Chapter 13 Judgment, Decisions, and Reasoning

Question 1

Availability heuristic

Answer 1

Events that are more easily remembered are judged to be more probable than events that are less easily remembered.

Question 2

Backfire effect

Answer 2

Occurs when individuals’ support for a particular viewpoint becomes stronger when faced with corrective facts opposing their viewpoint.

Question 3

Base rate

Answer 3

The relative proportions of different classes in a population. Failure to consider base rates can often lead to errors of reasoning.

Question 4

Belief bias

Answer 4

Tendency to think a syllogism is valid if its conclusion is believable or that it is invalid if the conclusion is not believable.

Question 5

Categorical syllogism

Answer 5

A syllogism in which the premises and conclusion describe the relationship between two categories by using statements that begin with All, No, or Some.

Question 6

Conditional syllogism

Answer 6

Syllogism with two premises and a conclusion, like a categorical syllogism, but whose first premise is an “If … then” statement.

Question 7

Confirmation bias

Answer 7

The tendency to selectively look for information that conforms to our hypothesis and to overlook information that argues against it.

Question 8

Conjunction rule

Answer 8

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).

Question 9

Decisions

Answer 9

Making choices between alternatives.

Question 10

Deductive reasoning

Answer 10

Reasoning that involves syllogisms in which a conclusion logically follows from premises.

Question 11

Dual systems approach

Answer 11

The idea that there are two mental systems, one fast and the other slower, that have different capabilities and serve different functions.

Question 12

Expected emotion

Answer 12

Emotion that a person predicts he or she will feel for a particular outcome of a decision.

Question 13

Expected utility theory

Answer 13

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.

Question 14

Falsification principle

Answer 14

The reasoning principle that to test a rule, it is necessary to look for situations that would falsify the rule.

Question 15

Framing effect

Answer 15

Decisions are influenced by how the choices are stated.

Question 16

Heuristic

Answer 16

A “rule of thumb” that provides a best-guess solution to a problem.

Question 17

Illusory correlation

Answer 17

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.

Question 18

Incidental emotions

Answer 18

In a decision-making situation, emotions not directly caused by the act of having to make a decision.

Question 19

Inductive reasoning

Answer 19

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.

Question 20

Judgment

Answer 20

Making a decision or drawing a conclusion.

Question 21

Law of large numbers

Answer 21

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 22

Mental model

Answer 22

A specific situation that is represented in a person’s mind.

Question 23

Mental model approach

Answer 23

In deductive reasoning, determining if syllogisms are valid by creating mental models of situations based on the premises of the syllogism.

Question 24

Myside bias

Answer 24

Type of confirmation bias in which people generate and test hypotheses in a way that is biased toward their own opinions and attitudes.

Question 25

Neuroeconomics

Answer 25

An approach to studying decision making that combines research from the fields of psycholog y, neuroscience, and economics.

Question 26

Opt-in procedure

Answer 26

Procedure in which a person must take an active step to choose a course of action—for example, choosing to be an organ donor.

Question 27

Opt-out procedure

Answer 27

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.

Question 28

Permission schema

Answer 28

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.

Question 29

Premise

Answer 29

The first two statements in a syllogism. The third statement is the conclusion.

Question 30

Reasoning

Answer 30

Cognitive processes by which people start with information and come to conclusions that go beyond that information.

Question 31

Representativeness heuristic

Answer 31

The probability that an event A comes from class B can be determined by how well A resembles the properties of class B.

Question 32

Risk aversion

Answer 32

The tendency to make decisions that avoid risk.

Question 33

Risk aversion strategy

Answer 33

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.

Question 34

Risk-taking strategy

Answer 34

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.

Question 35

Status quo bias

Answer 35

Tendency to do nothing when faced with making a decision.

Question 36

Stereotype

Answer 36

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

Question 37

Syllogism

Answer 37

A series of three statements: two premises followed by a conclusion. The conclusion can follow from the premises based on the rules of logic.

Question 38

Ultimatum game

Answer 38

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.

Question 39

Utility

Answer 39

Outcomes that achieve a person’s goals; in economic terms, the maximum monetary payoff.

Question 40

Validity

Answer 40

Quality of a syllogism whose conclusion follows logically from its premises.

Question 41

Wason four-card problem

Answer 41

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.