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Ψ  Note: These questions are part of a larger data base of questions on module 7. The questions are selected to represent the type of question you should expect on unit exam one. You can, in fact, expect to see many of these very same questions on that exam. Exam questions, however, may deal with topics not covered in the self tests or in lectures but are discussed in your textbook. You are responsible for the content of your text book plus the content of lectures, interactive activities, & material on the web site.

    Use these sample questions to test yourself & to practice for the test. Click on your choice to see if you are right.

1.  Investment experts’ belief that their own expertise will enable them to select stocks that will outperform the market average best illustrates

•  priming.
 •  the availability heuristic.
  •  the misinformation effect.
   •  the overconfidence phenomenon.

2. Immediately “knowing” something without reasoning or analysis refers to the
    concept of

•  intuition.
 •  deduction.
  •  pragmatism.
   •  dialectic thinking.

3. Automatic thinking & perception include

blindsight.
prosopagnosia.
implicit memory.
all of these.

4. “Mental templates” that automatically guide our perceptions & interpretations of our experience are called

mnemonics.
algorithm.
schemas.
scaffolds.

5. One reason people are overconfident is they tend

to recall their mistaken judgments as times when they were almost right.
to recall their mistaken judgments as correct judgments.
not recall ever having made a mistaken judgment.
none of these.

6. One reason people are overconfident is that they are not inclined to seek out information

from experts.
that is objective & factual.
that might disprove what they believe.
that involves judging estimates & comparisons.

7. One way to reduce the overconfidence bias is to

put people in a bad mood.
get people to think of a good reason why their judgments might be wrong.
give delayed feedback regarding the accuracy of their judgments.
get people to think of a good reason why their judgments might be accurate.

8. People tend not to seek information that might disprove what they believe,
this is known as

confirmation bias.
self-serving bias.
illusion of control.
the overconfidence phenomenon.

9. The tendency to rate past events more positively than we had actually rated them when the event occurred is called

false memory.
wishful thinking.
rosy retrospection.
delusions of grandeur.

10.  Which of the following statements is false?

•  We often construct memories at the time of recall.
 •  Memory involves backward reasoning.
  •  Current feeling does not guide our recall.
   •  Memory construction enables us to revise our own histories.

11.  Ironically, incompetence feeds

•  overconfidence.
 •  confidence.
  •  underconfidence.
   •  excessive pride.

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Social Psychology Robert C. Gates