Chapter 13 Cognitive Development Test Bank
Chapter 13 Cognitive Development Test Bank
Chapter 13
1. Making probable conclusions based on evidence involves reasoning.
a. deductive
b. syllogistic
c. inductive
d. connective
ANSWER: c
POINTS: 1
DIFFICULTY: MODERATE
REFERENCES: Making Judgments
ANSWER: d
POINTS: 1
DIFFICULTY: MODERATE
REFERENCES: Making Judgments
3. At a lunch meeting with a client, the CEO of Gossip Polls, Inc., was asked to determine America's favorite day of
the week. Hundreds of Gossip employees across the U.S. started collecting data immediately, calling people at their
residences. One hour later, the attitudes from 10,000 Americans, across all 50 states, were collected. A staff
member called the CEO, still at her lunch meeting, to tell her the results of the poll: America's favorite day of the
week is Monday. Given your text's discussion of inductive reasoning in science, we might suspect that the
observations in this poll are not representative because
a. the participants were only asked one question for this poll.
b. the participants were not sufficiently geographically diverse.
c. the people who are home to answer the phone in the early afternoon are not an appropriate cross-section of
the U.S. population.
d. everyone in America was not asked their opinion.
ANSWER: c
POINTS: 1
DIFFICULTY: DIFFICULT
REFERENCES: Making Judgments
Chapter 13
4. Bonnie has ordered her monthly supply of medicines through the mail for the past five years. Except for one order,
all orders have arrived within two business days. Bonnie placed an order yesterday, and she expects to receive her
order tomorrow. Bonnie is using
a. an omission bias.
b. inductive reasoning.
c. the conjunction rule.
d. the similarity-coverage model.
ANSWER: b
POINTS: 1
DIFFICULTY: EASY
REFERENCES: Making Judgments
5. Derrick purchased a new car, a Ford Mustang, less than a month ago. While sitting in traffic, Derrick says to his
girlfriend, "Mustangs must be the best-selling car now. I can't remember seeing as many on the road as I have
recently." Derrick's judgment is most likely biased by a(n)
a. representativeness heuristic.
b. availability heuristic.
c. illusory correlation.
d. permission schema.
ANSWER: b
POINTS: 1
DIFFICULTY: DIFFICULT
REFERENCES: Making Judgments
6. Wally and Sharon are out on a date. When Sharon asks Wally where they should go for dinner, Wally says "My
coworkers keep telling me about that new Japanese place downtown, so it must be a great place to eat." Wally's
response illustrates the use of a(n)
a. availability heuristic.
b. confirmation bias.
c. conjunction rule.
d. permission schema.
ANSWER: a
POINTS: 1
DIFFICULTY: MODERATE
REFERENCES: Making Judgments
Chapter 13
7. The finding that people tend to incorrectly conclude that more people die from tornados than from asthma has been
explained in terms of the
a. representativeness heuristic.
b. availability heuristic.
c. falsification principle.
d. belief bias.
ANSWER: b
POINTS: 1
DIFFICULTY: EASY
REFERENCES: Making Judgments
8. Mia has lived in New York City all her life. She has noticed that people from upper Manhattan walk really fast, but
people from lower Manhattan tend to walk slowly. Mia's observations are likely influenced from a judgment error
based on her using
a. the law of large numbers.
b. an atmosphere effect.
c. an illusory correlation.
d. the falsification principle.
ANSWER: c
POINTS: 1
DIFFICULTY: MODERATE
REFERENCES: Making Judgments
9. Jonas bought a new leather jacket after saving for many months for the luxury purchase. On the first day he went
out wearing the new garment, he found a $50 bill on the sidewalk outside of his office. He now refers to the jacket
as his “lucky jacket” and believes that it has some magical power to give him good fortune. Jonas's belief in the
jacket's cosmic ability is an example of
a. the availability heuristic.
b. an illusory correlation.
c. selective attention.
d. the falsification principle.
