AP Psychology-Thinking and Creativity

Prototypes

a mental image or best example of a category. matching news items to a prototype provides a quick and easy method for sorting items into categories

Algorithm

a methodological, logical rule, or procedure that guarantees solving a particular problem

Heuristic

a simple thinking strategy - a mental shortcut - that often allows use to make judgments and solve problems efficiently

Availability Heuristic

judging the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory; if instances come readily to mind

Representative heuristic

judging the likelihood of events in terms of how well they seem to represent, or match, particular prototypes

Gambler’s fallacy

the belief that the chances of something happening with a fixed probability become higher or lower as the process is repeated

Sunk-cost fallacy

the phenomenon whereby a person is relevant to abandon a strategy or course of action because they have invested heavily in it

Mental set

a tendency to approach a problem in one particular way, often a way that has been successful in the past

Functional fixedness

a cognitive bias that limits a person to use an object only in the way it is traditionally used

Framing

the way an issue is pose; how an issue is framed can significantly affect decisions and judgments

Creativity

the ability to produce new and valuable ideas

Convergent thinking

narrowing the available problems solutions to determine the single best solution

Divergent thinking

expanding the possible number of problem solutions; creative thinking that diverges in different directions