exam 4 Flashcards
Deductive reasoning
start with premises that are true and then judge whether those premises allow you to draw a conclusion
Conditional reasoning task (propositional reasoning task)
describes the relationship between conditions (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.)
Syllogism
consists of two statements that we msut assume to be true, and a conclusions (ex. Some psychology majors are friendly people.
Some friendly people are concerned about poverty.
Therefore, some psychology majors are concerned about poverty.)
Propositional Calculus
system for categorizing the four kidns of reasoning used in analyzing propositions.
Propostions
statements
Antecedent
the first propostion in the statement
Consequent
The second proposition in a statement
Affirming the antecedent
VALID - This is an apple, therefore this is a fruit.
Affirming the consequent
INVALID - This is a fruit, therefore this is an apple
Denying the antecedent
INVALID - This is not an apple, therefore this is not a fruit.
Denying the consequent
VALID - This is not a fruit, therefore this is not an apple
dual process theory
distinguishes between the 2 types of cognitive processing, type 1 and type 2
type 1 processing
fast and automatic, requires little concious effort - used in depth perception, recognition of facial expression and automatic stereotyping.
type 2 processing
slow and controlled, required focused attention - used when we think of exceptions to rules, we realize a sterotype was wrong, or we acknowledge errors in our type 1 processing.
belief bias effect
occurs when people make a judgement based on a prior belief instead of using the conditions that were layed out (feather-window proposition)
confirmation bias
People tend to confirm a theory rather than actively try to disprove it.
decision making
assess information and choose between two or more alternatives (no correct answers normally)
representative
if a sample is similar in important characteristics to the population from which it was selected.
representativeness heuristic
we jusdge that a sample is more likely if it is more similar to the population from which this sample was selected.
small sample fallacy
when people assume that a small sample will be representatice of hte population from which it is selected.
base rate
how often an item occurs in the population
fbase rate fallacy
paying too little attention to important information about base rate - ex. tells people there are more engineers than lawyer, decribe a guy who seems similar to a lawyer, which is more likelu that he is? still an engineer, because that is the base rate.