ANSWER: b
POINTS: 1
DIFFICULTY: DIFFICULT
REFERENCES: Making Judgments
Chapter 13
10. Stereotypes are reinforced by all of the following EXCEPT
a. the availability heuristic.
b. illusory correlations.
c. selective attention.
d. the falsification principle.
ANSWER: d
POINTS: 1
DIFFICULTY: MODERATE
REFERENCES: Making Judgments
11. Gabrielle is blonde, extremely attractive, and lives in an expensive condo. If we judge the probability of Gabrielle's
being a model quite high because she resembles our stereotype of a model, we are using
a. the representativeness heuristic.
b. the availability heuristic.
c. framing.
d. the law of small numbers.
ANSWER: a
POINTS: 1
DIFFICULTY: DIFFICULT
REFERENCES: Making Judgments
12. One hundred students are enrolled in State University's course on introductory physics for math and science majors.
In the group, 60 students are math majors and 40 are science majors. Sarah is in the class. She got all As in her high
school science courses, and she would like to be a chemist someday. She lives on campus. Her boyfriend is also in
the class. There is a chance that Sarah is a science major.
a. 40%
b. 50%
c. 60%
d. 100%
ANSWER: a
POINTS: 1
DIFFICULTY: DIFFICULT
REFERENCES: Making Judgments
Chapter 13
13. Greg was recounting a fishing tale of the one that got away: "I had a huge ahi tuna on my line. I fought for it for a
few minutes, then my line snapped. The tuna swam away across the pond." Greg's friend, Matt, didn't believe his
story because Matt knew that tuna are salt-water fish and aren't found in ponds. Greg's account contains
a. descriptive information that is inconsistent with base rate information.
b. a belief bias.
c. inductive reasoning based on observations of multiple, specific cases.
d. a focusing illusion.
ANSWER: a
POINTS: 1
DIFFICULTY: DIFFICULT
REFERENCES: Making Judgments
14. Lydia is 48 years old, single, outspoken, and very bright. She majored in philosophy as an undergraduate. As a
student, she was deeply concerned with issues of discrimination and social justice, and she participated in anti-
nuclear demonstrations. Which of the following alternatives is most probable?
a. Lydia is a U.S. Congresswoman.
b. Lydia is a U.S. Congresswoman and active in the feminist movement.
c. Lydia is a state governor.
d. Lydia is a state governor and active in the feminist movement.
ANSWER: a
POINTS: 1
DIFFICULTY: DIFFICULT
REFERENCES: Making Judgments
ANSWER: b
POINTS: 1
DIFFICULTY: MODERATE
REFERENCES: Making Judgments
Chapter 13
16. Imagine that your friend James has just taken up the habit of smoking cigars because he thinks it makes him look
cool. You are concerned about the detrimental effects of smoking on his health, and you raise that concern to him.
James gets a bit annoyed with your criticism and says "George Burns smoked cigars, and he lived to be 100!" You
might point out that a major problem with his "George Burns" argument involves
a. framing.
b. the conjunction rule.
c. sample size.
d. none of these
ANSWER: c
POINTS: 1
DIFFICULTY: EASY
REFERENCES: Making Judgments
17. There are two gumball machines outside the local grocery store, one large machine and one small machine. Both
machines have only yellow and orange gumballs, and each machine contains 50 percent of each color. For each
coin, the large gumball machine dispenses 15 gumballs, while the small machine dispenses 5. Tim is a young genius
whose interests include probability and sound decision-making. His "probability project of the day" is to get a greater
percentage of either of the colors, but not an equal amount of each color. Given this, and presuming Tim has only
one coin,
a. he should use his coin in the large machine.
b. he should use his coin in the small machine.
c. it doesn't make a difference which machine he uses.
d. he should wait for other people to use the machines and see what they get.
ANSWER: b
POINTS: 1
DIFFICULTY: DIFFICULT
REFERENCES: Making Judgments
18. Failing to consider the law of large numbers most likely results in errors concerning
a. confirmation bias.
b. utility.
c. the falsification principle.
d. the representativeness heuristic.
