55

Lichtenstein et al., 1978 cause of death experiment

Answer 55

found that peoples’ assessments of the prevalence of different causes of death were based on 1) whether they personally knew anyone who had experienced that cause of death & 2) the prevalence of stories about the causes of death in the media

Question 56

Combs’ 1979 reporting different causes of death experiment

Answer 56

found that newspapers were much more likely to report on sensational causes of death

Question 57

Riddle, 2010 violent media experiment

Answer 57

found that people who were exposed to violent media rated violence as being more prevalent

Question 58

affect heuristic

Answer 58

the tendency for people to overestimate the risk of events that generate a strong emotional reaction, such as dread

Question 59

dread and prevalence of events

Answer 59

the more a particular risk generated a sense of dread, the more prevalent it was rated

Question 60

Availability and affect heuristics can lead to ___

Answer 60

distortions in our assessment of risk

Question 61

anchoring heuristic

Answer 61

the tendency for people to focus on and rely on initial pieces of information

Question 62

Tversky & Kahneman, 1974 anchoring heuristic experiment

Answer 62

had participants watch a roulette wheel that was fixed to land on a high or low number. Afterward, participants were asked to make an estimate about a question they were likely to have little knowledge of. They found that people who had seen higher roulette numbers had higher estimated

Question 63

social security number and anchoring heuristic

Answer 63

asked participants to name the last two digits of their social security number. Found that the numbers correlated with the price people were willing to pay for items in an online auction

Question 64

who is more susceptible to the anchoring heuristic

Answer 64

people whose personality is more prone to trusting others

Question 65

representativeness heuristic

Answer 65

the tendency for people to rely on the fact that a person or object they are trying to make a decision about conforms to a specific category while neglecting other types of information or reasoning

Question 66

conjunction fallacy

Answer 66

an error in logic in which people assume two specific conditions are more probable than a single, encompassing condition

Question 67

base-rate fallacy

Answer 67

an error in reasoning in which people ignore the underlying probability of an event in favour of some present evidence

Question 68

Ross et al., 1975 sucide notes experiment

Answer 68

presented participants with sets of suicide notes and had them guess which were real and which were fake. The participants were either told that they did really well or really poorly, but then they were debriefed and told that this wasn’t true, Participants then had to assess how well they thought they had actually done compared to average performance and those who had initially been told they did well guessed that they had done better than average and those who had initially been told they did poorly guessed that they had done worse than average

Question 69

cultural cognition

Answer 69

a tendency for people to hold beliefs about the risk that is consistent with their broader social and moral values

Question 70

Kahan et al., 2007 perception of risk experiment

Answer 70

ask participants about their views on several hot topic issues and certain cultural worldviews. Found a strong correlation between people’s values and their perceptions of risk

Question 71

Kahan et al., 2010 consensus and worldviews experiment

Answer 71

asked participants to assess the scientific consensus on these issues rather than reporting their own views. Found that participants’ belief about consensus followed their own worldviews

Question 72

Nyhan & Reifler, 2010 factual correction and news articles experiment

Answer 72

had participants read mock news articles that contained a misleading claim from a politician that conformed to their beliefs. They then compared this to a group that read the same claim followed by a factual correction. Found that those who had received the correction reported a higher belief than those who didn’t

Question 73

optimism bias

Answer 73

people overestimate the likelihood of positive events such as job success or positive family outcomes

Question 74

Wise et al., 2020 optimism and COVID-19 experiment

Answer 74

found that Americans tended to underestimate their likelihood of being infected with COVID-19 relative to the general population. Their assessment of how likely they were to be infected was predictive of how likely they were to take preventative measures

Question 75

loss aversion

Answer 75

A tendency for people to prefer avoiding losing something as opposed to gaining something of equal value

Question 76

endowment effect

Answer 76

the fact that people place a higher value on objects they already own over those that they don’t yet own

Question 77

Knetsch, 1989 exchanging gifts experiment

Answer 77

found that participants who were initially given one kind of gift showed a strong preference to keep it rather than exchange it for the other gift choice

Question 78

Ikea effect

Answer 78

the tendency for people to place a higher value on objects they built themselves rather than objects that others built

Question 79

status quo bias

Answer 79

a tendency to leave things as they currently are rather than make a change

Question 80

Samuelson & Zeckhauser, 1988 inheritance and status-quo experiment

Answer 80

presented participants with different versions of a scenario in which they had been left an inheritance by a great uncle. They found that participants had a strong tendency to maintain the investments they had inherited rather than to make other purchases with the funds

Question 81

framing effects

Answer 81

The way questions and information are worded can affect people’s decision-making

Question 82

what kinds of options do people favour?

