Chapter 13 Judgment, Decisions, and Reasoning Flashcards
Availability heuristic
Events that are more easily remembered are judged to be more probable than events that are less easily remembered.
Backfire effect
Occurs when individuals’ support for a particular viewpoint becomes stronger when faced with corrective facts opposing their viewpoint.
Base rate
The relative proportions of different classes in a population. Failure to consider base rates can often lead to errors of reasoning.
Belief bias
Tendency to think a syllogism is valid if its conclusion is believable or that it is invalid if the conclusion is not believable.
Categorical syllogism
A syllogism in which the premises and conclusion describe the relationship between two categories by using statements that begin with All, No, or Some.
Conditional syllogism
Syllogism with two premises and a conclusion, like a categorical syllogism, but whose first premise is an “If … then” statement.
Confirmation bias
The tendency to selectively look for information that conforms to our hypothesis and to overlook information that argues against it.
Conjunction rule
The probability of the conjunction of two events (such as feminist and bank teller) cannot be higher than the probability of the single constituents (feminist alone or bank teller alone).
Decisions
Making choices between alternatives.
Deductive reasoning
Reasoning that involves syllogisms in which a conclusion logically follows from premises.
Dual systems approach
The idea that there are two mental systems, one fast and the other slower, that have different capabilities and serve different functions.
Expected emotion
Emotion that a person predicts he or she will feel for a particular outcome of a decision.
Expected utility theory
The idea that people are basically rational, so if they have all of the relevant information, they will make a decision that results in the most beneficial result.
Falsification principle
The reasoning principle that to test a rule, it is necessary to look for situations that would falsify the rule.
Framing effect
Decisions are influenced by how the choices are stated.
Heuristic
A “rule of thumb” that provides a best-guess solution to a problem.
Illusory correlation
A correlation that appears to exist between two events, when in reality there is no correlation or it is weaker than it is assumed to be.
Incidental emotions
In a decision-making situation, emotions not directly caused by the act of having to make a decision.
Inductive reasoning
Reasoning in which a conclusion follows from a consideration of evidence. This conclusion is stated as being probably true rather than definitely true, as can be the case for the conclusions from deductive reasoning.
Judgment
Making a decision or drawing a conclusion.
Law of large numbers
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.
Mental model
A specific situation that is represented in a person’s mind.
Mental model approach
In deductive reasoning, determining if syllogisms are valid by creating mental models of situations based on the premises of the syllogism.
Myside bias
Type of confirmation bias in which people generate and test hypotheses in a way that is biased toward their own opinions and attitudes.
Neuroeconomics
An approach to studying decision making that combines research from the fields of psycholog y, neuroscience, and economics.
Opt-in procedure
Procedure in which a person must take an active step to choose a course of action—for example, choosing to be an organ donor.
Opt-out procedure
Procedure in which a person must take an active step to avoid a course of action—for example, choosing not to be an organ donor.
Permission schema
A pragmatic reasoning schema that states that if a person satisfies condition A, then they get to carry out action B. The permission schema has been used to explain the results of the Wason four-card problem.
Premise
The first two statements in a syllogism. The third statement is the conclusion.
Reasoning
Cognitive processes by which people start with information and come to conclusions that go beyond that information.
Representativeness heuristic
The probability that an event A comes from class B can be determined by how well A resembles the properties of class B.
Risk aversion
The tendency to make decisions that avoid risk.
Risk aversion strategy
A decision-making strateg y that is governed by the idea of avoiding risk. Often used when a problem is stated in terms of gains.
Risk-taking strategy
A decision-making strateg y that is governed by the idea of taking risks. Often used when a problem is stated in terms of losses.
Status quo bias
Tendency to do nothing when faced with making a decision.
Stereotype
An oversimplified generalization about a group or class of people that often focuses on negative characteristics.
Syllogism
A series of three statements: two premises followed by a conclusion. The conclusion can follow from the premises based on the rules of logic.
Ultimatum game
A game in which a proposer is given a sum of money and makes an offer to a responder as to how this money should be split between them. The responder must choose to accept the offer or reject it. This game has been used to study people’s decision-making strategies.
Utility
Outcomes that achieve a person’s goals; in economic terms, the maximum monetary payoff.
Validity
Quality of a syllogism whose conclusion follows logically from its premises.
Wason four-card problem
A conditional reasoning task developed by Wason that involves four cards. Various versions of this problem have been used to study the mechanisms that determine the outcomes of conditional reasoning tasks.