ANSWER: d
POINTS: 1
DIFFICULTY: MODERATE
REFERENCES: Making Judgments
Chapter 13
19. Of the following real-world phenomena, the confirmation bias best explains the observation that people
a. do not always make decisions that maximize their monetary outcome.
b. are more likely to purchase meat advertised as 80% fat free than 20% fat.
c. misjudge homicide as more prevalent in the U.S. than suicide.
d. can cite several reasons for their position on a controversial issue but none for the opposing side.
ANSWER: d
POINTS: 1
DIFFICULTY: EASY
REFERENCES: Making Judgments
20. If a motorcycle cop believes that young female drivers speed more than other drivers, he will likely notice young
female drivers speeding in the fast lane but fail to notice young male or older drivers doing the same. In this
case, the police officer's judgments are biased by the operation of the
a. permission schema.
b. confirmation bias.
c. falsification principle.
d. typicality principle.
ANSWER: b
POINTS: 1
DIFFICULTY: EASY
REFERENCES: Making Judgments
21. Donovan volunteers his time to campaign for Joel Goodman. He spent all afternoon putting up "Goodman for
Congress" signs around his town and arrived back at Goodman headquarters just in time to watch the Goodman-
Hernandez debate on TV. Donovan was eager to watch the candidates debate each other, even though he was
100% sure he was going to vote for Goodman. Donovan's first response to the debate will most likely be
a. "I noticed that Goodman and Hernandez agreed on the new environmental policy."
b. "Did you hear how well Goodman answered that question on job creation?"
c. "I wonder why Goodman was so vague on the school tax issue when I know he has a clear idea about that."
d. "Hernandez is really going to make this a tight race."
ANSWER: b
POINTS: 1
DIFFICULTY: MODERATE
REFERENCES: Making Judgments
Chapter 13
22. Given its definition, expected utility theory is most applicable to deciding whether to
a. break up or stay involved with a current girlfriend.
b. go out for junior varsity hockey or junior varsity basketball.
c. buy first class or coach tickets for a spring break trip.
d. take astronomy or geology as a physical science elective course.
ANSWER: c
POINTS: 1
DIFFICULTY: EASY
REFERENCES: Decision Making: Choosing Among Alternatives
ANSWER: a
POINTS: 1
DIFFICULTY: EASY
REFERENCES: Decision Making: Choosing Among Alternatives
24. Glinda is sure that if her boyfriend proposes, she will feel elation. This is an example of an
a. expected emotion.
b. immediate emotion.
c. integral immediate emotion.
d. incidental immediate emotion.
ANSWER: a
POINTS: 1
DIFFICULTY: EASY
REFERENCES: Decision Making: Choosing Among Alternatives
25. Josiah is trying to decide whether or not to take a new job in a new city. He is worried that if he takes the job and
fails, he will suffer from intense anxiety and depression. This is an example of
a. expected emotion.
b. immediate emotion.
c. integral immediate emotion.
d. incidental immediate emotion.
ANSWER: a
POINTS: 1
DIFFICULTY: MODERATE
Chapter 13
REFERENCES: Decision Making: Choosing Among Alternatives
Chapter 13
26. People tend to overestimate
a. what negative feelings will occur following a decision more so than positive feelings.
b. what positive feelings will occur following a decision more so than negative feelings.
c. what positive and negative feelings will occur following a decision to the same degree.
d. subjective utility values following a decision.
ANSWER: a
POINTS: 1
DIFFICULTY: MODERATE
REFERENCES: Decision Making: Choosing Among Alternatives
27. Kirk is a generally anxious person. His anxiety sometimes gets in the way when he tries to make decisions. The
anxiety Kirk feels is an example of an emotion.
a. expected
b. immediate
c. integral
d. incidental
ANSWER: d
POINTS: 1
DIFFICULTY: MODERATE
REFERENCES: Decision Making: Choosing Among Alternatives
28. By using a(n) , a country could increase the percentage of individuals agreeing to be organ donors
dramatically.
