Thinking, Fast and Slow – Study Guide Extraction (Grade 13)

System 1 is fast, automatic, intuitive, and effortless; System 2 is slow, deliberate, and effortful. Which task is primarily handled by System 2?

• Reacting to a sudden sound

• Detecting emotion in a voice

• Completing familiar phrases

• Solving complex math problems

Kahneman describes the mind as an associative machine. Priming occurs when exposure to one word or stimulus makes related responses more likely. Which statement best reflects this?

• Seeing the word “eat” increases the likelihood of completing SO_P as “soup”

• Priming only works when people consciously notice the stimulus

• Priming reduces the fluency of familiar phrases

• Priming primarily improves numerical calculation accuracy

Cognitive ease is the sense that something is familiar, fluent, and easy to process. In persuasive communication, how is cognitive ease typically used?

• Using low-contrast fonts to slow reading and make messages seem complex

• Making a message easier to process so it feels more truthful and likable to System 1

• Adding specialized jargon to convince System 2 to accept the claim

• Including more statistical tables to reduce perceived fluency

WYSIATI (What You See Is All There Is) captures a tendency to judge based only on immediately available information. What is a typical consequence described in the guide?

• Improved accuracy due to focusing on complete data

• System 2 automatically searches for missing information

• Overconfidence and errors in judgment when important information is absent

• Reduced influence of intuitive impressions on decisions

The law of small numbers refers to drawing strong conclusions from very small samples and underestimating randomness. Which scenario exemplifies this bias?

• A large randomized trial finds stable effects across thousands of cases

• A small town shows a very high disease rate based on a few cases and is assumed to be special

• A national census captures the true distribution of incomes

• A meta-analysis aggregates many studies to estimate an effect

Anchoring occurs when a numerical estimate is pulled toward an initial value even if the anchor is arbitrary. Which example aligns with the study guide’s description?

• People estimate Gandhi’s age at death independently of any prior number

• Being asked whether Gandhi died before age 35 or after 114 influences later age estimates

• Anchors only affect non-numerical judgments

• Anchoring effects disappear when the anchor is obviously extreme

The availability heuristic leads people to judge frequency or risk based on how easily examples come to mind. What does an availability cascade add?

• A reduction in public discussion that lowers perceived importance

• Repeated media coverage or social discussion that makes a topic increasingly salient and overestimated

• A statistical correction that aligns judgments with base rates

• A focus on expert opinions that dampens emotional reactions

The Affect Heuristic is the tendency to answer “What do I think about this?” by “How do I feel right now?” In consumer or voter judgments, what pattern should you recognize?

• Positive or negative feelings can shape judgments about risk, benefit, and even facts without checking evidence

• Feelings only influence aesthetic preferences, not risk or factual judgments

• The heuristic occurs only when people read technical reports

• The heuristic applies exclusively to brand logos

The conjunction fallacy (Linda problem) occurs when people judge the conjunction of two events (A and B) as more probable than one event alone (A). Which statement fits the description from the guide?

• “Bank teller and active in the feminist movement” judged as more likely than “bank teller”

• “Bank teller” judged as less probable than any single attribute

• Conjunctions are always less probable than disjunctions

• Probability rules allow conjunctions to exceed single events in likelihood

Regression to the mean explains the illusion of the “hot hand” in sports. What does the guide say typically happens after an exceptionally high performance in a highly random environment?

• Performance continues to improve due to momentum

• Performance regresses back toward the player’s average

• Performance becomes unpredictable but remains above average

• Performance drops permanently below average