WorksheetsWeek 14
Total questions: 6
Worksheet time: 6mins
1. Given the choice of an 100% chance of losing $100, or a 50% chance of losing $200 and a 50% chance of losing $0, most people choose the latter. What phenomenon does this demonstrate?
Normative decision-making
Diminishing marginal utility
Risk seeking in losses
Risk aversion in gains
A medical test has a 90% true positive rate and a 10% false positive rate for detecting a rare disease with a base rate of 1%. If a person tests positive, what is the actual probability they have the disease? Research suggests most people will estimate this probability as:
10%
50%
90%
99%
3. A mathematician’s assistant was tasked with finding the volume of an oddly shaped glass bulb. He spent hours trying complex mathematical formulas to approximate its volume, but failed. When the mathematician returned, he simply fills the bulb with water and measures the water's volume. Which of the following best characterizes the assistant’s failure?
Inadequate representation
Mental sets
Bounded rationality
Confirmation bias
4. According to EUT, what would the utility curve look like for someone who’s risk averse in losses?
A concave curve, where the person prefers small certain loss over large uncertain loss
A concave curve, where the person prefers large uncertain loss over small certain loss
A convex curve, where the person prefers small certain loss over large uncertain loss
A convex curve, where the person prefers large uncertain loss over small certain loss
5. In the Candle Problem (Duncker, 1945), participants are given a candle, a box of tacks, and matches. Many initially fail to solve the problem because they see the box only as a container, not as a potential platform for the candle. Which of the following best explains why participants experience difficulty in this task?
Their mental set forces them to rely on previously successful solutions.
Functional fixedness prevents them from reconceptualizing the box's purpose.
They lack sufficient working memory capacity to juggle multiple object uses.
Problem representation is unaffected, but participants choose inefficient strategies deliberately.
6. In Maier’s (1931) Two-String Problem, participants are placed in a room with two strings hanging from the ceiling and asked to tie them together, though the strings are too far apart to be grasped simultaneously. Participants often struggle to find the solution because
Participants showed gradual "warming up" before solving insight problems like matchstick puzzles, but sudden "warmth" spikes when solving algebra problems.
Participants showed a sudden "aha!" moment when solving insight problems like matchstick puzzles, but a gradual increase in "warmth" for non-insight algebra problems.
Both insight and noninsight problems were solved with similar gradual warmth ratings, suggesting no distinction between problem types.
Insight problems and non-insight problems both demonstrated steady problem-solving processes, but only differed in the number of operations required.