a. opt-out procedure
b. opt-in procedure
c. pragmatic reasoning schema
d. permission schema
ANSWER: a
POINTS: 1
DIFFICULTY: MODERATE
REFERENCES: Decision Making: Choosing Among Alternatives
Chapter 13
29. Juanita is in a convenience store considering which soda to buy. She recalls a commercial for BigFizz she saw on
TV last night. BigFizz is running a promotion where you look under the bottle cap, and one in five bottles has a
voucher for a free soda. If Juanita decides to purchase a BigFizz based on this promotion, which is framed in terms
of , she will use a strategy.
a. losses; risk-taking
b. gains; risk-taking
c. losses; risk-aversion
d. gains; risk-aversion
ANSWER: d
POINTS: 1
DIFFICULTY: DIFFICULT
REFERENCES: Decision Making: Choosing Among Alternatives
30. Many people receive unsolicited calls from telemarketers or unwanted “junk” mailers advertising offers for products
such as cable or internet services or cellular phone companies. Most people do not consider these offers and do not
make a change to the plans or services that they receive because they do not want to make a decision that requires
serious consideration or thought. This is an example of the bias.
a. actor-observer
b. dual systems
c. self-serving
d. status quo
ANSWER: d
POINTS: 1
DIFFICULTY: MODERATE
REFERENCES: Decision Making: Choosing Among Alternatives
31. Cecile has dreamed of owning her own home for years, and she can finally afford a small cottage in an older
neighborhood. She notices that she feels more positive about her home when she drives home by the abandoned
shacks, but she hates her home when driving past the fancy mansions with their large lawns. Cecile's emotions are
influenced by
a. the principle of diversity.
b. confirmation bias.
c. the framing effect.
d. the law of large numbers.
ANSWER: c
POINTS: 1
DIFFICULTY: MODERATE
REFERENCES: Decision Making: Choosing Among Alternatives
Chapter 13
32. Research in neuroeconomics has found that the function of the may be to deal with the cognitive
demands of a given task, while the is responsible for handling emotional goals such as resenting an unfair
outcome.
a. basal ganglia; corpus callosum
b. striate nucleus; locus coeruleus
c. prefrontal cortex; insula
d. diencephalon; putamen
ANSWER: c
POINTS: 1
DIFFICULTY: MODERATE
REFERENCES: Decision Making: Choosing Among Alternatives
33. Sanfey and coworkers' "ultimatum game" experiment revealed that people tended to make the decision of
____.
a. irrational; accepting any offer
b. irrational; accepting only high offers
c. rational; accepting any offer
d. rational; accepting only high offers
ANSWER: b
POINTS: 1
DIFFICULTY: DIFFICULT
REFERENCES: Decision Making: Choosing Among Alternatives
34. In an experiment that combined both physiological and behavioral approaches to the study of decision making, PFC
activity was recorded while participants accepted or rejected proposals to split a sum of money ($10). PFC
activation was
a. greatest for accepted offers.
b. greatest for rejected offers.
c. the same for accepted and rejected offers.
d. dependent on how much money the responder was offered.
ANSWER: c
POINTS: 1
DIFFICULTY: DIFFICULT
REFERENCES: Decision Making: Choosing Among Alternatives
Chapter 13
35. If you are given the information that in order to vote in a presidential election, you must be at least 18 years of age,
and that Will voted in the last presidential election, you can logically conclude that Will is at least 18 years old. This is
an example of using reasoning.
a. inductive
b. deductive
c. conjunctive
d. descriptive
ANSWER: b
POINTS: 1
DIFFICULTY: MODERATE
REFERENCES: Deductive Reasoning: Syllogisms and Logic
36. An experiment measures participants' performance in judging syllogisms. Two premises and a conclusion are
presented as stimuli, and participants are asked to indicate (yes or no) if the conclusion logically follows from the
premises. Error rates are then calculated for each syllogism. This experiment studies reasoning.
a. deductive
b. intuitive
c. falsification
d. inductive
ANSWER: a
POINTS: 1
DIFFICULTY: DIFFICULT
REFERENCES: Deductive Reasoning: Syllogisms and Logic
ANSWER: c
POINTS: 1
DIFFICULTY: DIFFICULT
REFERENCES: Deductive Reasoning: Syllogisms and Logic
Chapter 13
38. Consider the following syllogism:
If p then q.
