Psych 112 Exam 1

Question 1

What is Psychic Numbing and how it helps us understand why people don’t help others

Answer 1

Is a phenomenon that occur when people are faced with a large-scale suffering meaning a large number of people are affected. You become less empathic and concerned as the number of people goes up. This can explain why we do not act in regards to famine, diseases around the world or wars.

Question 2

How do you counteract psychic numbing

Answer 2

Single face cases can help so we identify
Take conscious efforts (effortful thinking)
Understand that one person can make a difference
Put pressure on government. Laws etc.

Question 3

Schemas

Answer 3

Mental representation organised our knowledge, experiences and beliefs. Provide a framework to navigate and understand our worls

Question 4

What Happens when we faced information that challenges our schema (Assimilation vs accommodation)

Answer 4

Assimilation: Modify the data to fit our schema (bias) Jean Piaget
Accomodation: Modify the schema to fit the data. (how we learn basically)

Question 5

Why are Schema Helpful and harmful

Answer 5

Reduce cognitive workload
Help us perceive new information
Retrieve old information
Fills up knowledge gab (ake interpretation)
Helps you prep for the future

Harmful:
Stereotypes are schema and are reducing
Bias perception, simplification of reality
We overlook, ignore and reject.

Question 6

What is the dual-process theory of thought?

Answer 6

Differences between Controlled-Processing and Automatic Processing
Controlled: Effortful requires attention
Automatic: Effortless doesn’t require as much attention

Question 7

Different way to problem solve. Define algorithm vs heuristic

Answer 7

Algorithm garantess you will find the solution but might be time consuming
Heuristics are short cut but might be wrong.

Question 8

What are the barriers to problem-solving

Answer 8

Irrelevant Information: Get stuck on information that are not helpful to solve the problem
Functional Fixedness: See object as single use instead of seeing them as being able to serve multiple use
Mental Set: get stuck on one way to solve a problem because it worked before. (moving from one discipline to another)
Mental shortcuts: Availability Bias, Overconfidence, Belief Perseverance.) Whatever comes to mind first, thinking too fast that you got the solution, refusing to change your biases)
Framing: The way the problem is presented might affect your choice (10% of population dies vs 90% survives)

Question 9

What are some helpful heuristic

Answer 9

Thinking Backwards from a goal
Forming subgoals: Breaking things down to smaller portion
Searching for analogies: Using former experiences to form new ones (Or birds and planes)
Incubation: Take a break!

Question 10

What is cognitive miser

Answer 10

We are cognitive misers! We want the path of least resistance.

Question 11

Define Assimilation bias and how to conteract

Answer 11

Assimilation Bias:
Schema influence how we interpret or perceive new information. We ignore new information because we reframe it to fit our schema) The patient that are labelled with a certain disorder. We only see the symptoms that matches our schema and ignore new information related to health

Garding against:
Do not underestimate the schema that affect your impressions
Become aware of your schema
Use a phenomenological approach (Why do they think that way)
Become aware of what you do with inconsistent information

Study Warm Cold Harold Kelly
Handout a description to group 1 about the speaker (warm personality)
Group 2 Cold personality
People liked the speech better when they were told the speaker was warm. So interpret the speech to fit this schema.

Question 12

What are the four heuristics seen in class

Answer 12

Assimilation Bias
Confirmation Bias
Belief Perseverance
Availability Bias
Framing

Question 13

Confirmation Bias, explain and how to conteract.

Answer 13

Seek information that confirm existant belief

When writing a research paper and only looking for papers that confirm our hypothesis. or unintentionally ask leading questions

How to decrease:
Need to look for things that disconfirm the hypothesis/refute your preconceptions

Question 14

Describe and conteract belief perseverance

Answer 14

You become personally invested in your beief. We cling to our beliefs. We discount, deny or ignore the contrary evidence
Sometimes we interpret contradictory data to support our preexisting belief ( the zombie story)
Takes much more evidence to change beliefs than it take to create them in the first place.

Consider the opposite, argue opposite point.

Question 15

Availability Bias and how to decrease it

Answer 15

How easily it comes to mind eventhough statistic shows something different

Power of vivid events affect judgment: We ignore statistical base rate info

Decrease: Couscious effort to look at statistics. Dont be fooled by irrelevant info
View anecdotal info with caution
Dont generalize from few vivid cases

Question 16

How do the availability heuristic, the confirmation bias and framing influence our decisions
and judgments?

Answer 16

Together, these biases can lead to poor decision-making by skewing our perception of risk, reinforcing flawed beliefs, and making us overly sensitive to how information is presented.