Exam 16: Language and Thought Part 2

Which strategy for decision-making might involve the weighting of individual attributes differently, based on the importance of the attributes?

The confirmation bias

Evolutionary theorists, including David Premack, argue that language is a product of natural selection and that it evolved as a device to build and maintain social coalitions in increasingly larger groups.

The tendency to believe that the odds of two uncertain events happening together are greater than the odds of either event happening alone

The fact that variations in cognitive style sometimes reflect the ecological demands of one's environment helps to illustrate which of your text's unifying themes?

Compare and contrast the behaviorist and nativist theories of language acquisition. What is the interactionist view, and how has it arisen out of dissatisfaction with the other two approaches?

Claude and Marie are excited because they have just bought a restaurant from the previous owners. The two partners know that the last seven restaurants that have been operated at that location have gone bankrupt within a year of their openings, but Claude and Marie are certain their restaurant will be successful because they plan on working hard to be a success. In this case, the two new business partners are

Toddlers typically have a smaller receptive vocabulary then their productive vocabulary.

____________________ is the term used by psychologists to refer to mental processes or thinking.

Basing the estimated probability of an event on the ease with which instances come to mind is called the

If you enjoy a day at the racetrack and don't really care if you end up with a little more or little less money at the end of the day, your behavior is most influenced by the ____ you put on your day's entertainment.

According to Benjamin Whorf and the linguistic relativity hypothesis a person's ____________________ determines the nature of a person's ____________________.

Carefully chosen words can exert subtle influences on people's feelings about issues. On technique, known as ____________________, refers to the deliberate choice of words to create specific emotional responses.

Which heuristic do most people employ when making everyday, common-place decisions?

Autumn has been figure skating since she was five years old. She has never placed higher than third in any of the competitions she has been in, but she is still convinced that she will be able to become a professional figure skater in a few years. Her coach and her parents have tried to tell her that not many people make it as professional skaters, but Autumn is convinced that she can beat the odds. In this case, Autumn is

The overconfidence effect is seen only when making predictions about events that have personal significance.

In order to decide which car to buy, Jim makes a list of desired qualities and rates each of the cars he is considering on a scale of one to ten. After totaling the points each car receives on all the desired qualities, he is going to purchase the car with the most points. Jim is using the ____ strategy of decision-making.

According to the text, people who are critical thinkers recognize semantic slanting and understand that

Problems of transformation are often solved in a burst of insight, following incorrect attempts based primarily on trial and error.

Researchers presented two groups of physicians with information regarding a surgical procedure. Half the physicians were told that on average 15 out of 100 people die as a result of the surgery; the remaining physicians were told that on average 85 out of 100 people survive the surgery. Based on the framing effect, you should expect