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Example Questions
Example Question #1121 : Ap Psychology
Which of the following is NOT often an impediment in clear judgment?
Fixation
Overconfidence
Belief bias
All of these are potential impediments to rational judgment
Belief perseverance
All of these are potential impediments to rational judgment
All four of these are common obstacles to making judgments. Fixation refers to being unable to look at a situation from any other perspective. Belief perseverance is the tendency to continue believing something even after evidence supporting it has been contradicted. Belief bias is the tendency to view that which conflicts with one's own bias as illogical, or believing something illogical in order to support a preexisting belief. Overconfidence refers to overestimating the accuracy of one's own judgments.
Example Question #1121 : Ap Psychology
Read the two scenarios and answer the question that follows.
Scenario 1: Jean receives a text message from her boyfriend saying that he's breaking up with her. She becomes furious, saying that he didn't even have the decency to tell her face-to-face.
Scenario 2: Jean's boyfriend takes her out to lunch. As tactfully as he can, he explains to her that their relationship isn't working out and that they should break up. Jean is saddened by the conversation but accepts the situation and feels there has been closure.
Which of the following is responsible for the person's differing reactions between the two scenarios?
framing
Molding
Shaping
Prototype
Fixation
framing
Framing refers to the way that a problem is presented to someone, and it can drastically change that person's view or reaction to the problem. In this case, the two approaches by Jean's boyfriend both lead to them breaking up, but how Jean handles it is different because of how each scenario was framed. Effectively framing a negative outcome can lessen the negative emotional impact of the event, and poor framing can exacerbate that emotional impact.
Example Question #1122 : Ap Psychology
In a rush on his way to work, Jared has accidentally locked his keys in his car. He has his suit jacket with him on a metal wire hanger. Rather than thinking to use the hanger to unlock his car by sliding it between the window and car door, Jared calls his wife in hopes that she has a spare set of keys with her. Jared's failure to realize the other use for a metal wire hanger is an example of what cognitive phenomenon?
Functional fixedness
Belief perseverance
Framing
Confirmation bias
Availability heuristic
Functional fixedness
Functional fixedness is the tendency to see things only in their usual function. So, Jared only thought of the wire hanger as a hanger and not also a lock-pick.
Example Question #1121 : Ap Psychology
After watching several television programs about shark attacks, John starts to think that these attacks are relatively common and refuses to go into the water when visiting the beach due to his fear of shark attacks. Which of the following could be the cause of John’s overestimation of the prevalence of shark attacks?
False-consensus effect
Sunk-costs fallacy
Representativeness heuristic
Simulation heuristic
Availability heuristic
Availability heuristic
The availability heuristic leads people to make decisions based on how available information is inside their brains. After recently watching shark-attack programs, this readily available information influenced John's judgments of the likelihood of shark attacks.
Example Question #1121 : Ap Psychology
Which of the following situations is an example of the sunk-costs fallacy?
A woman fails to consider the costs of a decision every time an important decision must be made.
A man purchases a pair of headphones. Later on, he finds out that there was a discount of the same pair of headphones in a different store.
A woman weighs the costs and benefits of accepting a new job offer in a different city. She decides that the costs outweigh the benefits and refuses the job offer.
None of these
A man purchases a ticket to see a baseball game. It ends up raining heavily on the day of the game. Nevertheless, he feels obligated to go to the game anyways even though he would much rather be relaxing at home.
A man purchases a ticket to see a baseball game. It ends up raining heavily on the day of the game. Nevertheless, he feels obligated to go to the game anyways even though he would much rather be relaxing at home.
The sunk-cost fallacy is the idea that one must go through with something or continue one's investment even if it is hopeless or detrimental to oneself. This occurs when one has invested money or time in something and feels obligated to continue to use resources on it. In this case, the man has already paid money for the ticket; therefore, he feels that he must attend the game even though he will be miserable. If he rationally thought about it, he is paying money to be miserable in the rain when he could just be relaxing at home, since the money is already gone.
Example Question #1122 : Ap Psychology
What is a heuristic?
A general rule based on our experience that we use to judge and make decisions
A general ethic or morality we live by
A prejudiced belief inspired by hate
An idiosyncratic rule based on our ideas that we use to judge and make decisions
A general rule based on our experience that we use to pass judgement upon other people
A general rule based on our experience that we use to judge and make decisions
A heuristic is a general rule based on our experience that we use to judge and make decisions. More commonly referred to as "rule of thumb", they are rules that very broadly apply that we've used and have worked in the past. Sometimes our heuristics can be biased and thus lead to irrational decision-making.
They are not "idiosyncratic" because heuristics tend be general and lend themselves to many different situations. Heuristics are not only inspired by hate, but are adopted based off of many situations. And although heuristics may be used to evaluate other people, this is not exclusive, and more often than not they are used to evaluate situations, problems, and decisions.
Example Question #111 : Cognition
What is divergent thinking?
Creative thinking whereby one creates new and innovative solutions to problems
None of these answers is accurate.
Illogical or emotionally motivated reasoning
Deviant or sadistic reasoning
Stereotypical or prejudiced thinking
Creative thinking whereby one creates new and innovative solutions to problems
Divergent thinking is when one thinks of new solutions to problems. It's how people innovate and address recurring issues with new solutions that may actually fix the problem. It is not stereotypical, sadistic, or emotional, and rather engages the creative thinking processes. An example of divergent thinking would be the development of electric cars in response to the air pollution problems.
Example Question #121 : Cognition
Which of the following scenarios is an example of the mere-exposure effect?
Initially someone hates coffee and begins to hate their friends who constantly drink coffee
Someone hates a person out of jealousy
Initially someone hates a musician and begins to resent their friends who insist that they listen to their latest album
Initially someone hates coffee but begins to like it after interacting with friends that drink coffee
None of these
Initially someone hates coffee but begins to like it after interacting with friends that drink coffee
An example of the mere-exposure effect would be if someone initially hates coffee but is exposed to it and begins to like it. The mere-exposure effect happens when we may not like something upon first glance, but as we become more and more exposed to it then we come to like it more.
Example Question #122 : Cognition
With respect to cognition and problem solving, which of the following best defines “overconfidence”?
When one is so confident that they start saying lies and believe they're true
When one is more confident than they should be
When one is unreasonably confident that their own beliefs and opinions are accurate
When one is too confident to be to be considered timid
None of these
When one is unreasonably confident that their own beliefs and opinions are accurate
Overconfidence, with respect to thinking and cognition, refers to when one is unreasonably confident that their beliefs and opinions are correct. In other words, these individuals tend to think that they know more about the world than they actually do. This is not considered the same as "overconfident," which implies that someone is being egotistical.
Example Question #123 : Cognition
Which of the following processes are not engaged when humans use cognition?
Cognitive schemas
Prototypes
All of these
Emotional memory
Concepts
Emotional memory
When humans are actively engaged in mental cognition, we use concepts, prototypes, and cognitive schemas. These are essentially ways that we organize and average out large bodies of data about the world to reduce mental taxation or data overload. Emotional memory is not engaged because we are using our prefrontal cortex, the area of the brain responsible for intellectual thought.