1. 200 300 400 500 100 200 300 400 500 100 200 300 400 500 100 200 300 400 500 100 200 300 400 500 100 Don’t fence me in Approach, young warrior You got a problem with my culture? Decisions, Decisions Pitfalls (but he still has Angelina)

2. Using your pencil to scratch your back? You seem to have overcome this barrier to effective problem solving.

3. What is functional fixedness?

4. It might snow tomorrow. Should you study for the test? Hopefully, you won’t be influenced by this barrier to problem solving and decision making.

5. What is irrelevant information?

6. “I don’t know why jiggling the handle doesn’t fix the toilet …. it has worked in the past!” If that is all I can think of to solve the problem, this barrier seems to be at work.

7. What is mental set?

8. People have trouble with the 9 dot problem due to this barrier....

9. What are unnecessary constraints?

10. Instead of trial and error, you’ll probably use some kind of “rule of thumb” to solve a problem. This is the technical term for a rule of thumb.

11. What is a heuristic?

12. In the “tower of Hanoi” problem, you must first get the biggest ring onto the opposite peg, then your next step is to get the second largest ring over there, and so on. You have effectively dived beneath the surface to score points on this task by using this strategy.

13. What is forming subgoals?

14. If I gave you 9 match sticks and some putty (instead of the 6) and asked you to form 7 equilateral triangles, you would easily come up with a solution. You recognized the similarity between the problems and thus formed one of these.

15. What is an analogy?

16. Jack walked from Santa Clara to Palo Alto. It took 1 hour 25 minutes to walk from Santa Clara to Los Altos. Then it took 25 minutes to walk from Los Altos to Palo Alto. He arrived in Palo Alto at 2:45 P.M. At what time did he leave Santa Clara? This is your best strategy to solve this problem.

17. What is to work backward?

18. Sometimes it pays to draw a diagram to help you solve a word problem. In doing this, you are using this strategy.

19. What is changing the representation of the problem?

20. Eastern Asian cultures tend to use this cognitive style.

21. What is a holistic cognitive style?

22. People from Western cultures tend to use this cognitive style.

23. What is an analytic cognitive style?

24. People who rely on internal frames of reference tend to do better on a variety of classic laboratory thinking problems (candle problem, matchstick, etc.). These people are said to have this cognitive style.

25. What is being field independent?

26. Series completion and analogy problems are labeled as this class by the researcher Jim Greeno. The person must discover the relations among numbers, words, symbols, or ideas.

27. What are problems of inducing structure?

28. The hobbits and orcs problem and the water jar problem represent this class of problem solving. You must carry out a sequence of changes to reach of specific goal.

29. What are problems of transformation?

30. If you have a complex decision to make involving preferences, such as which model of car to buy, you might want to get rid of models that lack certain criteria. This is the name for this strategy.

31. What is elimination by aspects?

32. Despite the fact that the odds of winning the Mega Millions jackpot are 1 : 175,711,536, there is some value in dreaming of living large. This is the term for the personal worth to the individual making the risky decision.

33. What is subjective utility?

34. People inaccurately predict that more words begin with the letter “n” than have it as their third letter. This term refers to our tendency to base our judgments on the ease with which relevant instances come to mind.

35. What is the availability heuristic?

36. Joe has several piercings, tattoos, and drives a Harley. Is he a stock broker or a bartender? If you base your decision on the typical prototype for each profession you have used this heuristic.

37. What is the representativeness heuristic?

38. You hold two raffle tickets for a car. Only 50 are sold for this event. You are feeling pretty confident, until you discover Archie has purchased the other 48. This is the term for the change in your confidence, despite the fact that your odds of winning remain the same.

39. What is the alternative outcomes effect?

40. Double “0” hasn’t hit on the roulette wheel in 100 spins. “It’s got to come up soon,” you say to yourself. You have succumbed to this error in thinking.

41. What is the gambler’s fallacy?

42. “I’m not going to see the Nets play in Newark. It’s too dangerous.” Your fear, influenced by media coverage, is influenced by this pitfall.

43. What is overestimating the improbable?

44. You read a negative review of the Microsoft Zune you use and enjoy. However, you can’t remember most of the unfavorable comments. This is the tendency to hang onto beliefs in the face of contradictory evidence.

45. What is belief perseverance?

46. Would you rather have a discount for cash or a surcharge for using a credit card? Your decision is likely to be influenced by these effects.

47. What are framing effects?

48. Are you “pro-choice” or “pro- abortion”? This demonstrates the deliberate choice of words to create specific emotional responses.

49. What is semantic slanting?

50. Anyone who doesn’t like psychology is a poo-poo head! This is the name for the strategy to influence thinking.

51. What is anticipatory name calling?