cog psych exam 4 Flashcards
deductive reasoning
Deductive reasoning: you begin with some specific premises that are true, and you need to judge whether those premises allow you to draw a particular conclusion, based on the principles of logic. A deductive-reasoning task provides you with all the information you need to draw a conclusion. Furthermore, the premises are either true or false, and you must use the rules of formal logic in order to draw conclusions
-ex: If a child is allergic to peanuts, then eating peanuts produces a breathing problem. A child has a breathing problem. Therefore, this child has eaten peanuts.
decision making
Decision making: Any case where we are presented with 2 or more courses of action and must select just one
-ex: Should we have pizza or hamburgers for dinner?
What is a confirmation bias?
The tendency to try to confirm or support a hypothesis rather than try to disprove it.
Describe the Wason (1968) selection task. How does confirmation bias operate in this task?
Wason Selection Task: Imagine that each square below represents a card. Suppose that you are participating in a study in which the experimenter tells you that every card has a letter on one side and a number on the other side. You are then given this rule about these four cards: “IF A CARD HAS A VOWEL ON ONE SIDE, THEN IT HAS AN EVEN NUMBER ON THE OTHER SIDE.” Your task is to decide which card (or cards) you would need to turn over, so that you can find out whether this rule is valid or invalid.
Discuss variations of Wason’s task that influence the pattern of data observed. For example, how
did Griggs and Cox (1982) study confirmation bias?
Griggs and Cox (1982):
-people perform much better when the task is concrete, familiar, and realistic.
-Griggs and Cox (1982) tested college students in Florida using a variation of the selection task. This task focused on the drinking age, which was then 19 in the state of Florida.
-Specifically, the students were asked to test this rule: “If a person is drinking beer, then the person must be over 19 years of age”.
-Each participant was instructed to choose two cards to turn over—out of four—in order to test whether people were lying about their age.
-Griggs and Cox (1982) found that 73% of the students who tried the drinking age problem made the correct selections, in contrast to 0% of the students who tried the standard, abstract form of the selection task.
-According to later research, people are especially likely to choose the correct answer when the wording of the selection task implies some kind of social contract designed to prevent people from cheating
Discuss normative theories of decision making. In your answer you should:
a. Provide a basic definition of what is meant by normative decision making.
normative theories: some choices are better (or more optimal) than others
-One choice is better than other possibilities
Distinguish between expected value and expected utility and provide an example of each.
expected value: the best choice is the one with the largest financial payoff
-ex:
(A) 50% chance of winning $50 (0.5 * 50 = $25)
(B) 25% chance of winning $110 (0.25 * 110 = $27.50)
> If expected value is used, should pick choice B
expected utility: The personal value we attach to outcomes
-getting some money is more important than maximizing financial gain
-ex: Say you are really hungry and also broke
(A) 85% chance of winning $8 (expected val = $6.8)
(b) 25% chance of winning $28 (ex val = $7.00)
Based on what you know about expected utility, why do people play slot machines and lotteries?
Why do people play the lottery?
-ex:
(A) 100% chance of winning $1 (expected value = $1)
(B) 0.0000000038% chance of winning $20 million (expected value = $0.08)
> expected utility of $20 million greater than the utility of $1
-Many decisions can’t be explained by expected value or utility
Describe two factors accounting for why people are not rational decision makers
We do not always make rational decisions - Why?
1. Lack of resources (use heuristics: a heuristic is a general rule that is usually correct)
- We are affected by other, non-rational factors
Describe what is meant by a problem frame.
Problem frame: The way the question/problem is phrased/framed.
-The framing effect demonstrates that the outcome of your decision can be inl uenced by two factors: (1) The background context of the choice and (2) the way in which a question is worded—or framed
Discuss Tversky and Kahneman’s (1981) classic study of problem frames (the killer disease
questions), outlining their basic methods and findings.
Tversky and Kahneman (1981):
There is an outbreak of a disease that is expected to kill 600 people, and two programs to fight the disease are being considered
(A) 200 people will be saved
(B) There’s a 1/3 chance that no one will die and 2/3 chance that 600 people will die
(A) 400 people will die
(B) There’s a 1/3 chance that no one will die and 2/3 chance that 600 people will die
-The problems are the exact same, just framed differently
he book states that people have difficulties dealing with negative information. What sort of problems
do they have and what can possibly account for these problems?
People can handle positive information better than negative information.
-people have trouble processing sentences that contain words such as no or not.
-This same issue is also true for conditional reasoning tasks.
-Research shows that people take longer to evaluate problems that contain linguistically negative information, and they are also more likely to make errors on these problems
What is the belief bias effect? Describe, providing an example.
The belief-bias effect: The belief-bias effect occurs in reasoning when people make judgments based on prior beliefs and general knowledge, rather than on the rules of logic. In general, people make errors when the logic of a reasoning problem conflicts with their background knowledge
-We rely too heavily on our established beliefs.
