Deck 14: Decision Making

Question 1

A compensatory model is one in which

A)the pros and cons of each action can be taken into account.
B)we gradually eliminate alternatives based on their negative attributes.
C)calculations are not necessary.
D)we select the first alternative that satisfies the minimum criterion for each attribute.

Answer 1

A

Question 2

What is the difference between the additive and additive-difference strategies?

A)the search for information differs
B)the final conclusion (selection) differs
C)only one of the strategies is compensatory
D)only one of the strategies uses probabilities

Answer 2

A

Question 3

Payne found that as people eliminated alternatives in a choice task they shifted from

A)a more demanding strategy to a less demanding strategy.
B)a less demanding strategy to a more demanding strategy.
C)a low-risk strategy to a high-risk strategy.
D)a high-risk strategy to a low-risk strategy.

Answer 3

B

Question 4

A descriptive decision theory is

A)one that describes the way people ought to make decisions.
B)one that describes the way people usually do make decisions.
C)one that describes decisions as rationally, rather than empirically.
D)impossible in science because no one can see what goes on inside another person's mind.

Question 5

Payne found that increasing the number of alternatives in a choice task caused people to initially use

A)an additive strategy.
C)an elimination-by-aspects strategy.
B)an additive-difference strategy.
D)an expected value strategy.

Question 6

Which decision model considers the differential importance of the attributes?

A)additive
C)elimination-by-aspects
B)additive-difference
D)conjunctive

Question 7

Which of the following is an example of a compensatory model?

A)additive-difference model
C)conjunctive model
B)elimination-by-aspects
D)All these

Question 8

Most decisions are made under conditions of uncertainty. One implication of this statement is that

A)people delay making decisions.
B)people must make assessments of probability in order to make a decision.
C)attentional resources become more important.
D)decisions are never optimal.

Question 9

Simon's 'satisficing search' is an example of the

A)additive model.
C)elimination-by-aspects.
B)additive-difference model.
D)conjunctive model.

Question 10

When you respond that there are more words in the English language that begin with the letter K than have the letter K in the third position, you are demonstrating an error due to the _____ heuristic.

A)representativeness
C)availability
B)conjunctive
D)normative

Question 11

Sally finds a dress for the prom that satisfies all her criteria, but she decides to look further. When she returns, her favorite dress is gone. Which decision strategy should she have used?

A)additive
C)elimination-by-aspects
B)additive-difference
D)conjunctive

Question 12

Which of the following does not belong?

A)compensatory model
C)additive-difference model
B)additive model
D)noncompensatory model

Question 13

Decision-making models that allow attractive attributes to compensate for unattractive ones are called

A)schema models.
C)compensatory models.
B)strategic models.
D)noncompensatory models.

Question 14

Which model combines the attractive and unattractive attributes to arrive at a total score for each alternative?

A)additive model
C)elimination-by-aspects
B)additive-difference model
D)conjunctive model

Question 15

Normative is to what people _____ do as descriptive is to what people _____ do.

A)should; actually
C)say they; wish they could
B)never; should
D)normally, infrequently

Question 16

Which one of the following predictions does the 'availability' heuristic make?

A)People should estimate there are more words with the letter K in the first position than the third position.
B)People should estimate that there are more words with a K in the third position than the first position.
C)People should ignore sample size.
D)People should consider sample size.

Question 17

The representativeness heuristic is related to

A)the complexity of one's mental representation.
B)the development of mental models.
C)the extent to which an event is typical of a larger class of events.
D)the ability to retrieve events from memory.

Question 18

When compared with professionals who were trained to use an additive strategy, professionals who were trained on the elimination-by-aspects strategy selected the company with the highest bond rating

A)in more time, with equivalent accuracy.
C)in less time, with equivalent accuracy.
B)in more time, with greater accuracy.
D)in less time, with lower accuracy.

Question 19

A normative theory is one that

A)most people normally use.
B)depends on the data being normally distributed.
C)was invented by the great statistician, Norma Tive.
D)specifies what people should do.

Question 20

The effect of mood on estimating probabilities (happy people are more optimistic) can be explained by the

A)representativeness heuristic.
C)additive model.
B)availability heuristic.
D)expected value model.

Question 21

Which of the following is not attributed to faulty use of the representativeness heuristic?

A)It ignores differential media coverage.
B)It ignores sample size.
C)It ignores prior probabilities.
D)It may lead to faulty conceptions of randomness.

Question 22

When subjects are told the number of engineers in a sample of 100 people and are given a personality description of an individual from that sample, they estimate the probability that the selected individual is an engineer by using

A)the number of engineers in the sample.
B)the personality description.
C)Both the number of engineers in the sample and the personality description
D)Neither the number of engineers in the sample nor the personality description

Question 23

Emergency situations do not consist of

A)shifting or competing goals.
C)action/feedback loops.
B)a decision event.
D)multiple players.

Question 24

A duplex gamble is used to study the attractiveness of different gambles because it allows the experimenter to independently manipulate

A)the amount won and the amount lost.
B)the probability of winning and the probability of losing.
C)the probability of winning and the amount won.
D)the probability of losing and the amount lost.

Question 25

Utility is the

A)subjective value of an outcome.
C)estimated probability of an outcome.
B)objective value of an outcome.
D)estimated frequency of an outcome.

