Question 1

Why is the concept of base rate important in decisions that involve the representativeness heuristic?

Accepted Answer

A)  People usually don't pay enough attention to base rate when making these decisions. 
B)  People are so aware of information about base rate that they typically make accurate decisions. 
C)  People rarely make the small-sample fallacy when making these decisions. 
D)  When people have a background in statistics, they are much more likely to make correct decisions on tasks involving the representativeness heuristic.

Question 2

We often tend to see psychological patterns in the pictures that people draw. For example, we might think that suspicious people would tend to draw exaggerated eyes. What error in judgment does this represent?

Accepted Answer

A)  The confirmation bias 
B)  Illusory correlation 
C)  Law of small numbers 
D)  The my-side bias

Question 3

On the classic selection task in conditional reasoning, people work on the problem, "If a card has a vowel on one side, then it has an even number on the other side." Research on variations of this task indicates that

Accepted Answer

A)  people consistently seek out negative information rather than positive information. 
B)  the problem is easier to solve if it describes something concrete, such as drinking age. 
C)  this is one of the few tasks that people can solve more accurately in their heads than when the problem is represented with concrete objects. 
D)  people are systematically influenced by the representativeness heuristic.

Question 4

Because of a recently passed law, in Oregon, everyone who gets a driver's license or state identification card is automatically registered to vote; they must choose to "opt out" if they do not wish to be registered. In most states, a person must take steps to register to vote. In the future, if voting statistics show that significantly more Oregonians than other U.S. citizens are registered to vote, we might say that this is a good example of the _______ heuristic in action.

Accepted Answer

A)  representativeness 
B)  availability 
C)  anchoring and adjustment 
D)  default

Question 5

Cynthia has developed an informal hypothesis: "If a student is a psychology major, then that student favors gun control." She questions 20 psychology majors and all 20 do favor gun control. However, she does not pursue additional information. Specifically, she does not seek out people who oppose gun control to determine whether they are psychology majors. From the perspective of deductive reasoning, Cynthia has

Accepted Answer

A)  demonstrated confirmation bias. 
B)  relied too heavily on the belief-bias effect. 
C)  relied too heavily on counterexamples. 
D)  overused the availability heuristic.

Question 6

Which of the following students has the best explanation for illusory correlations?

Accepted Answer

A)  Tim: "Illusory correlations arise when people focus their attention on only one set of characteristics, and they do not consider the other sets of characteristics." 
B)  Joanne: "Illusory correlations are based on the inappropriate use of confidence intervals." 
C)  Sophie: "Illusory correlations resemble the conjunction fallacy, in which we believe that two psychological characteristics or categories are related to each other." 
D)  Ingo: "Actually, a recent meta-analysis showed that-ironically-illusory correlations are illusory."

Question 7

At midterm, a college determines that 300 of its students are at risk for suspension this semester. Its tutoring center argues that, with a series of targeted emails encouraging students to come in for help, it can promise to certainly save 100 of those students from suspension. However, an external firm approaches the college with an offer to start a new program, with a 1/3 chance of preventing all 300 students from being suspended (and a 2/3 chance of saving none of these students). Under which circumstances is the college most likely to hire the external firm?

Accepted Answer

A)  the tutoring center and the external firm emphasize the number of students to be "saved" in their presentations 
B)  the tutoring center and the external firm emphasize the number of students who will be suspended under each of their programs 
C)  the tutoring center emphasizes the potential number of students to be suspended, while the external firm emphasizes the potential number of students saved from suspension 
D)  both the tutoring center and the external firm place equal emphasis on the students to be "saved" and the students who will be suspended under each approach

Question 8

Suppose that you are given several pieces of information, and you must infer whether the logical consequence of that information is correct. The task you are performing is called

Accepted Answer

A)  decision making. 
B)  insightful problem solving. 
C)  divergent thinking. 
D)  deductive reasoning.

Question 9

Suppose that a student named John is asked to judge how many students are enrolled in his introductory biology class. He replies, "about 100….well, maybe between about 90 and 110." Based on the discussion of confidence intervals, you predict that

Accepted Answer

A)  John's estimate probably relies too heavily on the ease with which examples come to mind. 
B)  John is likely to be heavily influenced by the confirmation bias. 
C)  John probably relied too heavily on the initial anchor of 100 students. 
D)  John probably would have been wiser to use the representativeness heuristic to estimate the confidence intervals.

