Chapter 13: Judgements, Decisions, and Reasoning

Question 1

Making a decision or drawing a conclusion

Answer 1

Judgement

Question 2

The process of drawing conclusions

Answer 2

Reasoning

Question 3

The process of choosing between alternatives

Answer 3

Decision

Question 4

Drawing general conclusions based on specific observations and evidence.

Answer 4

Inductive reasoning

Question 5

With inductive reasoning (blank) observations lead to (blank) conclusions

Answer 5

Specific, general

Question 6

What are the three factors contributing to the strength of an inductive argument?

Answer 6

Representativeness of observations: How well observations about a particular category represent all members of that category

Number of observations: More observations = greater strength

Quality of the evidence: Stronger evidence = stronger conclusions

Question 7

“Rules of thumb” or shortcuts that are likely to provide a correct answer (but can lead to mistakes)

Answer 7

Heuristics

Question 8

What are the purposes of heuristics?

Answer 8

Used to help reach conclusions rapidly

Help us generalize from specific experiences to broader judgements and conclusions

Question 9

Events that more easily come to mind are judged as being more probable than events that are less easily recalled

Answer 9

Availability heuristic

Question 10

When a relationship between two events appears to exist but in reality there is no such relationship or it’s much weaker than it’s assumed to be

Answer 10

Illusory correlations

Question 11

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

Answer 11

Stereotypes

Question 12

The likelihood that an instance is a member of a larger category depends on how well the instance resembles properties we typically associate with that category

Answer 12

Representativeness heuristic

Question 13

The relative proportion of different classes in a population

Answer 13

Base-rate

Question 14

Explain the farmer-librarian problem

Answer 14

Participants given the following description: Randomly picked one male from US population. Robert wears glasses, speaks quietly, and reads a lot.

More people guessed Robert was a librarian as opposed to a farmer

More male farmers than librarians in the US (base rate), therefore Robert is actually more likely to be a farmer

Question 15

What is the relationship between base-rate and the availability of information?

Answer 15

When only base rate information is available, people use that information to make predictions, but when any descriptive information is also available, people tend to disregard available base rate information

Question 15

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

Answer 15

Conjunction rule

Question 16

Describe the description of a person/conjunction rule experiment

Answer 16

Participants given the following description: Linda is 31, single, outspoken, bright, philosophy degree, interested in issues of discrimination and social justice

Most participants said Linda was more likely to be a feminist bank teller (which her characteristics represent) instead of just a bank teller

It’s actually more probable that Linda is just a bank teller based on the conjunction rule (more bank tellers than bank tellers who are also feminists)

Question 16

The larger the number of individuals that are randomly drawn from a population, the more representative the resulting sample will be of the entire population

Answer 16

Law of large numbers

Question 17

Explain the hospital problem

Answer 17

Participants given the following information: Two hospitals (one large and one small) recorded the days on which more than 60% of babies were born boys

More babies in general born in the large hospital than the small

When asked which hospital likely recorded the most days, most participants said there would be no difference
In reality, the small hospital would have recorded the most days because of the small sample size

Question 18

The tendency for people to evaluate evidence in a way that is biased towards their own opinions and attitudes

Answer 18

Myside bias

Question 19

When people look for information that conforms to their hypothesis/beliefs and ignore information that refutes it

Answer 19

Confirmation bias

Question 20

Explain Wason’s problem-solving/confirmation bias experiment

Answer 20

Wason presented participants with 3 numbers that conformed to a rule he had in mind

Participants were asked to determine the rule by writing down other sets of three numbers they think conformed to it, which Wason would identify as either conforming to the rule or not

Participants were asked to guess the rule once they were confident in their answers

Most participants guess the wrong rule because they were only seeking evidence that confirmed their hypothesis instead of evidence that refuted it

Question 20

An individual’s support for a particular viewpoint could actually become stronger when faced with corrective facts opposing their viewpoint

Answer 20

Backfire effect

Question 21

Explain Nyhan and Reifler’s study on the backfire effect

Answer 21

Participants given a mock news story suggesting that Iraq was hiding weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) prior to the US invasion in 2003

One group presented with a correction falsifying this, then were asked to what extent they agreed that Iraq was hiding WMDs

Found that the extent to which participants who had received the correction agreed with the statement was associated with their political views, with conservative participants more likely to believe the misperception

Question 22

List the nine potential sources of errors in judgement

Answer 22

Availability heuristic

Illusory correlation

Representativeness heuristic

Base rate

Conjunction rule

Law of large numbers

Myside bias

Confirmation bias

Backfire effect

Question 23

Determining when a conclusion logically follows from statements

Answer 23

Deductive reasoning

Question 24

Deductive reasoning uses (blank) principles to draw (blank) conclusions

Answer 24

General, specific

Question 25

Syllogisms in which the premises and conclusion are statements that begin with all, no, or sum.

Answer 25

Categorical syllogisms

Question 26

Consists of two broad statements (premises) followed by a third statement (conclusion)

Answer 26

Syllogism

Question 27

When is a syllogism valid?

Answer 27

When the form of the syllogism indicates that its conclusion follows logically from its two premises

Question 28

When is a conclusion true?

Answer 28

When the syllogism is valid and the premises are true

Question 29

The tendency to think a syllogism is valid if its conclusion is believable

Answer 29

Belief bias

Question 30

A specific situation represented in a person’s mind that can be used to help determine the validity of syllogisms in deductive reasoning

Answer 30

Mental model

Question 31

Explain the process of the mental model

Answer 31

People create imagined representations of reasoning problems

Generate a tentative conclusion based on this model and then look for exceptions that might falsify it

If an exception is found, the model is modified

If no more exceptions are found, they conclude that the syllogism is valid

Question 32

Two premises and a conclusion, where the first premise has the form “if…then”

Answer 32

Conditional syllogisms

Question 33

What are the four forms of conditional syllogisms?

