Don’t fence Approach,
young
me in
warrior
You got a
problem with
my culture?
Decisions, Pitfalls (but
he still has
Decisions Angelina)
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Using your pencil to scratch your
back? You seem to have overcome
this barrier to effective problem
solving.
What is functional fixedness?
It might snow tomorrow. Should
you study for the test? Hopefully,
you won’t be influenced by this
barrier to problem solving and
decision making.
What is irrelevant information?
“I don’t know why jiggling the
handle doesn’t fix the toilet …. it has
worked in the past!” If that is all I
can think of to solve the problem,
this barrier seems to be at work.
What is mental set?
People have trouble with the 9 dot
problem due to this barrier.
. . .
. . .
. . .
What are unnecessary constraints?
Instead of trial and error, you’ll
probably use some kind of “rule of
thumb” to solve a problem. This is
the technical term for a rule of
thumb.
What is a heuristic?
In the “tower of Hanoi” problem,
you must first get the biggest ring
onto the opposite peg, then your next
step is to get the second largest ring
over there, and so on. You have
effectively dived beneath the surface
to score points on this task by using
this strategy.
What is forming subgoals?
If I gave you 9 match sticks and
some putty (instead of the 6) and
asked you to form 7 equilateral
triangles, you would easily come up
with a solution. You recognized the
similarity between the problems and
thus formed one of these.
What is an analogy?
Jack walked from Santa Clara to
Palo Alto. It took 1 hour 25 minutes
to walk from Santa Clara to Los
Altos. Then it took 25 minutes to
walk from Los Altos to Palo Alto.
He arrived in Palo Alto at 2:45 P.M.
At what time did he leave Santa
Clara? This is your best strategy to
solve this problem.
What is to work backward?
Sometimes it pays to draw a diagram
to help you solve a word problem.
In doing this, you are using this
strategy.
What is changing the representation
of the problem?
Eastern Asian cultures tend to use
this cognitive style.
What is a holistic cognitive style?
People from Western cultures tend to
use this cognitive style.
What is an analytic cognitive style?
People who rely on internal frames
of reference tend to do better on a
variety of classic laboratory thinking
problems (candle problem,
matchstick, etc.). These people are
said to have this cognitive style.
What is being field independent?
Series completion and analogy
problems are labeled as this class by
the researcher Jim Greeno. The
person must discover the relations
among numbers, words, symbols, or
ideas.
What are problems of inducing
structure?
The hobbits and orcs problem and
the water jar problem represent this
class of problem solving. You must
carry out a sequence of changes to
reach of specific goal.
What are problems of
transformation?
If you have a complex decision to
make involving preferences, such as
which model of car to buy, you
might want to get rid of models that
lack certain criteria. This is the
name for this strategy.
What is elimination by aspects?
Despite the fact that the odds of
winning the Mega Millions jackpot
are 1 : 175,711,536, there is some
value in dreaming of living large.
This is the term for the personal
worth to the individual making the
risky decision.
What is subjective utility?
People inaccurately predict that
more words begin with the letter “n”
than have it as their third letter. This
term refers to our tendency to base
our judgments on the ease with
which relevant instances come to
mind.
What is the availability heuristic?
Joe has several piercings, tattoos,
and drives a Harley. Is he a stock
broker or a bartender? If you base
your decision on the typical
prototype for each profession you
have used this heuristic.
What is the representativeness
heuristic?
You hold two raffle tickets for a car.
Only 50 are sold for this event. You
are feeling pretty confident, until
you discover Archie has purchased
the other 48. This is the term for the
change in your confidence, despite
the fact that your odds of winning
remain the same.
What is the alternative outcomes
effect?
Double “0” hasn’t hit on the roulette
wheel in 100 spins. “It’s got to come
up soon,” you say to yourself. You
have succumbed to this error in
thinking.
What is the gambler’s fallacy?
“I’m not going to see the Nets play
in Newark. It’s too dangerous.”
Your fear, influenced by media
coverage, is influenced by this
pitfall.
What is overestimating the
improbable?
You read a negative review of the
Microsoft Zune you use and enjoy.
However, you can’t remember most
of the unfavorable comments. This
is the tendency to hang onto beliefs
in the face of contradictory evidence.
What is belief perseverance?
Would you rather have a discount for
cash or a surcharge for using a credit
card? Your decision is likely to be
influenced by these effects.
What are framing effects?
Are you “pro-choice” or “proabortion”? This demonstrates the
deliberate choice of words to create
specific emotional responses.
What is semantic slanting?
Anyone who doesn’t like psychology
is a poo-poo head!
This is the name for the strategy to
influence thinking.
What is anticipatory name calling?