Chapter 13 - Judgment, Decisions, and Reasoning

Question 1

What are decisions?

Answer 1

The process of choosing between different alternatives

Question 2

What is known as the process of drawing conclusions?

Answer 2

Reasoning

Question 3

___________ is the process of drawing general conclusions based on specific observations and evidence.

Answer 3

Inductive reasoning

Question 4

What factors contribute to the strength of an inductive argument?

Answer 4

Representativeness of observations.
Number of observations.
Quality of the evidence.

Question 5

How are conclusions reached through inductive reasoning?

Answer 5

Based on evidence

Question 6

Provide an example of inductive reasoning:

Answer 6

Observation: All the crows I’ve seen in Pittsburgh are totally black. When I visited my brother in Washington, DC, the crows I saw there were black too. Conclusion: All crows are black.

Question 7

Inductive arguments lead to what is __________ true, not what is _______ true

Answer 7

probably, definitely

Question 8

How is inductive reasoning utilized in everyday life?

Answer 8

To make predictions about future events based on observations of past occurrences

Question 9

What is the availability heuristic?

Answer 9

Events more easily recalled are judged as more probable.

Question 10

“cloudy & certain smell in the air, it is likely going to rain.” is an example of…

Answer 10

availability heuristic

Question 11

What is the representativeness heuristic?

Answer 11

involves making judgments based on how much an event resembles other event

Question 12

What does the conjuction rule state?

Answer 12

the probability of a conjunction of two events (A and B) cannot be higher than the probability of the single constituents (A alone or B alone)

Question 13

What does the law of large numbers state?

Answer 13

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

Question 14

___________ is when people can evaluate evidence in a way that is biased toward their own opinions and attitudes

Answer 14

Myside bias

Question 15

____________ occurs when people look for information that conforms to their hypothesis and ignore information that refutes it.

Answer 15

Conformation Bias

Question 16

What is deductive reasoning?

Answer 16

involves determining whether a conclusion logically follows from premises

Question 17

In deductive reasoning, 2 statements are called ________ and the third is the __________

Answer 17

Premises, Conclusions

Question 18

The tendency to think that a syllogism is valid if its conclusions are believable is known as

Answer 18

belief bias

Question 19

What is the mental model approach?

Answer 19

suggests that people use specific situations or mental models to solve deductive reasoning problems

Question 20

“On a pool table, there is a black ball directly above the cue ball. The green ball is on the right side of the cue ball, and there is a red ball between them. If I move so the red ball is between me and the black ball, the cue ball is to the________of my line of sight.” Trying to solve this problem is an example of the…

Answer 20

Mental Model Approach

Question 21

What is the expected utility theory?

Answer 21

assumes that people are rational decision-makers–given all relevant information, individuals will make decisions resulting in the maximum expected utility

Question 22

What is the meaning of utility?

Answer 22

refers to outcomes that achieve a person’s goals

Question 23

What are some advantages of the utility approach?

Answer 23

specifies procedures that make it
possible to determine the best choices are

Question 24

How does can decision making be influenced by emotions?

Answer 24

Expected emotions are
emotions a person predicts will happen in response to the
outcome of a decision–people can predict their emotions wrong