PSYCH 318 Final Exam Questions with Correct Answers Graded A+
Base-Rate neglect - Answers When a person judges the likelihood that an outcome will occur
without considering the probability that it will occur, that person is guilty of
The law of small numbers - Answers People's expectations about what a random sequence of
fair coin tosses looks like is most likely driven by a belief in
infer how people generally make judgments. - Answers The ultimate goal of the research
literature on cognitive illusions is to
the majority of consonants to appear more frequently as the first letter than as the third, even
though this was not the case - Answers Recall that Tversky and Kahneman (1973) showed
students five consonants (K, L, N, R, V), and asked them to judge whether each appeared more
frequently as the first or third letter in a word. They found that the majority of students judged
providing a theoretical language for describing how the mind operates - Answers The
"Computational model of the mind" is based on the assumption that the essence of thinking can
be captured by describing what the brain does as manipulating symbols. This model promoted
the development of the modern approach to Thinking and Decision Making research by
descriptive model - Answers Horace has observed over time that when he hits the snooze
button on his alarm clock, he is twice as likely to be late to his first class than if he just gets up
when the alarm goes off. This summary of Horace's observations is a
estimate a probability under conditions of uncertainty - Answers The availability heuristic and
representativeness heuristic are employed in order to
Jim is a used car salesman. - Answers 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?
the higher availability of positive events posted by the students' friends led them to believe
others were happier than themselves. - Answers A study of American college students by Chou
and Edge (2012) showed that as Facebook usage increased in frequency,
Intermediate but not expert clinicians - Answers Spanjaars, Groenier, van de Ven, and Witteman
(2015) found that referral letters suggesting a mental health diagnosis that were read before a
clear-cut case study was presented elicited an anchoring effect in
estimated that there were more members of one gender on the list when that gender was
famous. - Answers In Tversky and Kahneman's (1973) classic study of famous and non-famous
names, people who saw a list containing equal numbers of famous women's names and non-
famous men's names, or a list containing equal numbers of famous men's names and non-
, famous women's names
both the plausible and the implausible anchors. - Answers Recall that people in a study were
asked to estimate the age at which Gandhi passed away, and were given either a plausible
anchor (e.g., 64 or 79 years old) or an implausible anchor (e.g., 9 or 140 years old). In making
this estimate, the people in this study tended to be influenced by
prescriptive model - Answers Barry's sister Daria only dates people who wear expensive shoes.
Barry advises Daria to change her rule to the following: only date people who treat you nicely.
Barry doesn't know if his suggestion is the best possible rule, but he thinks it will at least work
better than the rule Daria is using right now. Barry's recommendation is an example of a
no initial judgment is accessible through System 1 or the initial judgment accessible through
System 1 is unlikely to be satisfactory - Answers People are relatively likely to engage in System
2 thinking when
the concept of bounded rationality - Answers Departures from optimal decision making are best
explained by
Equally probable - Answers Which pattern of coin tosses is more probable
formed an impression of that person that was heavily influenced by the traits mentioned first. -
Answers In Asch's (1946) seminal study of personality traits, he presented people with a list of
someone's traits in either one order or the reverse of that order. He found that people
influenced by the number on the wheel even though it was not a real clue to the correct answer -
Answers In the famous wheel of fortune task, Tversky and Kahneman (1974) spun a wheel that
landed on a number between 0 and 100. People were then presented with a question about
percentages (e.g., what percentage of countries in the United Nations are in Africa?) and asked
to say whether the answer was higher or lower than the number on the wheel and then to give a
specific estimate. In their study, people's estimates tended to be
Economics - Answers Decision theory was born in the 1940's in the field of
commit the conjunction fallacy - Answers When responding to the Linda problem, people tend to
in most cases the estimates added to more than 100% - Answers In Ross and Sicoly's (1979)
study in which they asked couples to estimate responsibility for things like making breakfast,
washing dishes, or caring for children:
10 days - Answers If it takes 10 cows 10 days to produce 10 barrels of milk, how long would it
take 100 cows to make 100 barrels?
