Exam 9: Thinking and Intelligence

How does the cognitive approach to intelligence research differ from the psychometric approach? How do the two approaches define intelligence?

In 2001, an unknown person sent anthrax through the United States Postal Service, causing the deaths of five people. Many people became afraid to open their mail, although the risk for any given individual was extremely small. What heuristics help to explain this reaction?

Stereotype threat is a burden of doubt a person feels about his or her performance, due to negative stereotypes about his or her group's abilities.

The tendency to think, mistakenly, that human beings have nothing in common with other animals is called:

Catherine's grandmother says that if Catherine follows the family's traditional recipe for Irish soda bread exactly, then she is sure to have very good results. Catherine's grandmother is encouraging her granddaughter to:

One of the longest-running psychological studies ever conducted was begun by Lewis Terman in 1921 in order to learn about children who scored in the top one percent of the IQ distribution. As they reached adulthood, some of these "Termites," as they were called, fulfilled their early promise, but others did not. Analyze the differences between those who were successful and those who were not.

Define your terms! In Chapter 1, we learned that this was an important guideline with regard to critical thinking. People refer to intelligence all the time, but how is intelligence usually defined? Does the musical genius of a world-class violinist count as intelligence? Based on your reading of Chapter 9, describe different ways that intelligence has been defined.

The day after the election, Josephine says that she knew all along who the winner would be. Although it is possible that she had some special insight into the election, it is more likely that Josephine is:

Research conducted with chimpanzees suggests that they have a rudimentary sense of numbers.

A representation that may occur in many sensory modalities, and that resembles what it represents, is a:

________ is the knowledge or awareness of one's own cognitive processes.

In a study of eighth graders, ___________ was more strongly correlated with school performance than ___________ was.

Tiffany tells her husband that she thinks their dog is embarrassed to be walked around the neighborhood in the sweater that she knitted for him. This is almost certainly an example of:

In Chapter 2 (How Psychologists Do Research), we learned that in survey research, the phrasing of questions needs to be considered. How is this related to the importance of wording as noted in Chapter 9 (Thinking and Intelligence), especially with regard to the tendency to avoid loss and minimize risk?

Prereflective thinkers tend to assume that:

Dialectical reasoning involves:

Most people take longer to identify a platypus as a mammal than to identify a cat as a mammal. This is likely because a cat is closer to most people's _______________ for the concept of mammal.

In Chapter 1, we learned that the media and the public persist in equating "psychologist" with "psychotherapist." How does the concept of prototypes, discussed in Chapter 9 (Thinking and Intelligence), help to explain this phenomenon?

Fenton has learned a great strategy for winning a card game, but he developed the strategy without being able to consciously identify what he was doing. He isn't even sure what exactly he has learned! This type of learning is called:

Animals solve problems in ways that fascinate us. Describe the research that has led some researchers to conclude that animals can think, including in your essay information regarding: -The chimpanzees studied by Wolfgang Kohler; -Kanzi, the bonobo who uses a computer keyboard; -Alex, the African gray parrot who vocalized English words.