PSYCH 318 FINAL EXAM QUESTIONS & ANSWERS
The ultimate goal of the research literature on cognitive illusions is to:
- Demonstrate that people are extremely poor at making judgments.
- Infer how people generally make judgments.
- Show that people can be manipulated into paying attention to the wrong things when
making judgments.
- Examine how people make judgments under time pressure. - Answer -Infer how
people generally make judgments.
In their fast-and-frugal approach to judgment and decision-making, Gigerenzer and
colleagues argued that people's mental shortcuts tend to:
- Paradoxically lead to slower decision-making, because errors must be corrected.
- Strike a balance between maximizing accuracy and minimizing cognitive effort.
- Be highly detrimental to quality decision-making.
- Give people the illusion that the correct decision is being made, when in fact it is not. -
Answer -Strike a balance between maximizing accuracy and minimizing cognitive effort.
A model of decision making that will lead to optimal outcomes is an example of a:
Prescriptive Model
Descriptive Model
None of these options
Normative Mode - Answer -Normative Mode
Juanita tells her brother that he should only date women who are warm and kind
towards him. She is not certain that this is an optimal rule for finding a partner, but she
believes it is better than his current criteria. Juanita's model is an example of a:
- Normative Model
- Descriptive Model
- Prescriptive Model
- None of these options - Answer -Prescriptive Model
Working memory is required for ___________ processing, but not necessarily for
____________ processing.
- System 2; System 1
- Impression formation; Intuition formation
- Biased; Heuristic
- System 1; System 2 - Answer -System 2; System 1
Hertwig and Gigerenzer (1999) found that people tend to interpret the word "probable"
in the Linda problem
- as a sure thing (e.g., as "definitely," "unquestionably," etc.).
- in a non-mathematical sense (e.g., as "possibility," applicability," etc.).
- in a literal sense (e.g., as deriving solely from the definition of "probability").
, - in a mathematical sense (e.g., as "certainty," "frequency," etc.). - Answer -in a non-
mathematical sense (e.g., as "possibility," applicability," etc.).
People's expectations about what a random sequence of fair coin tosses looks like is
most likely driven by a belief in:
- availability.
- the law of small numbers.
- nonregressive prediction.
- the independence of events. - Answer -the law of small numbers.
When we carry out attribute substitution, we are:
- deploying anchoring-and-adjustment to estimate a response.
- answering a difficult question by answering an easier one instead.
- demonstrating a primacy effect.
- using a technique that people sometimes deploy instead of heuristics to answer a
question. - Answer -answering a difficult question by answering an easier one instead.
Our understanding of how people apply the representativeness heuristic may be greatly
expanded by the existing research literature on:
- Accessibility
- Normative models
- Stereotyping
- Regression to the mean - Answer -Stereotyping
Jim is quiet, studious, organized, and meticulous. In the last month, he read four novels
and a book on European politics. He majored in English Literature in college and is very
knowledgeable about books. Which of the following is more probable?
- Jim is a used car salesman and a part-time librarian.
- Jim is a used car salesman. - Answer -Jim is a used car salesman.
Recall that in one of Fischoff's (1975) seminal studies on the hindsight bias, people
were asked to read about a complex event (e.g., an 1814 battle between the British and
the Gurkhas) and to make predictions about the outcome of the event. The
methodology employed in this study is referred to as:
- a relative frequency-of-occurrence judgment
- the memory paradigm
- the hypothetical paradigm.
- a set-size judgment - Answer -the hypothetical paradigm.
How does hindsight bias occur, according to the RAFT (Reconstruction After Feedback
with Take the Best) model?
- People who can't remember their original estimate try to reconstruct it by making the
judgment again after the fact.
- It is driven by a self-serving bias, such that we show a hindsight bias when it helps us
maintain a positive self-image.
The ultimate goal of the research literature on cognitive illusions is to:
- Demonstrate that people are extremely poor at making judgments.
- Infer how people generally make judgments.
- Show that people can be manipulated into paying attention to the wrong things when
making judgments.
- Examine how people make judgments under time pressure. - Answer -Infer how
people generally make judgments.
In their fast-and-frugal approach to judgment and decision-making, Gigerenzer and
colleagues argued that people's mental shortcuts tend to:
- Paradoxically lead to slower decision-making, because errors must be corrected.
- Strike a balance between maximizing accuracy and minimizing cognitive effort.
- Be highly detrimental to quality decision-making.
- Give people the illusion that the correct decision is being made, when in fact it is not. -
Answer -Strike a balance between maximizing accuracy and minimizing cognitive effort.
A model of decision making that will lead to optimal outcomes is an example of a:
Prescriptive Model
Descriptive Model
None of these options
Normative Mode - Answer -Normative Mode
Juanita tells her brother that he should only date women who are warm and kind
towards him. She is not certain that this is an optimal rule for finding a partner, but she
believes it is better than his current criteria. Juanita's model is an example of a:
- Normative Model
- Descriptive Model
- Prescriptive Model
- None of these options - Answer -Prescriptive Model
Working memory is required for ___________ processing, but not necessarily for
____________ processing.
- System 2; System 1
- Impression formation; Intuition formation
- Biased; Heuristic
- System 1; System 2 - Answer -System 2; System 1
Hertwig and Gigerenzer (1999) found that people tend to interpret the word "probable"
in the Linda problem
- as a sure thing (e.g., as "definitely," "unquestionably," etc.).
- in a non-mathematical sense (e.g., as "possibility," applicability," etc.).
- in a literal sense (e.g., as deriving solely from the definition of "probability").
, - in a mathematical sense (e.g., as "certainty," "frequency," etc.). - Answer -in a non-
mathematical sense (e.g., as "possibility," applicability," etc.).
People's expectations about what a random sequence of fair coin tosses looks like is
most likely driven by a belief in:
- availability.
- the law of small numbers.
- nonregressive prediction.
- the independence of events. - Answer -the law of small numbers.
When we carry out attribute substitution, we are:
- deploying anchoring-and-adjustment to estimate a response.
- answering a difficult question by answering an easier one instead.
- demonstrating a primacy effect.
- using a technique that people sometimes deploy instead of heuristics to answer a
question. - Answer -answering a difficult question by answering an easier one instead.
Our understanding of how people apply the representativeness heuristic may be greatly
expanded by the existing research literature on:
- Accessibility
- Normative models
- Stereotyping
- Regression to the mean - Answer -Stereotyping
Jim is quiet, studious, organized, and meticulous. In the last month, he read four novels
and a book on European politics. He majored in English Literature in college and is very
knowledgeable about books. Which of the following is more probable?
- Jim is a used car salesman and a part-time librarian.
- Jim is a used car salesman. - Answer -Jim is a used car salesman.
Recall that in one of Fischoff's (1975) seminal studies on the hindsight bias, people
were asked to read about a complex event (e.g., an 1814 battle between the British and
the Gurkhas) and to make predictions about the outcome of the event. The
methodology employed in this study is referred to as:
- a relative frequency-of-occurrence judgment
- the memory paradigm
- the hypothetical paradigm.
- a set-size judgment - Answer -the hypothetical paradigm.
How does hindsight bias occur, according to the RAFT (Reconstruction After Feedback
with Take the Best) model?
- People who can't remember their original estimate try to reconstruct it by making the
judgment again after the fact.
- It is driven by a self-serving bias, such that we show a hindsight bias when it helps us
maintain a positive self-image.