p
q
ANSWER: a
POINTS: 1
DIFFICULTY: DIFFICULT
REFERENCES: Deductive Reasoning: Syllogisms and Logic
ANSWER: d
POINTS: 1
DIFFICULTY: DIFFICULT
REFERENCES: Deductive Reasoning: Syllogisms and Logic
Chapter 13
40. Consider the following syllogism:
This syllogism is
a. valid.
b. invalid.
c. true.
d. both valid and true.
ANSWER: a
POINTS: 1
DIFFICULTY: MODERATE
REFERENCES: Deductive Reasoning: Syllogisms and Logic
ANSWER: b
POINTS: 1
DIFFICULTY: MODERATE
REFERENCES: Deductive Reasoning: Syllogisms and Logic
ANSWER: a
POINTS: 1
DIFFICULTY: EASY
REFERENCES: Deductive Reasoning: Syllogisms and Logic
Chapter 13
43. Consider the following syllogism:
ANSWER: d
POINTS: 1
DIFFICULTY: DIFFICULT
REFERENCES: Deductive Reasoning: Syllogisms and Logic
44. The tendency to think that a syllogism is valid if its conclusion is believable is called the .
a. availability heuristic
b. confirmatory bias
c. belief bias
d. mental set
ANSWER: c
POINTS: 1
DIFFICULTY: MODERATE
REFERENCES: Deductive Reasoning: Syllogisms and Logic
This syllogism is
a. valid.
b. invalid.
c. biased.
d. abstract.
ANSWER: b
POINTS: 1
DIFFICULTY: MODERATE
REFERENCES: Deductive Reasoning: Syllogisms and Logic
Chapter 13
46. Consider the following conditional syllogism:
This syllogism is
a. valid.
b. skewed.
c. invalid.
d. robust.
ANSWER: c
POINTS: 1
DIFFICULTY: MODERATE
REFERENCES: Deductive Reasoning: Syllogisms and Logic
47. Mr. Huff always passes back exams to his algebra class in descending order (the highest grade is handed out first).
Today, Maddelyn was the first to receive her exam. Joy complained, remarking, "Maddelyn, you always get the
highest grade in algebra. It was true all last year and so far this year." Maddelyn was not sure if this was correct.
To figure out if this was true, Maddelyn should
a. search her memory for instances when she did get her exam back first and for instances when she did not.
b. search her memory for instances when she did not get her exam back first.
c. search her memory for instances when she did get her exam back first.
d. wait until the next exam is passed back to see if she gets hers back first.
ANSWER: a
POINTS: 1
DIFFICULTY: DIFFICULT
REFERENCES: Deductive Reasoning: Syllogisms and Logic
48. According to your text, the key to solving the Wason four-card problem is
a. a mental model.
b. a categorical syllogism.
c. the law of large numbers.
d. the falsification principle.
ANSWER: d
POINTS: 1
DIFFICULTY: MODERATE
REFERENCES: Deductive Reasoning: Syllogisms and Logic
Chapter 13
49. One reason that most people do not easily solve the original (abstract) version of the Wason four-card problem is
that they
a. ignore the falsification principle.
b. are influenced by the atmosphere effect.
c. confuse the ideas of validity and truth.
d. incorrectly apply the permission schema.
ANSWER: a
POINTS: 1
DIFFICULTY: DIFFICULT
REFERENCES: Deductive Reasoning: Syllogisms and Logic
50. The rule of the Wason four-card problem is, "If there is a vowel on one side, then there is an even number on the
other side." Let's say you are presented with A, 8, M, and 13, each showing on one of four cards. To see if the rule
is valid, you would have to turn over the cards showing
a. 8 and M.
b. A and M.
c. A and 13.
d. 8 and 13.
