Study Guide 1

Critical thinking is best described as

• the ability to effectively analyze information and form a reasoned judgment.

• discounting the news from ordinary media outlets.

• rejecting the accounts of bureaucrats and finding alternative versions online.

• assuming that all news presents lies until alternative truths present themselves.

• trusting your instincts on the way the world works.

Which of the following has most recently proven to serve as a significant obstacle to critical thinking?

• changes in the media landscape

• political partisanship

• television

• newspapers

• the coastal elites

What does Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman call the habit of defaulting to fast thinking because it requires less effort?

• "cognitive laziness"

• "cognitive disconnect"

• "cognitive bias"

• "the cult of personality"

• "cognitive dissonance"

What is the likely result of spending hours listening to partisan talk shows?

• misinformation

• liberalism

• pragmatism

• well-rounded political views

• a distaste for politics

Confirmation bias is best described as

• an intellectual tendency to believe that we know more than others do.

• a political preference for antiquated ideologies.

• a psychological preference for information that supports what we’d like to believe.

• an emotional response to propaganda techniques that increase gullibility.

• an inherent distrust of information conveyed by political leaders.

In the Declaration of Independence, "unalienable rights" refer to which of the following?

• freedoms belonging to every person that cannot be legally taken away by the government

• "God-given" rights that all people possess from birth

• freedom from government interference in any aspect of life

• freedom from religious persecution

• the freedoms necessary to become "a perfect nation"

Which of the following is NOT one of the core values of American political culture?

• individualism

• equality

• cooperation

• liberty

• self-government

In the Declaration of Independence, what "just powers" that governments may exercise come from which source?

• "God Almighty"

• "the consent of the governed"

• "the various factions"

• "the teachings of Jesus Christ"

• "the benevolence of a just king"

The process by which a society settles its conflicts and allocates the resulting benefits and costs is called

• politics.

• government.

• elitism.

• socialism.

• communism.

_______ is the ability of persons, groups, or institutions to influence political developments.

• Apathy

• Politics

• Power

• Liberty

• Political culture