Psychology 2075 Study Guide - Quiz Guide: Psychological Testing, Belief Perseverance, Confirmation Bias

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 2075
• Professor: Dr.Mike

Document Summary

In estimating probabilities, people often ignore information on base rates. In risky decision making people often think that they can beat the odds. The conjunction fallacy occurs when people estimate that the odds of two uncertain events happening together are great than the odds of either event happening alone. Alternative outcomes effect occurs when people"s belief about whether an outcome will occur changes depending on how alternative outcomes are distributed, even though the summed probability of the alternative outcomes is held constant. The perceived likelihood of a focal outcome is influenced by the distribution of alternative outcomes. Evolutionary analyses of flaws in human decision making. Human decision making strategies are riddled with errors and biases that yield surprisingly irrational results. Humans only seem irrational because cognitive psychologists have been asking the wrong questions and formulating problems in the wrong ways- ways that have nothing to do with the adaptive problems that the human mind has evolved to solve.