Social Science

Cognitive Biases and Decision Making

1,902 Questions

Explore a curated set of questions on cognitive biases, decision making, and behavioral economics. These concepts evaluate how social norms, emotions, and heuristics influence human judgment and group behavior. Master these topics to build a strong foundation for psychology and social science exams.

Behavioral economicsSocial group influencesEmotional decision makingConfirmation bias

Cognitive Biases and Decision Making Questions

Multiple choice general knowledge science & technology

A drawback of the yes/no method of recognition testing is that... ?

  1. it forces people to make a choice

  2. it eliminates the effects of experience

  3. different people require different levels of confidence before saying "yes"

  4. it makes recognition into a matter of probabilities
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
C Correct answer
Explanation

The yes/no method of recognition testing has a significant drawback: different individuals have different confidence thresholds for saying 'yes.' Some people need high certainty before recognizing something, while others are more liberal. This variability makes it difficult to standardize results across participants.

Multiple choice general knowledge

The tendency to see one’s own ideas, beliefs and practices superior to that of others is called:

  1. xenophobia

  2. self-orientation

  3. ego-centrism

  4. ethnocentrism
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
D Correct answer
Explanation

Ethnocentrism refers to the tendency to view one's own culture, beliefs, and practices as superior to those of others. Xenophobia is fear of strangers, ego-centrism is viewing oneself as central, and self-orientation is not a standard sociological term for this concept.

Multiple choice softskills leadership

appurtenances

  1. ability to foretell the future

  2. impatiently restless (induced by external coercion or restriction)

  3. subordinate possessions

  4. colored band produced when a beam of light passes through a prism
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
C Correct answer
Explanation

Appurtenances are subordinate accessories or possessions that belong to something more important, such as fixtures that come with a property. The other options describe unrelated concepts.

Multiple choice softskills leadership

egotism

  1. tendency to speak or write of oneself excessively

  2. private meeting of a group of people in a political party to select officers or determine policy

  3. outcome

  4. rise or fly high in the air
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
A Correct answer
Explanation

"Egotism" is the practice of talking and thinking about oneself excessively due to an undue sense of self-importance. Distractors like "private meeting" (caucus) are incorrect.

Multiple choice

Attribution theory concerns with our tendency to explain our behaviour and that of others

  1. by external causes rather than internal causes

  2. by inferring causes on the basis of internal or external factors

  3. by internal rather than external causes

  4. based on personality factors
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
B Correct answer
Explanation

Attribution theory examines how people infer causes of behavior - whether attributed to internal factors (personality, ability) or external factors (situation, environment). We make these causal inferences to understand and predict behavior in social contexts.

Multiple choice

The tendency for prior learning to inhibit recall of later learning is called

  1. encoding failure

  2. repression

  3. retroactive interference

  4. proactive interference
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
D Correct answer
Explanation

Proactive interference occurs when previously learned information interferes with the recall of newly learned information (old blocks new). Retroactive interference is the opposite (new blocks old). Encoding failure is when information never enters memory, and repression is Freud's concept of pushing distressing memories into the unconscious.

Multiple choice

A person who agrees to a small request initially is more likely to comply with a larger demand later. This describes the

  1. door-in-the-face-effect

  2. foot-in-the-door effect

  3. low-ball technique

  4. high-ball technique
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
B Correct answer
Explanation

The foot-in-the-door effect describes the phenomenon where compliance with a small initial request increases the likelihood of agreeing to a larger subsequent request. This differs from the door-in-the-face technique (starting with an unreasonably large request that gets rejected, then making a smaller one). The low-ball and high-ball techniques involve changing the terms after commitment.

Multiple choice

Oversimplified concepts of groups of people are referred to as

  1. group thinking

  2. social stereotypes

  3. relational stereotypes

  4. disjunctive stereotypes
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
B Correct answer
Explanation

Social stereotypes are oversimplified, generalized beliefs about groups of people that ignore individual differences and complexity. They are cognitive shortcuts that reduce rich social categories to simplistic traits, often leading to prejudice and discrimination.

Multiple choice

A teacher believes that one group of children is very bright and the second group is below average in ability. Actually, the groups are identical but the first group progresses more rapidly than the second. This demonstrates

  1. the self-fulfilling prophecy

  2. the placebo effect in a natural experiment

  3. observer bias in naturalistic observation

  4. the ethical problems of field experiments
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
A Correct answer
Explanation

The self-fulfilling prophecy occurs when expectations about someone's behavior influence that person's actions in ways that confirm the original expectations. The teacher's belief about student ability subtly changed their behavior toward each group, causing the 'bright' group to perform better despite equal initial ability.

Multiple choice

According to the theory of cognitive dissonance, attitudes are changed because

  1. emotionally persuasive arguments unfreeze beliefs

  2. logical arguments alter the belief component of an attitude

  3. clashing thoughts cause discomfort

  4. acting contrary to one's beliefs for a large reward causes dissonance
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
C Correct answer
Explanation

Cognitive dissonance theory states that when our actions conflict with our beliefs or when we hold contradictory thoughts, we experience psychological discomfort. To reduce this dissonance, we change our attitudes to align with our behavior. Option C correctly identifies this mechanism - clashing thoughts create discomfort that motivates attitude change.

Multiple choice

A person does not have favourable attitude towards Indian cars. His father gifts him the latest model of Alto (an Indian car). In this situation, he will either change his attitude or negative relation with Indian cars or he can ask his father to change his attitude and give him an imported car. The above example describes which theory of attitude?

  1. Congruity Theory

  2. Affective Cognitive Consistency Theory

  3. Balance Theory

  4. Cognitive Dissonance Theory

  5. None of these
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
C Correct answer
Explanation

Yes, it is the right answer as in the above example, either the father or the son will change his attitude and bring balance in the situation.