ap psych 2.2 Thinking, Problem-Solving, Judgements, and Decision Making

concept

mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or people

prototype

ideal example of any given example (e.g thinking of a crow for a bird)

executive functions

high level cognitive skills used to control and coordinate other cognitive abilities / behaviors
(self-control, self-monitoring, organization, task-initiation)

schema

cognitive rules used to interpret the world, i.e an individual’s blueprint used to approach life

assimilation

fitting experiences into schema, combining new knowledge with old

accomodation

changing schema to fit new experience

algorithm

slow, methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a particular problem

heuristic

simple, quick, rule of thumb thinking strategy

availability heuristic

judging situation based on similar, easily remembered, recent experiences, i.e. comparing to what one already knows

e.g overestimating shark attack frequency because of hearing about a vivid news story

representative heuristic

judging a situation based on how similar it is to prototype, i.e. comparing to what one expects

e.g assuming a shy person is a librarian rather than a salesperson

fixation

inability to see problem from new perspective

mental set

tendency to approach problems using same strategies that worked in the past

e.g. always turning an electronic on and off to try to fix it

functional fixedness

tendency to think only of familiar functions of an object

e.g. seeing a pencil as only a writing utensil

framing

the way in which a problem is presented changes one’s expectation

gambler’s fallacy

mindset that past events influence future probabilities /

if a particular event occurs less frequently in the past, it is due to occur in the short term future or vice versa

sunk cost fallacy

reluctance to abandon a strategy because it has been in invested in heavily

overconfidence bias

tendency to overestimate accuracy of our beliefs and judgmets

confirmation bias

tendency to seek evidence that confirms beliefs

priming effect

introducing a stimulus influences how people response to a subsequent stimulus

belief bias

tendency of one’s pre-existing beliefs to distort logical reasoning by making invalid conclusions

occurs when you judge an argument's strength by how much you agree with its conclusion rather than its logic

belief perserverance

tendency to stick to beliefs in spite of contrary evidence

creativity

ability to produce new and valuable ideas, important in overcoming obstacles

convergent thinking

narrowing of choices points towards a conclusion

divergent thinking

brainstorming searches for mutiple possible answers