Thinking, Language, and Intelligence

Question 1

What is the representative heuristic?

Answer 1

the tendency to see someone or something as belonging to a particular group or category by evaluating how similar this object is to a typical object in that category (if a prof looks a certain way and you see someone that looks like your prof then you think that they are also a prof)

Question 2

Define base-rate

Answer 2

the frequency with which given events or patterns occur in the total population (based on #, what is the probability of it)

Question 3

What is the base-rate fallacy?

Answer 3

We ignore the base rate and assume based on what we know (all basketball players are tall so when I see a tall guy, I assume he plays basketball even though only a small percentage of people who are tall play basketball)

Question 4

What is the availability heuristic?

Answer 4

strategy for making judgements based on how easily specific kinds of information can be brought to mind (using info available to you)

Question 5

What is the stimulation heuristic (counterfactual thinking)?

Answer 5

tendency to judge the likelihood of an event by the ease with which one can imagine it (students with an 86% barely made it to a B+ so they’re happy while students with an 89% are mad because they almost had an A)

Question 6

What are the cognitive outcomes of bilingualism?

Answer 6

Greater cognitive flexibility
Outperformance of monolingual kids in UPPER grades
Better executive control
Bilingual people have more activation of the brain when they speak another language than monolingual people

Question 7

What are the effects of stimulating and non-stimulating environments on intellectual abilities?

Answer 7

Stimulating environments increased IQ in children and spur brain development
With the Romanian orphanages with little stimulation, the had cognitive impairment if the babies were not adopted after 6 months

Question 8

Define stereotype threat

Answer 8

threat felt when stereotype is noticeable to targets of negative stereotypes
awareness of the stereotype impairs target’s ability to behave in counterstereotypic way (females and math)

Question 9

Fixed vs growth mindset

Answer 9

fixed - performance is assumed to reflect ability that is unchangeable (fails and says oh well I can’t do anything)
growth - performance is assumed to reflect effort that is modifiable (fails and says okay I will work harder to do better next time)
Growth results in more effort and persistence