Question 1

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.E) None of the above
F) A) and D)

Question 2

Heuristics in decision making

Accepted Answer

A)   may become a liability when they are applied inappropriately.
B)   always lead us to the correct decision.
C)   are mathematical formulas that precisely predict how people will perform on decision-making tasks.
D)   are helpful in decision-making situations, but people rarely apply them.E) A) and D)
F) None of the above

Question 3

Research on the availability heuristic shows that

Accepted Answer

A)   when medical journals contain many articles about a particular disease, physicians are likely to believe that it is easily curable.
B)   estimates for a country's population are distorted by the frequency with which the country is mentioned in the news.
C)   more recent events tend to be given relatively little weight in making frequency estimates, compared with events that occurred long ago.
D)   people almost always select answers that are consistent with deductive reasoning.E) B) and C)
F) A) and D)

Question 4

One reason that decision makers often use the representativeness heuristic inappropriately is that

Accepted Answer

A)   they pay too much attention to the base rate.
B)   they do not pay enough attention to sample size.
C)   their decisions are influenced too greatly by a large sample size.
D)   they estimate frequency in terms of how easily they can think of examples that have a particular characteristic.E) B) and C)
F) All of the above

Question 5

Which of the following students' statements provides the best overview of the research on decision making?

Accepted Answer

A)   Samantha: "People consistently make correct decisions based on the information they are given; problems arise when some crucial information is missing.""
B)   Nayan: "People's use of heuristics in decision making is usually adaptive, unless the heuristics are applied inappropriately.""
C)   Arthur: ""People consistently make incorrect decisions, unless the material is extremely concrete.""
D)   Shirley: "The most common kinds of decision-making errors involve belief-bias errors; otherwise, decision making is reasonably accurate."E) C) and D)
F) B) and C)

Question 6

Which of the following students provides the most accurate information about the belief-bias effect?

Accepted Answer

A)   Tabitha: "The belief-bias effect means that novices are not as accurate as experts when solving reasoning problems."
B)   Pilar: "The belief-bias effect demonstrates that top-down processes are active when we use deductive reasoning."
C)   Joell: "Flexible thinkers are especially likely to make mistakes due to the belief-bias effect."
D)   Abilash: "The belief-bias effect operates for syllogisms, but not for conditional reasoning problems."E) B) and D)
F) All of the above

Question 7

A friend tells you that drama majors tend to be extremely disorganized. However, when you actually make a tally of 10 friends who are drama majors and 20 friends who are not, you find no relationship. Your friend's error was most likely to be an example of

Accepted Answer

A)   the hindsight bias.
B)   an illusory correlation.
C)   the framing effect.
D)   the anchoring and adjustment heuristic.E) A) and B)
F) C) and D)

Question 8

A professor asks students to guess what percent of people in homeless shelters are parents and children. Before you can consider your answer, another student shouts out "about 10%." Your answer may be either higher or lower than it would be otherwise because of

Accepted Answer

A)   the belief-bias effect.
B)   the confirmation bias.
C)   the anchoring and adjustment heuristic.
D)   the hindsight bias.E) None of the above
F) B) and C)

Question 9

When people commit the base-rate fallacy, they often

Accepted Answer

A)   rely too heavily on the availability heuristic.
B)   believe that the conjunction of two events is more likely than either event by itself.
C)   pay too little attention to information about relative frequency.
D)   are especially likely to demonstrate the hindsight bias.E) A) and B)
F) A) and C)

Question 10

According to the research on the classic "selection task" (involving the cards that contain a letter and a number) ,

Accepted Answer

A)   accuracy often depends on factors such as the concreteness and familiarity of the problem.
B)   performance is better when people use top-down processing.
C)   surprisingly, people perform better when the task is abstract than when it is concrete.
D)   people prefer to use syllogisms, rather than conditional reasoning.E) All of the above
F) C) and D)

Question 11

Which of the following students provides the most accurate information about the research on overconfidence?

