Exam 12: Deductive Reasoning and Decision Making

One reason that decision makers often use the representativeness heuristic inappropriately is that

People who often watch soap operas are likely to believe that amnesia, extramarital affairs, and mysterious disappearances occur more often than they actually occur in real life. A likely explanation for this finding is that

Suppose that Joseph Brown is a U.S. diplomat who works in Country X, and he is trying to assess whether Country X poses a threat to the United States. The diplomat gathers evidence that Country X poses a threat, but he does not try to gather evidence that Country X does not pose a threat. This error is called

A friend tells you that drama majors tend to be extremely disorganized. However, when you actually make a tally of 10 friends who are drama majors and 20 friends who are not, you find no relationship. Your friend's error was most likely to be an example of

You estimate the number of soft drinks you'll need for the 4th of July picnic, based on the Christmas party consumption, but taking into account the fact that the weather will be warmer. Which heuristic does this example illustrate?

In contrast to the representativeness heuristic, the availability heuristic

Psychologists have published an article which shows that many U.S. residents avoided flying in airplanes after the 2001 terrorist attacks. In fact, for several months afterwards, many people decided to drive, rather than fly. This phenomenon can best be explained by

A professor asks students to guess what percent of people in homeless shelters are parents and children. Before you can consider your answer, another student shouts out "about 10%." Your answer may be either higher or lower than it would be otherwise because of

Suppose that a friend is wondering what ever happened to a classmate named Bob who attended your high school and was on the wrestling team. You say that Bob is now a banker. Your friend says, "Well, Bob is likely to be a banker who is still interested in sports, rather than just a plain banker." Your friend has just demonstrated

Suppose that Oksana is driving in a car to a friend's house. As she pulls into the friend's driveway, she sees that the odometer shows the number 2222.2 miles. She says to herself, "This number is weird…something really unusual is going to happen today when I am with my friend." This reaction would be an example of

You are trying to decide whether it will rain tomorrow, based on how many rainy days you remember from the last week. Which heuristic are you using?

Schwartz and his colleagues examined the relationship between decision-making style and measures of depression. Their results showed that people with a maximizing decision-making style

Which of the following students provides the most accurate summary of Type 1 and Type 2 processing, in connection with reasoning and decision making?

Barnett believes that "most people" share his political views. However, Barnett is basing his judgment on the views of his close friends, with whom he discusses politics most frequently, and with whom he shares core values and attitudes. Barnett is relying on the _____ heuristic.

Research on the availability heuristic shows that

Which of the following students' statements provides the best overview of the research on decision making?

According to the research on the reasons for overconfidence,

Suppose that you are assigning eight college students to two committees. By chance, one committee has four students from the social sciences, and the other has four students from the humanities. If people protest that this arrangement does not seem to be random, they are following

According to the research on the confirmation bias,

A group of fantasy football players are discussing the previous weekend's games, which included a season-ending injury to a top player. Kat is heard to say, "I knew that quarterback was going to get injured eventually. He can't get rid of the ball quickly enough, so he's always getting sacked." Kat is probably being influenced by