Psychology - Thinking

Concept

A mental representation that groups or categorizes shared features of related objects, events, or other stimuli

Prototype/Prototype Theory

The concept that we classify new objects by comparing them to the prototype (“best” or “most typical” member of a category)

Exemplar/Exemplar Theory

The concept that we make category judgments by comparing a new instance with exemplars (stored memories of other instances of the category)

Availability Heuristic

A rule of thumb that items that are more readily available in memory are judged as having occurred more frequently

Conjunction Fallacy

When people think that two events are more likely to occur together than either individual event

Representativeness Heuristic

A mental shortcut that involves making a probability judgment by comparing an object or event with a prototype of the object or event

Framing effects

Biases where people give different answers to the same problem depending on how the problem is framed

Prospect theory

The idea that people choose to take on risks when evaluating potential losses and to avoid risks when evaluating potential gains

Sunk-cost Fallacy

A framing effect in which people make decisions about a current situation on the basis of what they have previously invested in the situation

Optimism Bias

When people believe that, compared with other individuals, they are more likely to experience positive events and less likely to experience negative events in the future