Answer 33

All begin with if p, then q

Modus ponens: p, theerfore q (valid)

Modus tollen: Not q, therefore not p (valid)

q, therefore p (not valid)

Not p, therefore not q (not valid)

Question 34

What is the relationship between syllogisms and real-world examples?

Answer 34

People are often better at judging the validity of syllogisms when real-world examples are substituted for abstract symbols

Question 35

Describe the Wason four-card problem

Answer 35

Each card has a letter on one side and a number on the other, and participants are tasked with indicating which card would need to be turned over to test a rule

For example: If there is a vowel on one side of the card, then there is an even number on the other side, a card with a vowel would need to be turned over to see if there is an even number (true) or an odd number (not true) - 53% of participants identified this

An odd number would also need to be turned over, as finding a vowel on the other side would falsify the rule (falsification principle)-Only 4% of participants identified this

Question 36

To test a rule, it’s necessary to look for situations that would falsify the rule

Answer 36

Falsification principle

Question 37

How is performance on the Wason four-card problem impacted by real-world terms, and why could this be the case?

Answer 37

Performance is improved

Could be due to permission schemas or that people are on the lookout for cheaters

Question 38

If a person satisfies a specific condition, then they get to carry out an action

Answer 38

Permission schema

Question 39

If people have all the relevant information, they’ll make a decision that results in the maximum expected utility

Answer 39

Expected utility theory

Question 40

Outcomes that achieve a person’s goals

Answer 40

Utility

Question 41

Specifies procedures that make it possible to determine which choice would result in the highest value

Answer 41

Advantage

Question 42

What is the shortcoming of the utility approach to decisions?

Answer 42

People regularly behave in ways that ignore the optimum way of responding based on probabilities

Question 43

What are the two main ways in which emotions affect decisions?

Answer 43

People inaccurately predict their emotions

Incidental emotions affect decisions

Question 44

Emotions that people predict they will feel for a particular outcome

Answer 44

Expected emotions

Question 45

Explain the C-section example with respect to context and decision making

Answer 45

In a hypothetical test case involving a possible C-section candidate, physicians were more likely to recommend a C-section if they were presented with some nonserious cases first, but less likely to recommend a C-section if they were presented with some serious cases first

Question 46

Contrast opt-in vs opt-out conditions

Answer 46

Opt-in requires an active step (most people will not)

Opt-out is inactive (most people will not)

Question 47

The tendency to do nothing when faced with making a decision

Answer 47

Status quo bias

Question 48

Decisions are influenced by how the choices are stated/framed

Answer 48

Framing effect

Question 49

Explain Tversky and Kahneman’s “600 people” problem

Answer 49

Outbreak expected to kill 600 people, participants split into two groups and given the same program options worded differently

Group 1: Program A = 200 people saved, program B = ⅓ probability 600 people will be saved and ⅔ probability no one will be saved
72% picked program A

Group 2: Program A = 400 people will die, program B = ⅓ probability that nobody will die, ⅔ probability that 600 people will die
78% picked program B

Question 50

Used when a choice is framed in gains

Answer 50

Risk-aversion strategy

Question 51

Used when a choice is framed in losses

Answer 51

Risk-taking strategy

Question 52

Combines research from psychology, neuroscience, and economics to study how brain activation is related to decisions that involve potential gains or losses

Answer 52

Neuroeconomics

Question 53

Explain the structure of the ultimatum game

Answer 53

One player is the proposer and the other is the responder

Proposer is given a sum of money ($10) and makes an offer to the responder as to how they should split the money

If the responder accepts the money is split accordingly, but if the responder rejects neither player receives anything

Question 54

According to the utility theory, how should one respond to the ultimatum game?

Answer 54

The responder should always accept the proposer’s offer as long as it’s greater than zero

Question 55

What results did Sanfey et al. on their study of the ultimatum game?

Answer 55

All respondents accept $5, most accept $3, and half or more reject the $1 and $2 offers - When asked why they rejected low offers, participants cited anger at unfairness

When same offers were presented by a computer, more participants accepted the unfair offers- Less likely to be angry at a computer

Question 56

Describe the results of the fMRI extension of the ultimatum game study

Answer 56

Showed that the right anterior insula (connected to negative emotional states) responded three times more strongly when responders rejected an offer, and those with higher activation to unfair offers rejected more offers overall

PFC activity was the same for rejected and accepted offers -Suggests the function of the PFC is to deal with the cognitive demands of the task and implement the best decision based on one’s goals

Participants played the ultimatum game but one group had their PFC temporarily deactivated by transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)- Participants in both groups rated low offers unfair, but those with deactivated PFCs were more likely to accept unfair offers
- Shows PFC plays an important role in implementing the decision to reject unfair offers

Question 57

Describe system 1/type 1 thinking according to the dual systems approach to thinking

Answer 57

Intuitive, fast, nonconscious, automatic

Involved in belief bias

May be using the availability and representative heuristics

Might not consider the law of large numbers

Does not perform well with abstract Wason four-card task, but is equipped for real-world version

Most things we do day-to-day are controlled by system 1

Provides information to system 2

Question 58

Describe system 2/type 2 thinking according to the dual systems approach to thinking

Answer 58

Reflective, slow, conscious, controlled

Allows one to focus on logic behind a syllogism

Monitors in the background until use is required