What is the Representativeness Heuristic?
The representativeness heuristic is a heuristic (rule of thumb) that has been demonstrated to be a natural part of human cognition. Like any other rule of thumb, it has pluses and minuses. The representativeness heuristic argues that people see commonality between items or people of similar appearance, or between an object and a group it appears to be a part of. For instance, a culturally ignorant Westerner might see all brown-skinned people as being part of the same group, despite there being many brown-skinned races without any relation to one another. The studies that lead to the discovery of the representativeness heuristic were initially conducted by Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman in the early 1970s. Kahneman would later go on to win the 2002 Nobel Prize in Economics. To test for the representativeness heuristic, Kahneman and Tversky gave their subjects the following information: “Tom W. is of high intelligence, although lacking in true creativity. He has a need for order and cl
Intelligence Psychological Testing 1. What are 2 types of psychological tests? 2. What is measured by an intelligence test? 3. What is measured by an aptitude test? 4. What is measured by an achievement test? 5. What does it mean when a test is reliable? 6. What does it mean when a test is valid? The Evolution of Psychological Testing 1. What were Galton s beliefs regarding intelligence? 2. What types of abilities did Galton s measure of intelligence focus on? 3. Why did Binet construct the first intelligence test? 4. What types of abilities did Binet s test focus on? 5. What are 4 features of Binet s test that made it so useful? 6. How were the scores of Binet s test represented? 7. When Lewis Terman revised Binet s test, how did he change the scoring procedure? 8. What types of abilities did the Stanford-Binet focus on? 9. What was Wechsler s addition to intelligence testing? 10. What kinds of abilities were measured in Wechsler s test that had not been measured previously? 11. What
Describe two judgment biases that result from use of this heuristic. For each one, explain why it is a bias and how representativeness can account for it. Explain the following judgment biases: availability bias, conjunction fallacy, anchoring bias. Why does the conjunction fallacy occur? Explain the following concepts: trade-off, conjunction fallacy, base rate neglect, attraction effect, dominance Apply Expected Utility Theory to the following example: you are deciding whether or not to get a flu shot. The probability of getting the flu this winter is 50% with the shot and 75% without the shot. The relevant utilities are: no shot & no flu: 1.00; shot and no flu: 0.90; no shot and flu: 0.10, shot and flu: 0.00. What should you choose and why? Draw a risk averse utility function for money. Why is it called risk averse? What were the result of the class peppermint patty/marshmellow rabbit experiment? What decision bias did this study demonstrate, and how can Prospect Theory account for i
What is the availability heuristic? • What is belief bias? • Describe the following stages of language development: babbling, one-word, two-word. What is telegraphic speech? • How did the behaviorists explain the acquisition of language in humans? • What is Chomsky’s explanation of language acquisition? • What are the characteristics of human language? • Describe the arguments for and against the notion that animals can learn human language. Chapter 11 • How is the IQ score calculated? • Describe some approaches that view intelligence as multiple abilities. • What is the difference between and aptitude test and an achievement test? • What does it mean to standardize a test? • What is reliability? What is validity? Chapter 12 • What is motivation? • Describe Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. • What are some criticisms of Maslow’s hierarchy? • How important is the stomache in signalling hunger? • How are the lateral hypothalamus and the ventromedial hypothalamus involved in hunger? • How are