Answer 82

those that are presented in a positive, rather than a negative fashion

Question 83

Kahneman & Tversky, 1978 intervention programs and framing experiment

Answer 83

presented participants with the choice between two intervention programs. Found that participants were much more likely to choose the option described in terms of how many people will be saved rather than how many will die

Question 84

Levin & Gaeath, 1988 meat and framing experiment

Answer 84

found that participants favoured 75% lean over 25% fat meat, despite them being the same thing. They also reported that the 75% lean meat tasted better

Question 85

2 basic types of emotional factors in decision-making

Answer 85

integral & incidental emotions

Question 86

integral emotions

Answer 86

those that are directly related to the decision

Question 87

incidental emotions

Answer 87

emotions that are not directly related to the decision but that happen to be the state of the person at the time they are making the decision

Question 88

Atalay & Meloy, 2011 retail therapy experiment

Answer 88

found that people who were in a more negative mood were more likely to engage in an unplanned purchase of a treat item. They also found that such a purchase had a lasting positive effect on the person’s mood afterwards.

Question 89

purchasing behaviour of people who are disgusted vs. sad

Answer 89

found that people who were disgusted were more likely to sell and buy at a lower price overall, while those who were sad were willing to sell at a lower price

Question 90

purchasing behaviour of people who are in a negative mood

Answer 90

when you’re in a negative mood, you’re motivated to change something

Question 91

ultimatum game

Answer 91

an experimental paradigm in which two people, a proposer and a responder, split a pot of money

Question 92

ultimatum game results

Answer 92

In the paradigm, the proposer is given first dibs on how to split the pot of money, while the responder can accept or reject the proposal. However, if it is rejected, no one gets any money. In most situations, responders will reject an offer below a 7:3 split, despite the fact that a little bit of money is better than none

Question 93

what’s the main brain area involved in decision-making

Answer 93

The vmPFC

Question 94

result of bilateral lesions to the vmPFC

Answer 94

the inability to take into account the long-term outcomes of a decision. They can reason about morally and socially appropriate behaviours but often do not select these behaviours when faced with a choice

Question 95

gambling game and people with vmPFC damage

Answer 95

people with vmPFC damage who were playing a card gambling game often chose strategies that led to short-term gains but long-term overall loses

Question 96

somatic marker hypotehsis

Answer 96

the vmPFC is involved in associating emotional reactions with certain behaviours. When people are faced with a complex decision, they recruit the vmPFC to elicit emotional responses that might occur based on the outcome of the decision

Question 97

Stanford Marshmallow Experiment

Answer 97

presented children with the choice to either have one treat right now or two treats if they waited until the experimenter returned 15 minutes later. The researchers tracked down the original children as adolescents and found that their cognitive performance and ability to cope with frustration and stress were positively correlated with their ability to wait for the second marshmallow.

Question 98

Stanford Marshmallow Experiment follow-up experiments in adults

Answer 98

Those who had been able to delay gratification as kids showed lower levels of aggression and rejection by peers as well as reduced drug use as adults. 40 years later, those who resisted the marshmallow had higher PFC activity on no-go trials

Question 99

Watts et al., 2018 interpretation of the Stanford Marshmallow Experiment results

Answer 99

found that the original marshmallow experiments could mostly be accounted for by family background, intelligence, and home environment

Question 100

nudge theory

Answer 100

an approach to behavioural modifications in which conditions of the environment are used to influence behaviour and decision-making

Question 101

example of nudge theory

Answer 101

default or opt-out choice framing as opposed to opt-in

Question 102

when do consumers choose renewable energy options more?

Answer 102

when it was the default choice

Question 103

partisan nudge bias

Answer 103

people tended to favour the idea of nudges as long as they agreed with the policy or behaviour the nudge was meant to encourage

Question 104

bilateral amygdala damage and loss aversion

Answer 104

Lacked loss aversion on gambling task (likely because it removes a fear of poor outcomes)

Question 105

reasoning

Answer 105

a thought process that brings an individual to a conclusion

Question 106

what happens when we are unaware of inductive reasoning?

Answer 106

it can become a heuristic

Question 107

inductive reasoning involves

Answer 107

applying learned rules to new situations

Question 108

inductive reasoning is the basis of

Answer 108

most learning

Question 109

example of a valid syllogism

Answer 109

all A are B, all B are C, therefore all A are C

Question 110

types of syllogisms

Answer 110

• all statements
• negative statements
• some statements

Question 111

omission bias

Answer 111

Biased thought that withholding is not as bad as doing

Question 112

example of omission bias

Answer 112

the trolley problem

Question 113

falsification principle

Answer 113

you need to look for situations that would falsify a rule

Question 114

familiarity effects

Answer 114

we are better at solving logical problems that involve our prior knowledge

Question 115

familiarity effects experiment

Answer 115

If a person is drinking a beer (P), then the person is over 21 years old (Q). Cards have age on one side and beverage on the other side. Which cards do you need to flip to verify this statement?
75% of people can solve this task (significantly more than the more abstract version) demonstrating that we incorporate prior knowledge when reasoning