Intuition

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. ----

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