Chapter 9: Thinking and Intelligence

Question 1

Affect Heuristic

Answer 1

listening to your emotions instead of the probabilities

Question 2

Availability Heuristic

Answer 2

• Over exaggerating rare but dramatic events

- Ignoring dangers that are hard to visualize

Question 3

Avoiding Loss

Answer 3

Taking risks to avoid loss - but alternatives may be the same . . .

Question 4

Barriers to thinking Rationally

Answer 4

• Affect heuristic
• Availability heuristic
• Avoiding loss

Question 5

Reflective Judgment: Justifying Yourself

Answer 5

-Pre-reflective Stages
“I know what I have seen”
They’ve said so on the news”
-Quasi-reflective Stages
“We all have a right to our own opinions”
-Reflective Stages
“Based on the evidence, I believe . . .”

Question 6

Barriers to Thinking Rationally: Biases

Answer 6

-Biases due to Mental Sets
Using old heuristics that are not adequate for a new situation
-Fairness Bias
Ultimatum Game: How low an offer will you reject . . .
-Hindsight Bias
Tendency to overestimate our ability to have redicted an event once the outcome is known; the “I knew it all along” phenomenon . . .
-Confirmation Bias
Paying attention only to evidence that confirms your preset beliefs and disbelieving anything to the contrary

Question 7

Difference between formal and informal thinking

Answer 7

Formal:
-all premises are supplied
-typically one correct answer
-often established methods exists for solving problems
-usually know when problem is solved
Informal
-some premises are supplied, some may not have been supplied
-several possible answers that vary in quality
-rarely established methods of interference exist for solving problems.
-unclear when current solution is good enough

Question 8

Informal Reasoning

Answer 8

-Heuristics
Using rules of thumb when you don’t have all the info
-Dialectics
Evaluating pros and cons

Question 9

Reasoning and informal reasoning

Answer 9

-Rational Reasoning
Purposeful mental activity involves operating on in-formation (observations, assumptions) in order to reach conclusions
-Formal Reasoning
Using specific info to solve problems methodically
-Deduction
Operating from general premises & deducing specific conclusions
-Induction
Use specific premises to arrive at general conclusion.

Question 10

Definition Intelligence:
An inferred characteristic of an individual,
usually defined as the ability to-

Answer 10

• profit from experience,
• acquire knowledge,
• think abstractly,
• act purposefully, or
• adapt to changes in the environment

Question 11

Elements of Cognition

Answer 11

-Concepts
A mental category that groups objects, relations, activities, or qualities having common properties
-Basic Concepts
What is this man reading?
-Prototypes
-Concepts and Gender
-Relating Concepts: Propositions
-Networking Propositions:Cognitive Schemas
-Mental Images
What do you think a person sees sees on the other side of that globe?
-Sub- and Nonconscious Processes
How conscious are we of our thinking?
-Serial or Parallel Processes
-Controlled or Automatic Processes

Question 12

What could be some of the problems with the Stanford-Binet Test?

Answer 12

Relies on spoken words:

- what if you have poor hearing?

• are not fluent in tester’s language
  - have limited education
  - don’t like classroom-type problems?
  - live in a multi-cultural society?

Question 13

Robert Sternberg’s Triarchic Theory of Intelligence (3 types)

Answer 13

• Analytical- metacomponent, performance component (componential)
• Creative- experience continuum, novelty to automatically(experiential)
• Practical- adapt, shape, select (contextual)