Question 26

The Recognition-primed decision model is consistent with

A)Simon's satisficing model.
C)expected utility.
B)expected value.
D)Bayes' theorem.

Question 27

In order to calculate expected value, it is necessary to know

A)the probability of events.
C)the utility of events.
B)the subjective probability of events.
D)None of these

Question 28

Pennington and Hastie's jury model of decision making is based on

A)expected utility.
C)Bayes' theorem.
B)expected value.
D)story construction.

Question 29

States have increased the sale of lottery tickets by

A)increasing the amount of a win.
B)increasing the probability of a win.
C)Both increasing the amount and increasing the probability of a win
D)Neither increasing the amount nor increasing the probability of a win

Question 30

Cultural differences among nations primarily show differences in

A)perceptions of risk.
B)attitudes toward risk.
C)Both perceptions of risk and attitudes toward risk
D)Neither perceptions of risk nor attitudes toward risk

Question 31

The Recognition-primed decision model

A)places an emphasis on situation assessment.
B)looks for a satisfactory, rather than an optimal, course of action.
C)allows for quick decisions.
D)All these

Question 32

Reasoning with probabilities is

A)easier than reasoning with frequencies because it puts all the critical quantities on the same scale of measurement.
B)more difficult than reasoning with frequencies because probabilities make the computations more complex.
C)easier than reasoning with frequencies because it focuses on critical quantities and removes distractions.
D)more difficult than reasoning with frequencies because frequencies make the computations unnecessary.

Question 33

An application of the availability heuristic to mood by Blaney (1986) indicates that

A)subjects in a bad mood recalled more positive events.
B)subjects in a bad mood recalled more negative events.
C)subjects who were anxious recalled less events overall.
D)subjects who were anxious recalled more events overall.

Question 34

The study of the risk dimensions of gambles has revealed that people

A)place equal emphasis on the risk dimensions.
B)ignore the risk dimensions.
C)place more emphasis on some risk dimensions than others.
D)make up their own risk dimensions.

Question 35

A normative procedure for combining probabilities and values is called

A)expected utility.
C)Bayes' theorem.
B)expected value.
D)subjective expected utility.

Question 36

Subjective expected utility differs from expected values because it uses

A)probabilities.
C)Both probabilities and values
B)values.
D)Neither probabilities nor values

Question 37

Two factors that influence the representativeness heuristic are

A)prior probability and sample size.
C)expected utility and expected value.
B)media attention and retrieval access.
D)None of these

Question 38

Research on the perception of randomness has shown that people

A)correctly judge that the sequence of boy/girl births in the sequence BBBGGG is more likely than the sequence GBBGBG.
B)incorrectly judge that the sequence BBBGGG is more likely than the sequence GBBGBG.
C)correctly judge that the sequence GBBGBG is more likely than the sequence BBBGGG.
D)incorrectly judge that the sequence GBBGBG is more likely than the sequence BBBGGG.

Question 39

Lowenstein & Issacharoff (1994) gave subjects mugs and found that

A)those that thought they earned the mug placed a higher selling price on it.
B)those that thought they earned the mug refused to sell it.
C)those that were told they were random recipients of the mug placed a higher selling price on it.
D)those that were told they were random recipients of the mug refused it.

Question 40

Studies of mock jurists have found that they tend to

A)ignore evidence presented early in the trial.
B)ignore evidence presented late in the trial.
C)distort evidence to make it consistent with their view.
D)distort evidence to make it consistent with the judge's view.

Question 41

Expected value is the average value of the expected outcomes.

Question 42

Use the example of purchasing a cell-phone plan to develop another example of how the faming of a situation influenced your choice.

Question 43

Buying insurance is an example of risky decision making.

Question 44

Compare and contrast compensatory models with noncompensatory models of making choices.

Question 45

Gambling behavior can be predicted based on expected value.

Question 46

Give an example from your own experience in which you used a decision frame in a particular situation. How did the formulation of the problem affect your choice of the decision frame?

Question 47

Discuss the expected value model of decision making. Include in your answer the modifications psychologist have made to the model to improve its predictive validity.

Question 48

A normative procedure for combining probabilities and values is called a decision frame.

Question 49

What is Bayes' theorem? Why is it not more commonly used in everyday decision making?

Question 50

Reasoning with frequencies is easier than reasoning with probabilities.

Question 51

Compensatory models tend to be more cognitively demanding than noncompensatory models.

Question 52

Explain the difference between subjective probability and subjective expected utility. How do they improve on expected value in decision making?

Question 53

When professional financiers were trained using the various decision making models, the elimination-by-aspects-strategy was the most efficient.

Question 54

The process by which jurors incorporate new information can also be understood by using schema theory. Discuss.

Question 55

Describe and discuss factors that are involved in jury decision making.

Question 56

In action-based decision making, one typically creates a story model.

Question 57

Bayes' theorem is a descriptive procedure for revising probability estimates.

Question 58

Payne has demonstrated that the strategies used in making decisions vary as a function of the demands of the task.

Question 59

Compare and contrast normative models and descriptive models of decision making.

Question 60

Availability and representativeness are two heuristics that Kahneman and Tversky have shown to be important in decision making. How do these heuristics help or hurt us in decision making?