those who listed fewer instances rated their own personalities as more like those instances -
Answers Recall that Schwartz et al. (1991) asked people to list either 6 or 12 instances in which
they had acted either assertively or unassertively. Their results appeared to demonstrate the
Base-Rate neglect - Answers When a person judges the likelihood that an outcome will occur
without considering the probability that it will occur, that person is guilty of
The law of small numbers - Answers People's expectations about what a random sequence of
fair coin tosses looks like is most likely driven by a belief in
infer how people generally make judgments. - Answers The ultimate goal of the research
literature on cognitive illusions is to
the majority of consonants to appear more frequently as the first letter than as the third, even
though this was not the case - Answers Recall that Tversky and Kahneman (1973) showed
students five consonants (K, L, N, R, V), and asked them to judge whether each appeared more
frequently as the first or third letter in a word. They found that the majority of students judged
providing a theoretical language for describing how the mind operates - Answers The
"Computational model of the mind" is based on the assumption that the essence of thinking can
be captured by describing what the brain does as manipulating symbols. This model promoted
the development of the modern approach to Thinking and Decision Making research by
descriptive model - Answers Horace has observed over time that when he hits the snooze
button on his alarm clock, he is twice as likely to be late to his first class than if he just gets up
when the alarm goes off. This summary of Horace's observations is a
estimate a probability under conditions of uncertainty - Answers The availability heuristic and
representativeness heuristic are employed in order to
Jim is a used car salesman. - Answers 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?
the higher availability of positive events posted by the students' friends led them to believe
others were happier than themselves. - Answers A study of American college students by Chou
and Edge (2012) showed that as Facebook usage increased in frequency,
Intermediate but not expert clinicians - Answers Spanjaars, Groenier, van de Ven, and Witteman
(2015) found that referral letters suggesting a mental health diagnosis that were read before a
clear-cut case study was presented elicited an anchoring effect in
estimated that there were more members of one gender on the list when that gender was
famous. - Answers In Tversky and Kahneman's (1973) classic study of famous and non-famous
names, people who saw a list containing equal numbers of famous women's names and non-
famous men's names, or a list containing equal numbers of famous men's names and non-
, famous women's names
both the plausible and the implausible anchors. - Answers Recall that people in a study were
asked to estimate the age at which Gandhi passed away, and were given either a plausible
anchor (e.g., 64 or 79 years old) or an implausible anchor (e.g., 9 or 140 years old). In making
this estimate, the people in this study tended to be influenced by
prescriptive model - Answers Barry's sister Daria only dates people who wear expensive shoes.
Barry advises Daria to change her rule to the following: only date people who treat you nicely.
Barry doesn't know if his suggestion is the best possible rule, but he thinks it will at least work
better than the rule Daria is using right now. Barry's recommendation is an example of a
no initial judgment is accessible through System 1 or the initial judgment accessible through
System 1 is unlikely to be satisfactory - Answers People are relatively likely to engage in System
2 thinking when
the concept of bounded rationality - Answers Departures from optimal decision making are best
explained by
Equally probable - Answers Which pattern of coin tosses is more probable
formed an impression of that person that was heavily influenced by the traits mentioned first. -
Answers In Asch's (1946) seminal study of personality traits, he presented people with a list of
someone's traits in either one order or the reverse of that order. He found that people
influenced by the number on the wheel even though it was not a real clue to the correct answer -
Answers In the famous wheel of fortune task, Tversky and Kahneman (1974) spun a wheel that
landed on a number between 0 and 100. People were then presented with a question about
percentages (e.g., what percentage of countries in the United Nations are in Africa?) and asked
to say whether the answer was higher or lower than the number on the wheel and then to give a
specific estimate. In their study, people's estimates tended to be
Economics - Answers Decision theory was born in the 1940's in the field of
commit the conjunction fallacy - Answers When responding to the Linda problem, people tend to
in most cases the estimates added to more than 100% - Answers In Ross and Sicoly's (1979)
study in which they asked couples to estimate responsibility for things like making breakfast,
washing dishes, or caring for children:
10 days - Answers If it takes 10 cows 10 days to produce 10 barrels of milk, how long would it
take 100 cows to make 100 barrels?
those who listed fewer instances rated their own personalities as more like those instances -
Answers Recall that Schwartz et al. (1991) asked people to list either 6 or 12 instances in which
they had acted either assertively or unassertively. Their results appeared to demonstrate the
