Define and distinguish between two of the following obstacles to reasoning and problem solving: availability heuristic, representativeness heuristic, and confirmation bias. Explain how the obstacles you selected are unconscious shortcuts in problem solving that can produce errors in judgment.

What will be an ideal response?


The availability heuristic is a type of cognitive bias where the individual judges the importance or frequency of an event based on how easily they can bring the situation into cognitive awareness. This is an unconscious shortcut, as it is a judgment that is made automatically-the person does not make conscious comparisons, which would deplete attentional resources. The representative heuristic is also a form of cognitive bias, in which the person makes judgments about a situation based on a pattern of previous experiences or beliefs. When experiencing a new problem, the person draws on their existing knowledge of patterns of behavior that led to a solution. They then approach the solution to the new problem in the same way, which allows for conservation of resources, as they are not starting from scratch to solve the problem. Confirmation bias is also a form of cognitive bias. People view themselves as rational, with the ability to make reasonable judgments, but they do not actually treat all information equally. They focus on information that is relevant, or that confirms their beliefs, and ignore information that does not fit with their beliefs. This is an economic approach to problem solving because information relevant to the situation is easy to retrieve from memory, but it is more time intensive to try and place information that does not fit with a person's previous experiences. Student answers will vary based on the obstacles they choose, but each of the three is a different type of cognitive bias. The availability heuristic is an error in estimation of the probability of an event. The representative heuristic is an error in judgment based on previous experiences or beliefs-previous experiences may not be relevant to a current problem, even though the problem seems to be related. Confirmation bias involves the person paying attention to those aspects of the problem that correspond to their beliefs, and ignoring information that is not consistent with their beliefs.

Psychology

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