Module 27 (Judging)

Question 1

Cognition

Answer 1

mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating info

Question 2

Metacognition

Answer 2

-“our thinking about thinking”
-Do you know what you know (and what you don’t know?) are you self aware about mental strategies you use?

Question 3

Dual process view of reason

Answer 3

-Heuristic mode: unconscious, automatic, rapid
-Analytic mode: conscious, controlled, slow

Question 4

Heuristics

Answer 4

“cognitive shortcuts”, fast/automatic choices brain makes, natural but consequential, (speedier but more error prone than algorithms)

Question 5

Availability heuristics

Answer 5

estimating likelihood of an event by ease of which you can think of examples
Ex. are there more dogs or pigs on leashes in St. Louis?

Question 6

Representation heuristic

Answer 6

judging likelihood of some instance by extent to which it matches a prototype (or stereotype) stored in memory; judging something by how “representative” it is of a given category
Ex. steve is shy/withdrawn w/ little interest in people. Is steve librarian, teacher, or lawyer?

Question 7

Framing

Answer 7

info and choices can almost always be presented in more than one way
How choices are presented (“framed”) can sway judgments and decisions

Question 8

Loss aversion

Answer 8

-we anticipate and feel loss more acutely than gains
-“Surgery has 20% mortality rate” vs “surgery has 80% survival rate”

Question 9

Nudge

Answer 9

framing choices in way that encourages people to make beneficial decisions

Question 10

Anchoring and adjusting

Answer 10

under conditions of uncertainty (about the price or value of something) we may default to anchor as a benchmark or initial estimate. If we feel the anchor isn’t accurate as an estimate, we will adjust our estimates in the direction we think appropriate (higher or lower)

Question 11

Anchoring/Adjusting example (squash)

Answer 11

-Butternut squash experiment
-Survey 1: do you think butternut squash has more or less than 40 calories?
-How many calories do you think a typical squash actually has? (avg answer was 123.5 cals)
-Survey 2: do you think that butternut squash has more or less than 200 calories?
-How many calories do you think a typical squash actually has? (avg answer was 272.4 cals)

Question 12

Confirmation bias

Answer 12

-the tendency to seek out (and prefer) info that supports our preexisting beliefs, and to ignore (or distort) contradictory evidence
-A mental shortcut (similar to heuristics) for both gathering and interpreting info
-Confirmation bias makes gathering and interpreting info more efficient by narrowing attention and limiting scope of our thought

Question 13

Problem-solving strategies

Answer 13

algorithms, heuristics, insight

Question 14

Algorithms

Answer 14

-methodical rules or procedures (a formula) that typically guarantees a solution or resolution to a problem
-ex. cooking: follow a recipe

Question 15

Insight

Answer 15

a sudden realization of a problem’s solution (a-ha or eureka moments)

Question 16

Problems with problem solving

Answer 16

fixation, mental set, functional fixedness

Question 17

Fixation

Answer 17

the inability to see a problem from a new perspective; an obstacle to problem solving

Question 18

Mental set

Answer 18

a tendency to approach a problem in one particular way, using habits/procedures that were successful in the past

Question 19

Functional fixednesss

Answer 19

-a type of mental set, tendency to view items in terms of their most typical functions
-Not always a bad thing, most life situations require conventional thinking

Question 20

Divergent thinking

Answer 20

a creative form of thought that expands the number of possible solutions by diverging from established/conventional associations, patterns, concepts, etc.