ANSWER: c
POINTS: 1
DIFFICULTY: DIFFICULT
REFERENCES: Deductive Reasoning: Syllogisms and Logic
51. When the "abstract" version of the Wason four-card problem is compared to a "concrete" version of the problem (in
which beer, soda, and ages are substituted for the letters and numbers),
a. performance is better for the concrete task.
b. performance is better for the abstract task.
c. performance is the same for both tasks.
d. performing the abstract task improves performance of the concrete task.
ANSWER: a
POINTS: 1
DIFFICULTY: EASY
REFERENCES: Deductive Reasoning: Syllogisms and Logic
Chapter 13
52. “You can't have any pudding unless you eat your meat,” says a man to his son at the dinner table. This is an
example of
a. inductive reasoning.
b. a self-serving bias.
c. a permission schema.
d. the illusory correlation.
ANSWER: c
POINTS: 1
DIFFICULTY: EASY
REFERENCES: Deductive Reasoning: Syllogisms and Logic
53. Which of the following statements would most likely invoke the operation of a permission schema?
a. No artists can be beekeepers, but some of the beekeepers must be chemists.
b. All A are B. All B are C. Therefore, all A are C.
c. I forgot to charge my cell phone last night, therefore I missed an important call today.
d. If I get an A on my cognitive psychology exam, I can go out with my friends Saturday night.
ANSWER: d
POINTS: 1
DIFFICULTY: EASY
REFERENCES: Deductive Reasoning: Syllogisms and Logic
54. The application of a(n) makes it easier to solve the "drinking beer" version of the Wason problem.
a. conjunction rule
b. permission schema
c. atmosphere effect
d. availability heuristic
ANSWER: b
POINTS: 1
DIFFICULTY: DIFFICULT
REFERENCES: Deductive Reasoning: Syllogisms and Logic
Chapter 13
55. Which concept below is most closely associated with the evolutionary perspective to solving the Wason four-card
problem?
a. Permission schemas
b. Falsification principle
c. Social-exchange theory
d. Availability heuristic
ANSWER: c
POINTS: 1
DIFFICULTY: DIFFICULT
REFERENCES: Deductive Reasoning: Syllogisms and Logic
56. The evolutionary approach proposes that the Wason problem can be understood in terms of people's
a. innate language abilities.
b. ability to work well with a group of others.
c. innate reasoning abilities.
d. tendency to detect when others are cheating.
ANSWER: d
POINTS: 1
DIFFICULTY: MODERATE
REFERENCES: Deductive Reasoning: Syllogisms and Logic
57. Cosmides and Tooby tested participants' ability to solve variations of the Wason problem, including ones containing
stories about a particular culture. Their results showed that is not always necessary for conditional reasoning.
a. familiarity
b. a premise
c. validity
d. using a heuristic
ANSWER: a
POINTS: 1
DIFFICULTY: EASY
REFERENCES: Deductive Reasoning: Syllogisms and Logic
58. Define both deductive and inductive reasoning and explain how they are different. What does it mean to say that the
conclusion to a syllogism is "valid"?
Chapter 13
59. Describe and give examples of how each of the following cause errors in reasoning: availability heuristic, illusory
correlations, representative heuristic, and confirmation bias.
60. Define the utility approach to decisions. Explain how emotions affect decisions from this perspective.
61. Discuss how a person's judgments are affected by the way choices are framed. Give an example of a choice
framed in terms of gains. Give another example of a choice framed in terms of losses. Which decision-making
strategy is likely used in each case? Why?
62. Explain the evidence from neuropsychology and brain imaging studies showing how the prefrontal cortex is involved
in problem solving and reasoning.
63. What is a categorical syllogism? How well can people judge the validity of categorical syllogisms, and what is
the difference between validity and truth in syllogistic reasoning?
64. Describe the four types of conditional syllogisms. For each type, identify which are valid and how well people judge
the validity of each.
65. Describe the Wason four-card problem. Explain what the results of experiments that have used abstract and
concrete versions of the problem illustrate about how solving this problem is influenced by concreteness, knowledge
of regulations, permission schemas, and an evolutionary perspective on cognition.