![]() Might you ask each person to pay more in rent to get the $2,000 home? Why would the realtor show you the run-down houses and the nice house? The realtor may be challenging your anchoring bias. The realtor shows you only very run-down houses for $1,600 and then shows you a very nice house for $2,000. For example, let’s say you and three friends wanted to rent a house and had a combined target budget of $1,600. Sometimes, however, we are swayed by biases or by others manipulating a situation. ![]() Often, this knowledge and reasoning is sound and solid. In order to make good decisions, we use our knowledge and our reasoning. It was determined that functional fixedness is experienced in both industrialized and nonindustrialized cultures (German & Barrett, 2005). The researchers wanted to know if exposure to highly specialized tools, as occurs with individuals in industrialized nations, affects their ability to transcend functional fixedness. The spoon was the only object long enough to span the imaginary river, but if the spoon was presented in a way that reflected its normal usage, it took participants longer to choose the spoon to solve the problem. For example, the participants were told a story about a bear and a rabbit that were separated by a river and asked to select among various objects, including a spoon, a cup, erasers, and so on, to help the animals. In one experiment, individuals from the Shuar group in Ecuador were asked to use an object for a purpose other than that for which the object was originally intended. Researchers have investigated whether functional fixedness is affected by culture. The engineers found a way for the astronauts to use spare plastic bags, tape, and air hoses to create a makeshift air filter, which saved the lives of the astronauts.Ĭheck out this Apollo 13 scene where the group of NASA engineers are given the task of overcoming functional fixedness. The astronauts were in danger of being poisoned by rising levels of carbon dioxide because of problems with the carbon dioxide filters. An explosion in a module of the spacecraft damaged multiple systems. During the Apollo 13 mission to the moon, NASA engineers at Mission Control had to overcome functional fixedness to save the lives of the astronauts aboard the spacecraft. Functional fixedness is a type of mental set where you cannot perceive an object being used for something other than what it was designed for. A mental set is where you persist in approaching a problem in a way that has worked in the past but is clearly not working now. The person is stuck-but she just needs to go to another doorway, instead of trying to get out through the locked doorway. The person, accustomed to exiting the room by that particular doorway, keeps trying to get out through the same doorway even though the other three doorways are open. One doorway that has always been open in the past is now locked. What challenges stop us from successfully solving a problem? Albert Einstein once said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.” Imagine a person in a room that has four doorways. Not all problems are successfully solved, however. Explain some common roadblocks to effective problem solving.
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