Decision Making & Problem Solving

Question 1

How do experts solve problems?

Answer 1

• Experts mind contain a lot of knowledge that is organized so that it can be accessed when needed to work on a problem.

Question 2

Expert’s knowledge is organized different than novices: Michelene Chi & Coworkers

Answer 2

Gave physics problems to experts & novices & had them sort out what the problems had in common. The expert group categorized the problems based on their deep structure, while the novice group categorized the problems by the surface features (what they looked like)

Question 3

Experts spend more time analyzing problem

Answer 3

• Experts appear to be slower in beginning a problem b/c they fully want to understand it and don’t want to just answer it.
• The strategy usually works

Question 4

Experts only have an advantage in their field

Answer 4

• Experts are only experts within their field

* Disadvantages: the facts they know can make them less open to other ideas on solving a problem

Question 5

Creative problem solving

Answer 5

• Usually aligned with divergent thinking – thinking that is open ended, with many solutions & there is no one right answer
• Convergent thinking – working towards finding a solution, usually has a solution
• Design fixation – how fixation can inhibit problem solving (having a reference)
• Having objects without references will lessen the chance of fixation
• More likely to be creative with an object that has not been created by somebody else.

Question 6

What are the 3 types of heuristics?

Answer 6

1. Representativeness
2. Availability
3. Anchoring & Adjustment

Question 7

What did Tversky & Kahneman propose about decision making?

Answer 7

• people do not often follow rules of probability when making a decision, instead decision making may be based on heuristics (mental shortcuts)

Question 8

The conjunction fallacy

Answer 8

• the conjunction of 2 events cannot be more likely than the probability of 2 separate events.
• Ex: more likely for Lisa the bank teller to be either just a bank teller or just a feminist.
• 90% of the ppl. felt that linda is more likely to be a bank teller & a feminist than just a bank teller b/c the details are representative of who she is.
• Fallacy occurs b/c they are more representativeness of how we imagine them

Question 9

Availability heuristic

Answer 9

• What comes to mind
• rely on stories heard lately to make judgement
• how familiar the idea feels
• largely happens b/c of the media (e.g, more coverage in the media about car accident vs. stomach cancer)

Question 10

Availability Heuristic – Caroll (1978)

Answer 10

• had to imagine cater or ford winning

* who they imagined was consistent with who they believed would win.

Question 11

Hindsight bias

Answer 11

• “I knew it all along phenomenon”
• Inability to recognize any other option once you know the outcome.
• b/c you know something it influences your judgment moving forward.

Question 12

Anchoring & Adjustment

Answer 12

• Tversky & Khaneman (1974) –asked hs students to estimate the values of the products 1234 & 4321 & asked which was is larger.
• the outcomes are the same, but the 1st numbers influenced our judgement.
• human tendency to rely too heavily on the first piece of information offered

Question 13

Dror et al 2005; Are the experts decisions biased?

Answer 13

• shown 96 fingerprints (some ambiguous, some unambiguous)
• given background info, low emotional = crimes like; burglary, theft, crime that did no hurt a person. high emotional = cases w/ rape, assault, murder
• subliminal priming = flashed word guilty & same on screen
• unambiguous = right decision
• ambiguous = high emotion & priming, more likely to say they matched.

Question 14

Covertly assessing experts consistensy

Answer 14

• given prints previously said they were a match, but were the prints were from the madrid bombings.
• 3 said no match, 1 unsure, 1 same, only one expert was consistent.