Deck 8: Reasons for Unreason

Question 1

You attend a party where you do not know anyone but expect that people will be friendly.You behave in a warm and sociable manner.Your behavior,in turn,leads to other people being friendly to you.This situation can best be described as

A)an illusory correlation.
B)the representativeness heuristic.
C)the availability heuristic.
D)behavioral confirmation.

Answer 1

behavioral confirmation.

Question 2

The cognitive rule that judges the likelihood of things in terms of their availability in one's memory is called the _____ heuristic.

A)availability
B)representativeness
C)vividness
D)matching

Answer 2

availability

Question 3

Thinking that our premonitions correlate with events represents

A)the representative heuristic.
B)the availability heuristic.
C)an illusory correlation.
D)the overconfidence phenomenon.

Answer 3

an illusory correlation.

Question 4

The perception of a relationship where none actually exists or the perception of a stronger relationship than actually exists is called

A)the representative heuristic.
B)the availability heuristic.
C)an illusory correlation.
D)the overconfidence phenomenon.

Question 5

The statistical tendency for extreme scores or behaviors to return toward average is called

A)the regression heuristic.
B)regression toward the extreme.
C)regression toward the average.
D)reversion.

Question 6

Robert Feldman and Thomas Prohaska (1979)studied the effect of students' expectations upon their teachers and found that

A)students with low expectations perceived all the teachers similarly.
B)students' expectations were in direct contrast to a teacher's perceived competence.
C)a teacher's perceived competence was unaffected by students' expectations.
D)students' expectations affected both the students and the perceived competence of a teacher.

Question 7

In the studies of experimenter bias (1985,2006)conducted by Robert Rosenthal,the experimenters asked individuals to judge the success of people in various photographs.Although the same photos were shown to all the participants and the same instructions given,experimenters who expected their participants to see the photographed people as successful obtained higher ratings than did those who expected their participants to see the people as failures.This demonstrates the phenomenon of

A)self-fulfilling prophecies.
B)the illusion of control.
C)illusory correlations.
D)the fundamental attribution error.

Question 8

According to your text,people everywhere perceive mediators and media as

A)biased in favor of their position.
B)objective in their decisions and coverage.
C)biased against their position.
D)biased against the president.

Question 9

Assuming that most crimes involve violence because the news generally reports on rapes,robberies,and beatings is an example of the _____ heuristic.

A)availability
B)representativeness
C)vividness
D)matching

Question 10

Although you once scored a 100 on your physics exam,you have subsequently been unable to get a perfect score again.Your experience may be understood in terms of

A)the illusory correlation.
B)regression toward the average.
C)the representativeness heuristic.
D)counterfactual thinking.

Question 11

A belief that leads to its own fulfillment is called

A)a self-fulfilling prophecy.
B)a belief confirmation.
C)self-confirming validity.
D)behavioral perseverance.

Question 12

According to research done by Miller and his colleagues (1975),if you want young children to put trash in wastebaskets,you should repeatedly

A)tell them that they should be neat and tidy.
B)congratulate them for being neat and tidy.
C)tell them that littering is a crime.
D)tell them that people who litter are bad.

Question 13

Expectations can often predict behavior because

A)the expectations are accurate.
B)the expectations are a coincidence.
C)behavior is easily predicted.
D)we are overconfident.

Question 14

Research on gambling shows that throwing the dice or spinning the wheel increases people's confidence.This illustrates

A)an illusory correlation.
B)an illusion of control.
C)the representative heuristic.
D)the availability heuristic.

Question 15

Vivid,easy-to-imagine events,such as shark attacks or diseases with easy-to-picture symptoms,may seem more likely to occur than harder-to-picture events.This phenomenon is best explained by the

A)availability heuristic.
B)illusory correlation.
C)confirmation bias.
D)cognitive dissonance.

Question 16

The idea that chance events are subject to our influence describes

A)an illusory correlation.
B)an illusion of control.
C)the representative heuristic.
D)the availability heuristic.

Question 17

Although travelers in the United States are more likely to die in an automobile crash than on a commercial flight covering the same distance,people often assume that flying is more dangerous than driving.Which type of heuristic is responsible for this assumption?

A)the availability heuristic
B)the representativeness heuristic
C)the vividness heuristic
D)the matching heuristic

Question 18

Researcher David Jamieson and his team (1987)experimented with four Ontario high school classes taught by a newly transferred teacher.During individual interviews,students in two of the classes were told that the other students as well as the research team rated the teacher very highly.Compared with the control classes,students who were given positive expectations paid better attention during class.This result demonstrates the phenomenon of

A)the availability heuristic.
B)an illusory correlation.
C)a self-fulfilling prophecy.
D)cognitive dissonance.

Question 19

William Ward and Herbert Jenkins (1965)conducted a hypothetical 50-day cloud-seeding experiment.Participants were told on which of the 50 days the clouds had been seeded and on which days it rained.The results indicated that sometimes it rained after seeding and sometimes it did not.In spite of these random results,the participants were convinced that there existed a relationship between cloud seeding and rain.This experiment best illustrates

A)an illusion of control.
B)the availability heuristic.
C)an illusory correlation.
D)a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Question 20

Murray and her colleagues (2003)found that among married couples the self-fulfilling prophecy occurred when one person interpreted slight hurts as rejections.The person who felt rejected was then motivated to

A)value the partner for his or her honesty.
B)value the partner yet become distant from him or her.
C)devalue the partner but make an effort to become close to him or her.
D)devalue the partner and become distant from him or her.

Question 21

Researchers had male students speak on the telephone with women they thought were either attractive or unattractive.When judges later analyzed the women's comments,they found that the

A)women thought to be attractive spoke more warmly than the other women.
B)women thought to be unattractive tried harder to be likable and stimulated better conversation.
C)women thought to be attractive spoke in a more aloof and superior manner.
D)women thought to be unattractive spoke more slowly and deliberately.

Question 22

When our expectations lead us to act in ways that induce others to confirm those expectations,_____ is at work.

A)an illusory correlation
B)counterfactual thinking
C)behavioral confirmation
D)the illusion of control

Question 23

Researchers investigated the reduction of littering in three classrooms.Which class still showed a reduction in littering two weeks after the study ended?

A)the class that was told that they should be neat and tidy
B)the class reprimanded repeatedly for littering
C)the class congratulated for being neat and tidy
D)the class whose littering was ignored