Wade and Tavris © 2005 Prentice Hall 7-1 Invitation To Psychology Carol Wade and Carol Tavris...

Wade and Tavris © 2005 Prentice Hall

7-1

Invitation To Psychology

Carol Wade and Carol TavrisPowerPoint Presentation by

H. Lynn BradmanMetropolitan Community College-Omaha


7-2

Thinking and Intelligence


7-3

Thinking and Intelligence

• Thought: Using What We Know• Reasoning Rationally• Barriers to Reasoning Rationally• Intelligence• The Origins of Intelligence• Animal Minds


7-4

Thought: Using What We Know

The Elements of CognitionHow Conscious Is Thought?


7-5

The Elements of Cognition

• Concept: Mental category that groups objects, relations, activities, abstractions, or qualities having common properties.

• Proposition: A unit of meaning that is made up of concepts and expresses a single idea.

• Mental Image: Representation that mirrors or resembles the thing it represents.

• Cognitive Schema: An integrated mental network of knowledge, beliefs, and expectations concerning a particular topic or aspect of the world.


7-6

How Conscious is Thought?

• Subconscious Processes: Mental processes occurring outside of conscious awareness but accessible to consciousness when necessary.

• Nonconscious Processes: Mental processes occurring outside of and not available to conscious awareness.


7-7

Reasoning Rationally


7-8

Reasoning Rationally

• Formal Reasoning: Algorithms and Logic• Informal Reasoning: Heuristics and

Dialectical Thinking• Reflective Judgment


7-9

Formal Logic

• Deductive Reasoning: A tool of formal logic in which a conclusion necessarily follows from a set of observations or propositions (premises).


7-10

Formal Logic

• Inductive Reasoning: A tool of formal logic in which a conclusion probably follows from a set of observations or propositions or premises, but could be false.


7-11

Informal Reasoning

• Heuristic: – A rule of thumb that suggests a course of

action or guides problem solving but does not guarantee an optimal solution.

• Dialectical Reasoning: – A process in which opposing facts or ideas

are weighed and compared, with a view to determining the best solution or resolving differences.


7-12

Barriers to Reasoning Rationally


7-13

Barriers to Reasoning Rationally

• Exaggerating the Improbable• Avoiding Loss• The Confirmation Bias• Biases Due to Mental Sets• The Hindsight Bias• The Need for Cognitive Consistency• Overcoming Our Cognitive Biases


7-14

Exaggerating the Improbable

• Availability Heuristic: – The tendency to judge the probability of an

event by how easy it is to think of examples or instances.

– For example, most people overestimate the odds of dying in a plane crash.

– Dying in an automobile accident is far more likely.


7-15

Avoiding Loss

• People try to minimize risks and losses when making decisions.

• Responses to the same choice will differ based on whether outcome is framed as gain or loss.– In the example,

outcomes are the same in Problems 1 and 2.


7-16

The Confirmation Bias

• Confirmation Bias: The tendency to look for or pay attention only to information that confirms one’s own beliefs.

E J 6 7

Test this rule: If a card has a vowel on one side, it has an even number on the other side.

Which 2 cards to turn over?


7-17

Biases Due to Mental Sets

• Mental Set: A tendency to solve problems using procedures that worked before on similar problems.

• Mental sets help us solve most problems efficiently.

• Not helpful when a problem calls for fresh insights or a new approach.


7-18

The Nine-Dot Problem

• Connect all 9 dots• Use only 4 lines• Do not lift your pencil

from the page after you begin drawing


7-19

The Hindsight Bias

• Hindsight Bias: The tendency to overestimate one’s ability to have predicted an event once the outcome is known. – Also known as the “I knew it all along”

phenomenon.• “The older they get the better they were when

they were younger.”– Jim Bouton, professional baseball player


7-20

Need for Cognitive Consistency

• Cognitive Dissonance:– A state of tension

that occurs when a person simultaneously holds two cognitions that are psychologically inconsistent, or when a person’s belief is inconsistent with his or her behavior.


7-21

Intelligence


7-22

Intelligence

• Measuring Intelligence: The Psychometric Approach

• Dissecting Intelligence: The Cognitive Approach


7-23

Intelligence

• Intelligence: An inferred characteristic of an individual, usually defined as the ability to profit from experience, acquire knowledge, think abstractly, act purposefully, or adapt to changes in the environment.

• g factor: A general intellectual ability assumed by many theorists to underlie specific mental abilities and talents.


7-24

The Psychometric Approach

• IQ scores are distributed “normally”– Bell-shaped curve

• Very high and low scores are rare– 68% of people

have IQ between 85-115

– 99.7% between 55-145


7-25

The Cognitive Approach

• Metacognition: The knowledge or awareness of one’s own cognitive processes.

• Tacit Knowledge: Strategies for success that are not explicitly taught but that instead must be inferred.


7-26

Sternberg's Triarchic Theory

• Components - a.k.a. “Analytic”– Comparing, analyzing, and evaluating.– This type of processes correlates best with IQ.

• Experiential - a.k.a. “Creative”– Inventing or designing solutions to new problems.– Transfer skills to new situations.

• Contextual - a.k.a. “Practical” – Using (i.e., applying) the things you know in everyday

contexts.


7-27

The Origins of Intelligence


7-28

The Origins of Intelligence

• Genes and Intelligence• The Environment and Intelligence• Attitudes, Motivation, and Intellectual

Success


7-29

Correlations in Siblings’ IQ Scores

• IQ scores of siblings were highly correlated, even when they were reared apart.

• Identical twins have higher correlations than fraternal twins.– Suggests a genetic

link


7-30

Explaining Group Differences

• Within a group with all treated exactly the same, differences may reflect genetics.

• When one group differs from another, the differences may reflect environmental differences.


7-31

Environment and Intelligence

• Factors associated with reduced IQ:– Poor prenatal care– Malnutrition– Exposure to toxins– Stressful family circumstances

• Healthy and stimulating environments can raise IQ, sometimes dramatically.


7-32


7-33

Attitudes and Intellectual Success

• Asian children score higher on standard math tests than American children.

• Differences:– Americans are more

likely than Asians to believe that math ability is innate.

– Americans have far lower standards for their children.

– Asian children value education more highly than Americans.


7-34

Animal Minds


7-35

Animal Minds

• Animal Intelligence• Animals and Language• Thinking About the Thinking of Animals


7-36

Animal Intelligence

• Cognitive Ethology: The study of cognitive processes in nonhuman animals.

• Studies in cognitive ethology have shown evidence that some animals can– Anticipate future events– Use numbers to label quantities– Coordinate activities with other

animals


7-37

Animals and Language

• Language is a critical element of human cognition

• Many animal species can be taught to communicate in ways that resemble language– Chimpanzees and bonobos converse using American

Sign Language and symbol board systems– An African grey parrot has been taught to count,

classify, and compare objects using English words

• Whether these behaviors are language depends on how you define “language.”


7-38

Thinking About Animal Thinking

• Anthropomorphism: The tendency to falsely attribute human qualities to nonhuman beings.

• Anthropocentrism: The tendency to think, mistakenly, that human beings have nothing in common with other animals.

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