2.2: Thinking, Problem Solving, Judgements, Decision Making - Unit 2 Cognition

 Concepts and Creativity

2.2-1 Concepts

  1. Explain cognition.

    • all the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating

  2. What is metacognition?

    • cognition about our cognition, keeping track of and evaluating our mental processes

  3. Explain concepts.

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

  4. What is a prototype?

    • mental image or best example of a category

  5. Explain schema.

    • concept or framework that organizes and interprets information


2.2-2 Thinking Creatively

  1. What is creativity?

    • ability to produce new and valuable ideas

  2. Explain the difference between:

    • Assimilation: interpreting our new experiences in terms of our existing schemas

    • Accommodation: adapting our current schemas (understandings) to incorporate new ideas

  1. Convergent thinking means what?

    • Narrowing the available problem solutions to determine the single best solution

  2. What does divergent thinking mean?

    • Expanding the number of possible solutions, creative thinking that diverges in different directions

  3. Explain functional fixedness.

    • occurs when prior experiences inhibit our ability to think in novel ways (to find creative solutions)

  4. Identify and explain the five components of creativity.

    • Expertise: well developed knowledge

    • Imaginative Thinking Skills: ability to see things in novels ways, to recognize patterns, and to make connections

    • A Venturesome Personality: seeks new experiences, tolerates ambiguity and risk, persevere in overcoming obstacles

    • Intrinsic motivation: quality of being driven more by interest, satisfaction, and challenge than by external pressures

    • Creative environment: sparks, supports, refines creative ideas

  1. Identify four ways to boost your creative process.

    • Develop your expertise

    • Allow time for incubation

    • Set aside time for the mind to roam freely

    • Experience other cultures and ways of thinking


Module 2.2b  Thinking, Problem Solving, Judgments, and Decision Making: Solving Problems and Making Decisions

2.2-3 Problem-Solving:Strategies and Obstacles

  1. Identify Executive Functions.

    • cognitive skills that work together, enabling us to generate, organize, plan, and implement goal-directed behavior

  2. Explain how algorithms and heuristics are different from each other.

    • Algorithms: methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a particular problem

    • Heuristics: simple thinking strategy, mental shortcut, often allows us to make judgements and solve problems more efficiently, usually faster but more error-prone than an algorithm

  1. How does insight work?

    • sudden realization of a problem’s solution, contrasts with strategy-based solutions

  2. What is confirmation bias?

    • tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions and to ignore or distort contradictory evidence

  3. Explain fixation.

    • inability to see a problem from a new perspective, an obstacle to problem solving

  4. Explain how mental set is an example of fixation.

    • tendency to approach a problem in one particular way, often a away that had been successful in the past, keeps us from trying new approaches


2.2-4 Forming good and Bad Decision and Judgments

  1. What is intuition?

    • An effortless, immediate, automatic feeling or thought, as contrasted with explicit, conscious reasoning

  2. Explain:

    • Representative Heuristic: judging the likelihood of events in terms of how well they seem to represent, or match, particular prototypes; may lead us to ignore other relevant information

    • Availability Heuristic: judging the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory, if instances come readily to mind (because of vividness), we presume such events are common


2.2-5 Overconfidence

  1. Explain overconfidence.

    • tendency to be more confident than correct, to overestimate the accuracy of our beliefs and judgements

  2. Explain:

    • Planning Fallacy: overestimating our future leisure time and income

    • Sunk-Cost Fallacy: we stick to our original plan because we’ve invested our time, even when switching to a new approach could save us time

  1.  Explain belief perseverance.

    • persistence of one’s initial conceptions even after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited

  2. How does motivated reasoning work?

    • rather than using evidence the draw conclusions, we use conclusions to assess the evidence

  3. How can we reign in belief perseverance?

    • consider the opposite

  4. What is framing?

    • the way an issue is posed, how an issue is framed can significantly affect decisions and judgements

  5. Explain nudge.

    • Framing choices in a way that encourages people to make beneficial decisions (type of framing)


2-2.6 The Perils and Powers of Intuition

  1. Identify the three “powers” of intuition.

    • Recognition born of experience

    • Usually adaptive

    • Huge (affects us more than we know)