Psych 458 - Questions to ponder

4/5/99 (Ross, Lepper, Strack, & Steinmetz, 1977; Gilbert, 1991)

Ross et al.:

1. How is explanation related to belief perseverance? Why does explanation allow for beliefs to persist, even when people have been told that they were initially given the wrong information?

2. In Ross et al.=s Study 1, what were the three possible explanation conditions subjects could be assigned to? What was the dependent variable for this study?

3. How did explaining an event affect subjects= perceptions of its likelihood? Did explaining one event affect the likelihood of the three Afiller@ events?

4. What was the additional manipulation added in Ross et al.=s Study 2? Why was it important to add this additional manipulation? What results did they find?

5. Why were new critical events used in Ross et al.=s Study 3?

6. Did the explanations written by subjects in the hypothetical and non-hypothetical explanation conditions differ greatly? Why might this be an important thing to check?

7. How are explanation and the hindsight bias related?

Gilbert:

8. In Descartes= system, is belief effortful or automatic? In Spinoza=s system, can you comprehend something without accepting it as true?

9. When the system in Spinoza=s Alibrary@ is broken down, overloaded, etc., will an idea be tagged as true or false?

10. What evidence is there from developmental psychology that Descartes= model may be wrong?

11. When we are Adepleted of resources@ (cognitively taxed, tired, etc.), where are we most likely to make errors: In calling affirmed propositions false, or in calling denied propositions true? How does this support Gilbert=s thesis?

12. How does the Spinozan model allow for people to believe information that has been discredited even before it has been heard?

13. How does people=s tendency to look for confirmatory evidence support Spinoza=s model?

14. What are the advantages of the Spinozan model? Why does it usually make a lot of sense for us to have this model?