Topic 2.2 Notes – Thinking, Problem-Solving, Judgments, and Decision-Making

How Thinking Organizes Information

Thinking means mentally manipulating information. You use it to interpret what’s happening, solve problems, judge options, and make decisions.

A lot of that begins with concepts, which are mental categories. If you know the concept bird, you can group robins, eagles, and ostriches together instead of treating each as totally new.

• A prototype is the most typical example of a concept.
  • For many people, a robin is a more typical bird than an ostrich.
  • This helps with quick classification.
  • Don’t mix up prototype and stereotype. A prototype is a typical example of a category. A stereotype is a belief about a social group.

A schema is broader than a concept. It’s a mental framework for how something usually works.

• Restaurant schema
  • enter
  • get seated or order
  • eat
  • pay
  • leave

Schemas shape what you notice, how you interpret events, and what you expect to happen. They also get updated as you meet new examples, like a child learning that very different-looking animals can still fit the same category.

Schema formation and category learning

Schemas change in two ways:

• Assimilation means fitting new information into an existing schema.
  • A child sees a fox and calls it a dog.
• Accommodation means changing the schema or making a new one.
  • The child learns foxes are a different category and updates the mental framework.

Problem-Solving Strategies

There are two main ways people solve problems.

Algorithms

An algorithm is a step-by-step method that tests possibilities until the right answer is found.

• It guarantees a solution if one exists and you use the procedure correctly.
• It is accurate but slow.
• Example: trying every possible 4-digit lock code.

Heuristics

A heuristic is a mental shortcut or rule of thumb.

• It is fast and efficient.
• It does not guarantee the right answer.
• You use heuristics constantly because real life usually gives you limited time and incomplete information.

Representativeness and availability

What Influences Judgment and Decision-Making

Past experience and presentation both matter.

• Mental set means sticking with a strategy that worked before, even when a better one exists.
  • Classic example: Luchins water-jar study.
• Priming means earlier exposure activates related ideas.
  • Seeing doctor can make nurse come to mind faster.
• Framing means the wording of choices changes decisions, even when the facts are equivalent.
  • In the Asian disease problem, people were more risk-avoidant with gain wording and more risk-seeking with loss wording.

Asian disease framing problem

This classic example shows how the same outcome can push people toward different choices depending on whether it is framed as lives saved or lives lost.

Some biases make decisions worse:

• Confirmation bias means favoring evidence that supports what you already believe.
• Overconfidence means your certainty is higher than your actual accuracy.
• Gambler’s fallacy means thinking earlier random outcomes affect the next independent one.
  • After five heads, a fair coin is still 50/50 on the next flip.
• Sunk-cost fallacy means continuing because of past time, money, or effort already spent.
  • Good decisions should be based on future costs and benefits.

Executive Functions and Critical Thinking

Executive functions are the control processes that let you carry out goal-directed behavior.

Core parts:

• Working memory keeps information active and lets you mentally use it.
• Inhibitory control helps you resist distractions or impulses.
• Cognitive flexibility lets you shift strategies, rules, or viewpoints.

These support planning, self-monitoring, time management, and fixing mistakes. They also support critical thinking, which means pausing, checking intuition against evidence, and revising conclusions when evidence changes.

Creativity and What Blocks It

Creativity means producing ideas or solutions that are both novel and useful.

• Divergent thinking generates many possible ideas.
  • brainstorming
  • many uses for a paperclip
• Convergent thinking narrows options to the single best answer.

Real problem-solving often uses both. You generate possibilities, then evaluate them.

Functional fixedness blocks creativity by making you see an object only in its usual use.

• Classic example: Duncker’s candle problem.
• The diagram below shows the key insight. The box that holds the tacks can also be used as a platform, but many people miss that.

Duncker’s candle problem

Lock in this difference:

• Mental set = stuck on an old strategy.
• Functional fixedness = stuck on an object’s usual function.