Deck 3: Common Biases

Question 1

When negotiating for salary with a future employer,it is wise to make an initial offer that is ______,because of the anchoring bias

Answer 1

High

Question 2

Which of the following can serve as a cognitive explanation for misconceptions of chance?

A)People expect probabilities to even out.
B)People remember unusual sequences better than ones that appear more random.
C)People judge probabilities of future events as contingent on past events.
D)All of the above.

Answer 2

D

Question 3

The anchoring bias affects our value estimates,but not our ability to retrieve information from memory.

Answer 3

False

Question 4

In order to avoid falling prey to ease of recall bias,a manager must discount the number of successful and unsuccessful actions taken by employees situated closer to the manager,relative to those of employees who are farther away.

Question 5

The saying that "There is no such thing as bad publicity" is consistent with the notion that even unflattering publicity increases others' familiarity with the subject of the story.The _______ heuristic could account for such a phenomenon.

Question 6

Which bias occurs only after the true outcome of an event is known?

A)Retrievability.
B)Ease of recall.
C)The hindsight bias.
D)None of the above.

Question 7

In many organizations,the most competent employees are usually poor in tutoring subordinates and new employees.Indicate the bias that is responsible for this phenomenon and explain how this phenomenon occurs.

Question 8

When do people use base-rate data correctly?

A)When they are instructed to do so.
B)When there is no other information available.
C)When this information confirms their initial hypotheses.
D)All of the above

Question 9

Experience helps countervail the anchoring bias,such that anchoring effects are rarely observable in expert judgments.

Question 10

Which bias accounts for the "sophomore jinx" phenomenon,in which athletes who did exceptionally well in their rookie season usually follow with a disappointing second season? Explain the reason for this phenomenon.

Question 11

A survey among tenants of shared apartments asked each tenant what percentage of the cleaning around the apartment he or she does.The survey found that aggregating the percentages for each apartment produces an average of much more than 100%.This result may be due to what bias?

A)Ease of recall.
B)Insensitivity to sample size.
C)Insensitivity to base rates.
D)The conjunction fallacy.

Question 12

Two groups of people are given score sheets of yesterday's games in a professional league.One group is given the scores of yesterday's games in the National Basketball Association,and the other group is given the scores of yesterday's games in the National Hockey League.The groups are then asked to estimate the average ticket price for a game in the sport of which they read the scores.
How will the two groups differ in their estimates? What bias is responsible for this difference?

Question 13

The human mind is better at remembering information that is

A)Interesting.
B)Emotionally arousing.
C)Recently acquired.
D)All of the above.

Question 14

Drake is a department manager in a company which has recently decided to hire a new analyst.After interviewing all candidates,Drake recommended the company hire Anne,but senior management preferred to hire Beth.Drake argued that Beth is an inferior choice,but agreed to accept her for a trial period of six months.At the end of the trial period,Drake evaluated Beth's performance as poor.Although this evaluation may have been fair,it is also possible that it was biased by:

A)The curse of knowledge.
B)The confirmation trap.
C)Overconfidence.
D)Misconceptions of chance.

Question 15

The fact that heavy advertising of a company's or a product's name on billboards and in the media makes that name stick in people's memory as bearing high quality is an example of what bias?

A)Insensitivity to base rates.
B)Retrievability.
C)The conjunction fallacy.
D)Ease of recall.