Question

1.

Cognitive bias occurs when people exaggerate the probability of very rare events if their consequences are catastrophic. How does the availability heuristic enhance this kind of bias?

2.

How does the focus of the cognitive theories of intelligence differ from the focus of psychometric theories? How do the two approaches define intelligence?

3.

One of the longest-running psychological studies ever conducted was begun by Lewis Terman in 1921 in order to learn about children who scored in the top 1 percent of the IQ distribution. As they reached adulthood, some of these "Termites," as they were called, fulfilled their early promise, but others did not. Analyze the differences between those who were successful and those who were not.

Answer 1

Cognitive bias is a tendency to acquire and process information depending on own beliefs, likes/dislikes, previous experiences, etc. It is limitation of ability to process information objectively resulting in perception of subjective reality. This limits reasoning ability, rationale of an individual. Probability refers to likelihood of an event to happen. Example: Probability of seeing sunrise at east is high (100%) and probability of watching a TV show at evening may be uncertain due to many reasons making it low probable event (0% to 50%).

Heuristics refer to shortcuts for problem solving. Usually, heuristics are followed when problem perceived is similar to previous one. Here, rather than reasoning from scratch, individual may use previous experience or adapt others techniques who may have handled similar problem. Availability heuristic is a notion that if we can recall an event or thing quicker and more available in our memory, then the probability of that event is more. Here, individuals give prominence to events that are recent and fresh in memory. In other words, an event has recently is more available in memory and individual tend to perceive probability of this event to happen again is more even though this perception is not objective. Example: An individual who witnessed motor vehicle accident recently in one lane may anxiously think chances of reoccurrence of that event are high even though there is no objective reason for such happening.

Availability heuristics influence individual's cognition to perceive the reality with correlation to recent event rather than perceiving the reality with rationale. Example: If death due to car accidents are more publicized than deaths due to HIV or cancer in nation, then individuals who learn more about deaths due to accidents in media may perceive accidents as major cause of death, even though deaths due to HIV or cancer are high compared to accidents if we check facts and figures. Here, we can observe assumption without verification about cause death. As there is more publicity to accidental deaths, memory of individual's is occupied with assumption of accident as major cause of death. This way availability heuristics enhance cognitive bias in individuals.