Chapter 15 Quiz: Cognitive Biases — A Field Guide for Platform Designers

Instructions: Select the best answer for each question. Answer key appears at the end.

Question 1. Loss aversion, as documented by Kahneman and Tversky, means that humans:

A) Tend to avoid all situations where loss is possible B) Feel the pain of losing something approximately twice as intensely as the pleasure of gaining an equivalent thing C) Systematically underestimate the probability of losses in familiar environments D) Experience losses as permanent while experiencing gains as temporary

Question 2. Which social media feature most directly exploits loss aversion?

A) The "Like" button B) Trending content labels C) Streak counters that reset if a user misses a day D) Recommended accounts to follow

Question 3. Social proof, as described by Robert Cialdini, is the tendency to:

A) Share content that makes oneself look good to one's social network B) Look to others' behavior as information about correct action in uncertain situations C) Trust authority figures more than peers when evaluating health information D) Prefer content that is endorsed by people similar to oneself

Question 4. The Muchnik et al. (2013) experiment demonstrated that:

A) Positive emotional content spreads faster than negative emotional content on social media B) Randomly assigning an upvote to a comment increased its final score by 32% C) Users who receive social proof cues engage with social media 50% more than control groups D) Verified accounts receive significantly more engagement than unverified accounts with identical content

Question 5. Authority bias is most directly exploited by which social media feature?

A) The follower count displayed on all public profiles B) The "trending" label applied to popular content C) The verification checkmark, which signals identity but functions as a credibility signal D) The "Explore" page, which surfaces content outside a user's following list

Question 6. The scarcity heuristic — the tendency to assign greater value to rare or limited-time resources — is directly exploited by:

A) Like counts and share metrics B) Ephemeral content formats that disappear after 24 hours C) Personalized advertising based on browsing behavior D) The notification center that aggregates all alerts in one place

Question 7. The anchoring effect in the context of algorithmic recommendation means that:

A) The first accounts a new user follows determine who the algorithm recommends to them forever B) Early engagement signals create a user profile that disproportionately influences subsequent content selection C) Content that appears at the top of a feed is seen as more authoritative than content lower in the feed D) The first ad a user sees in a session primes them to engage with subsequent ads from the same brand

Question 8. The availability heuristic leads to distorted risk assessments because:

A) People cannot accurately recall how many times they have used social media in a given week B) Events that are vivid, recent, or emotionally significant feel more probable than their actual frequency warrants C) Users tend to believe that risks that have happened to their friends are less likely to happen to them D) Social media algorithms systematically show users only positive outcomes, reducing perceived risk

Question 9. Which research finding best supports the claim that algorithmic recommendation produces echo chambers through confirmation bias?

A) Salganik et al. (2006) found that manipulation of apparent popularity substantially altered which songs became hits B) Bail et al. (2018) found that exposure to opposing views on Twitter did not reduce political polarization C) Kahneman and Tversky (1974) found that initial anchors disproportionately influence subsequent judgments D) Utz et al. (2019) found that cookie consent banner design significantly affects tracking consent rates

Question 10. The Zeigarnik effect is best described as:

A) The tendency to like things more the more you are exposed to them B) The human cognitive tendency to remember uncompleted tasks better than completed ones C) The feeling of social obligation created by receiving an unexpected gift or favor D) The distress caused by receiving contradictory information from trusted sources

Question 11. Notification badges (the red circles with numbers on app icons) most directly exploit:

A) The mere exposure effect B) Social proof C) The Zeigarnik effect D) Loss aversion

Question 12. The reciprocity norm in social media contexts means that:

A) Users feel obligated to reciprocate follows, likes, or messages, even from accounts they have no genuine interest in B) Users expect social media platforms to reciprocate their engagement with personalized content C) Users share content that matches the political views of their social network to avoid conflict D) Users feel that their personal data should be compensated if it is used for advertising

Question 13. Brady et al. (2017) found that each moral-emotional word in a social media message increased its retweet rate by approximately:

A) 5% B) 12% C) 20% D) 35%

Question 14. In-group/out-group bias is exploited by social media algorithms primarily because:

A) Content framed in terms of group conflict reliably produces more engagement than neutral content B) Users tend to follow accounts associated with their in-group identity C) Algorithm designers consciously program systems to amplify divisive content D) Social media users are more politically extreme than the general population

Question 15. Tali Sharot's research on optimism bias found that the bias is:

A) Limited to high-risk situations where accurate probability estimation is difficult B) Present across cultures, age groups, and socioeconomic contexts, and appears neurologically rooted C) Stronger in younger users and decreases with age and life experience D) Found primarily in people who score high on dispositional optimism personality measures

Question 16. The mere exposure effect means that:

A) Repeated exposure to platform design increases users' ability to recognize its manipulative elements B) Repeated exposure to a stimulus increases liking for it, independent of conscious evaluation C) Users who see more of a certain type of content tend to believe that content is more representative of reality D) Advertisers can increase purchase intent simply by making users aware of a product category

Question 17. Nir Eyal's Hooked model describes a four-step cycle. Which of the following correctly identifies all four steps?

A) Desire, Trigger, Action, Reinforcement B) Trigger, Action, Variable Reward, Investment C) Notification, Engagement, Reward, Retention D) External Cue, Response, Dopamine Release, Habit Formation

Question 18. The "Variable Reward" component of the Hooked model is psychologically powerful primarily because:

A) It ensures that users always receive a reward, creating reliable positive reinforcement B) It creates unpredictable reinforcement schedules, which behavioral psychology research shows are more resistant to extinction than predictable ones C) It allows platforms to tailor rewards to individual user preferences based on behavioral data D) It converts external rewards (notifications) into internal rewards (habit and identity)

Question 19. The Facebook Emotional Contagion experiment (Kramer et al., 2014) manipulated the News Feeds of approximately how many users?

A) 50,000 B) 250,000 C) 689,000 D) 1.2 million

Question 20. The core ethical objection to the Emotional Contagion experiment was:

A) That the experiment found no significant effect, making the research scientifically dubious B) That Facebook had conducted psychological research on users who had not consented to research participation C) That the manipulation of emotional content violated Facebook's own terms of service D) That the academic collaborators at Cornell failed to disclose their conflict of interest with Facebook

Question 21. What was the finding of the Emotional Contagion experiment regarding the effect of feed manipulation on users' emotional expression?

A) Reducing negative content in the feed significantly reduced users' reports of depression and anxiety B) Users exposed to fewer positive posts used slightly more negative words in their own posts; users exposed to fewer negative posts used slightly more positive words C) The manipulation had no statistically significant effect on user-generated content D) Users who had their feeds manipulated were more likely to share news content and less likely to share personal posts

Question 22. Which of the following best describes why Nir Eyal published Indistractable (2019) as a follow-up to Hooked (2014)?

A) He discovered that the Hooked model was scientifically incorrect and wanted to correct the record B) He was responding to regulatory pressure from the EU following GDPR implementation C) He shifted from teaching companies to engineer habit to teaching individuals to resist the mechanisms he had previously described, reflecting on the reception of Hooked D) He was commissioned by Facebook to develop a framework for ethical habit formation that would address growing public criticism

Chapter 15 Quiz: Cognitive Biases — A Field Guide for Platform Designers

Answer Key