Question 10

When people estimate confidence intervals, they typically

Accepted Answer

A)  provide estimates that are too wide. 
B)  rely too heavily on the representativeness heuristic. 
C)  are not sufficiently confident about their decisions. 
D)  provide estimates that are too narrow.

Question 11

Anna Smith is a clinical psychologist. She just heard about someone who had a bad reaction to a medication. She knows that this medication has worked well with many of her clients who have experienced depression during the last few months. With respect to decision-making heuristics, she should be concerned that her future decisions about this medication might be influenced by

Accepted Answer

A)  the conjunction fallacy. 
B)  the relationship between illusory correlations and the representativeness heuristic. 
C)  anchoring and adjustment. 
D)  the tendency for recency to influence availability.

Question 12

Suppose that you are trying to decide whether to take a course from Professor Jones or Professor Smith. Your friends have made many positive comments about both professors. You decide to take a course with Professor Jones, because today you heard more praise about Professor Jones. You are using

Accepted Answer

A)  the availability heuristic. 
B)  the anchoring and adjustment heuristic. 
C)  the representativeness heuristic. 
D)  the recognition heuristic.

Question 13

According to the discussion of the availability heuristic,

Accepted Answer

A)  this heuristic is consistently more accurate than the representativeness heuristic. 
B)  we use this heuristic when we try to estimate probability by thinking of relevant examples. 
C)  this heuristic emphasizes that we ignore the conjunction fallacy. 
D)  this heuristic explains why we typically provide confidence intervals that are too narrow.

Question 14

Suppose that you are working as an industrial/organizational psychologist for a company. You've determined that the employees tend to be too confident about sales decisions that later turn out to be unwise. Remembering what you learned in your cognitive psychology course, your wisest decision would be to

Accepted Answer

A)  use the crystal-ball technique. 
B)  use the meta-analysis technique. 
C)  emphasize that the employees should try to find more information that confirms their beliefs, rather than disconfirming those beliefs. 
D)  emphasize that the employees need to review the principles of propositional calculus.

Question 15

Here is a reasoning problem: "Some vegetables have seeds. Some things that have seeds are fruits. Therefore, some vegetables are fruits." What kind of reasoning does this represent?

Accepted Answer

A)  A syllogism 
B)  Conditional reasoning 
C)  Propositional reasoning 
D)  The availability heuristic

Question 16

Suppose that you are having a serious argument with a friend, and you are convinced that your own perspective is correct. According to the discussion in Chapter 12, this situation is an example of

Accepted Answer

A)  hindsight bias. 
B)  my-side bias. 
C)  the crystal-ball technique. 
D)  the conjunction rule.

Question 17

Here is a reasoning problem. "All writers are creative. Some actors are creative. Therefore, some actors are writers." This is an example of

Accepted Answer

A)  propositional reasoning. 
B)  problem solving. 
C)  decision making. 
D)  a syllogism.

Question 18

According to the framing effect,

Accepted Answer

A)  under some circumstances, the framework of a question encourages too much reliance on the representativeness heuristic. 
B)  when people make decisions, the deep structure-or frame-is more important than the surface structure. 
C)  decision-makers show a clear-cut tendency to assume that the same frame holds true for all the decisions in a particular set. 
D)  the way in which a question is asked has an important influence on people's decisions.

Question 19

Which of the following students provides the most accurate perspective on the availability heuristic?

Accepted Answer

A)  Barbara: "The availability heuristic is actually very accurate, and it almost always leads us to the correct decision." 
B)  Harley: "The availability heuristic is generally accurate, but recency and familiarity can distort our decisions." 
C)  Angela: "The availability heuristic is generally accurate, except that we should be cautious about the recognition heuristic, which is not very accurate." 
D)  Magda: "Unfortunately, the availability heuristic is the least accurate of the three major heuristics, especially because of the hindsight bias."

Question 20

Suppose that someone asks you to name the most popular television situation comedies, and you respond with the names of two shows that you regularly watch. This would be an example of

Accepted Answer

A)  anchoring and adjustment. 
B)  an illusory correlation. 
C)  representativeness. 
D)  availability.

Exam 12: Deductive Reasoning and Decision Making