Accepted Answer

A)   Solange: "Overconfidence applies to many other cognitive tasks, in addition to decision making."
B)   Igor: "The research on overconfidence shows that participants are consistently overconfident, no matter what kind of questions they are asked."
C)   Steve: "Individual differences are surprisingly small in this area; both experts and novices show similar levels of overconfidence."
D)   Amber: "The overconfidence effect can be traced to illusory correlations."E) All of the above
F) A) and D)

Question 12

According to the discussion of representativeness,

Accepted Answer

A)   we believe that random-looking outcomes are more likely than orderly-looking outcomes.
B)   we take sample size into account when we make decisions.
C)   we take base rates into account when we make decisions.
D)   we are underconfident when we make decisions in a laboratory setting.E) All of the above
F) A) and B)

Question 13

According to the discussion in Chapter 12, the belief-bias effect

Accepted Answer

A)   is an example of overreliance on bottom-up processing.
B)   is likely to operate for people who have difficulty thinking flexibly.
C)   reveals that people provide irrational answers on logical reasoning tasks.
D)   arises from the general human tendency to answer "true," rather than "false."E) A) and B)
F) A) and C)

Question 14

A likely explanation for the illusory correlation effect is that

Accepted Answer

A)   people choose a stereotype as an anchor, and they make only small adjustments based on that anchor.
B)   people believe that correlations are illusions, somewhat similar to optical illusions.
C)   we pay too much attention to just one cell in the matrix, rather than the three other possible combinations of variables.
D)   we select the least available cell as an anchor, and then we make adjustments away from that anchor.E) C) and D)
F) B) and D)

Question 15

Suppose you have a friend who is just beginning college, and she plans to go to school half-time. She estimates that she will earn her bachelor's degree in about 7 years, rather than 8 years. It is most likely that she

Accepted Answer

A)   is avoiding the use of the recognition heuristic.
B)   is using a syllogism inappropriately.
C)   is falling victim to the planning fallacy.
D)   should make better use of conditional reasoning.E) All of the above
F) A) and B)

Question 16

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.E) A) and B)
F) B) and C)

Question 17

The discussion about conditional reasoning pointed out that

Accepted Answer

A)   the easiest kind of conditional reasoning task is denying the consequent.
B)   conditional reasoning tasks are much more difficult to solve than syllogisms.
C)   negative terms (e.g., never)  do not affect the difficulty of a conditional reasoning problem.
D)   the central executive is especially active on conditional reasoning tasks.E) None of the above
F) B) and C)

Question 18

Consider the following problem: "Some college students are bright. All bright people are hard working. Therefore, all college students are hard working." What kind of thinking task does this problem represent?

Accepted Answer

A)   Propositional reasoning
B)   Problem solving
C)   A syllogism
D)   Decision makingE) B) and C)
F) C) and D)

Question 19

Anchoring and adjustment is relevant when we estimate confidence intervals because

Accepted Answer

A)   we are overconfident about the adjustment process.
B)   we rely too heavily on the anchor.
C)   we make adjustments in our estimates that are larger than they should be.
D)   we should apply the adjustment prior to the anchor.E) All of the above
F) A) and C)

Question 20

According to the research on prospect theory,

Accepted Answer

A)   people generally avoid risks.
B)   when the situation involves possible losses, people usually seek risks.
C)   most people can overcome the framing effect because they naturally focus on the risks involved.
D)   people consistently make decisions that are correct from a statistical point of view.E) All of the above
F) A) and C)

Exam 12: Deductive Reasoning and Decision Making

Suppose you have a friend who is just beginning college, and she plans to go to school half-time. She estimates that she will earn her bachelor's degree in about 7 years, rather than 8 years. It is most likely that she

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When people estimate confidence intervals, they typically

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One reason that decision makers often use the representativeness heuristic inappropriately is that

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Which of the following students' statements provides the best overview of the research on decision making?

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Heuristics in decision making

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According to the discussion of the availability heuristic,

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A friend tells you that drama majors tend to be extremely disorganized. However, when you actually make a tally of 10 friends who are drama majors and 20 friends who are not, you find no relationship. Your friend's error was most likely to be an example of

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Which of the following students provides the most accurate information about the research on overconfidence?

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According to the discussion of representativeness,

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According to the research on prospect theory,

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Research on the availability heuristic shows that

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A professor asks students to guess what percent of people in homeless shelters are parents and children. Before you can consider your answer, another student shouts out "about 10%." Your answer may be either higher or lower than it would be otherwise because of

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The discussion about conditional reasoning pointed out that

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Consider the following problem: "Some college students are bright. All bright people are hard working. Therefore, all college students are hard working." What kind of thinking task does this problem represent?

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According to the research on the classic "selection task" (involving the cards that contain a letter and a number) ,

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Anchoring and adjustment is relevant when we estimate confidence intervals because

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A likely explanation for the illusory correlation effect is that

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According to the discussion in Chapter 12, the belief-bias effect

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When people commit the base-rate fallacy, they often

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Which of the following students provides the most accurate information about the belief-bias effect?

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