Answers to Selected Exercises — Applied Psychology for Everyday Life

How to Use This Section

This appendix provides model answers, worked examples, and guidance for selected exercises across the book. It does not provide answers for all exercises — many exercises (particularly the personal reflection exercises, journal prompts, and self-assessment tools) have no correct answer beyond the honest one.

For exercises that are included here, the answer is best used as follows: 1. Complete the exercise yourself first, before reading the answer 2. Compare your response with the model answer to identify what you may have missed or extended 3. Use discrepancies to deepen engagement with the material, not to evaluate correctness

Chapter 4 — Cognitive Biases

Exercise 4.3 — Bias Identification in Scenarios

Scenario A: A manager reviews two candidates. The first interview went poorly due to a scheduling problem (candidate was clearly rushed). The second interview was smooth. The manager ranks the second candidate higher.

Primary bias: Halo effect (one salient positive creates a general positive impression) combined with the availability heuristic (the most recent, available impression dominates judgment). Secondary: fundamental attribution error — the manager may attribute the first candidate's rushed performance to their character rather than the situational constraint.

Debiasing approach: Blind evaluation of work samples before interview; structured scoring on pre-defined criteria before holistic ranking; explicitly consider alternative hypotheses (what situational factors could explain this presentation?).

Scenario B: An analyst reviews data on a project outcome and concludes it confirms the strategy they championed.

Primary bias: Confirmation bias — the analyst is likely searching for and weighting confirming evidence more heavily than disconfirming evidence. Secondary: commitment/consistency — having championed the strategy creates psychological pressure to validate it.

Debiasing approach: Pre-commitment to disconfirmation criteria (what would falsify this hypothesis?); devil's advocate role; red-team review by someone without investment in the outcome.

Scenario C: A person declines a dinner invitation because they don't feel like socializing, predicting they would be bored and uncomfortable. They attend anyway and have a good time.

Primary bias: Affective forecasting error — people systematically overestimate the duration and intensity of both positive and negative emotional states. Secondary: omission neglect — failing to account for factors that will influence the experience (interesting people, good food, the positive impact of genuine connection).

Debiasing approach: Track affective forecasting accuracy over time; build a personal history of situations where the predicted emotional experience did not occur.

Chapter 5 — Memory

Exercise 5.4 — Memory Consolidation Strategies

Scenario: You have attended a two-hour professional development workshop. You want to remember and apply the content.

Evidence-based consolidation strategy:

  1. Within 24 hours: Write a free-recall summary without looking at notes — pull as much as possible from memory. This retrieval attempt strengthens encoding more than re-reading. Note what you cannot recall.

  2. Spaced repetition: Return to the material at intervals (1 day, 3 days, 1 week, 1 month). The testing effect (quizzing yourself) is more effective than passive re-exposure.

  3. Elaborative encoding: Connect new information to prior knowledge. "This is similar to X principle from [existing knowledge]." The more deeply you process information in relation to existing schema, the more durable the encoding.

  4. Application intention: Within 48 hours, identify one specific situation in which you will apply one concept from the workshop. Concrete action planning strengthens the link between knowledge and behavior.

Chapter 6 — Emotion

Exercise 6.5 — Identifying the Appraisal

Scenario: You receive critical feedback on work you cared about. You feel a combination of shame, anger, and anxiety.

Appraisal analysis:

  • Shame arises from the appraisal "I am deficient" — the feedback is interpreted as evidence about who you are (global character judgment), not what you did (specific behavioral assessment). This is the self-blame + global attribution pattern.

  • Anger arises from the appraisal "This is unfair" — the evaluation of the feedback as undeserved, inconsistent with effort, or reflecting the reviewer's problem rather than your work. Anger is an other-blame emotion.

  • Anxiety arises from the appraisal "This threatens something important and I don't know if I can cope" — specifically, the future implications of the feedback for reputation, career, or ability to succeed in the domain.

Reappraisal possibilities: - Shame → "This is specific behavioral feedback about this piece of work, not a statement about my capacity." - Anger → "Can I evaluate whether this feedback is accurate before evaluating whether it is fair?" (Separating accuracy from fairness.) - Anxiety → "What is the actual worst-case consequence, and what is my actual coping capacity if it occurs?"

The goal is not to eliminate the emotional response but to evaluate whether the appraisal generating it is the most accurate available interpretation.

Chapter 9 — Identity and Self-Concept

Exercise 9.2 — Narrative Analysis

Example contamination narrative passage: "I was doing well at the program until I failed the comprehensive exam the first time. After that, everything felt harder. I couldn't stop thinking about whether I was supposed to be there."

Analysis: This passage shows contamination sequence structure (doing well → failure → global negative reframe). Key features: the single event (exam failure) is interpreted as broadly consequential (everything felt harder), and produces questioning of identity legitimacy ("supposed to be there").

Questions to open the narrative: - Was there evidence of capability before the exam that the narrative is now filtering out? - What did you learn from the experience of failing and retaking? - If a close friend described this sequence, how would you characterize their story? Is it contamination or is it a challenge in a larger arc of development?

Redemption sequence reframe: "I failed the comprehensive exam the first time. I found out that my preparation strategy was inadequate for that format, not that I was inadequate for the program. I changed my approach, retook it, and passed. I know my preparation strategy much better now than I would if I'd passed the first time."

Note: the reframe is not optimistic denial — it is the most accurate frame available, which includes both the failure and the learning.

Chapter 13 — Self-Regulation

Exercise 13.3 — Implementation Intention Design

Scenario: You want to reduce compulsive email checking during deep work time.

Poor implementation intention: "I will check email less during the morning." - Problem: No specific trigger; no specific alternative; relies on motivation to override habit.

Strong implementation intention: "When I sit down at my desk at 8:00 AM, I will close the email client and put my phone in my bag before opening any other application."

Analysis of the strong version: - Specific trigger (sitting down at desk at 8:00 AM): eliminates the decision requirement - Specific behavior (close email, phone in bag): behavioral, not aspirational - Temporal placement (before opening anything else): prevents the habit from activating before the intervention

Add-on: "When I feel the urge to check email before 10:00 AM, I will write the urge time on a sticky note and return to the current task."

This creates an alternative behavior that satisfies the monitoring impulse (the note) without disrupting deep work — addressing the function of the urge rather than merely suppressing it.

Chapter 15 — Attachment

Exercise 15.4 — Attachment Pattern in Conflict

Scenario: Your partner seems distant after a difficult conversation. You notice an impulse to pursue them — to check in, to apologize again, to seek reassurance that the relationship is okay.

Anxious attachment interpretation: The distance is activating the attachment system. The impulse to pursue is hyperactivation — an attempt to restore proximity and confirm bond security. The problem: this pursuit often produces the opposite of what it seeks, because the other person may need space while the anxious person needs contact.

Accurate threat assessment (Chapter 32 link): - Actual signal: partner is quiet after a difficult conversation - Interpreted signal (attachment pattern): relationship is threatened; partner is withdrawing; repair is needed immediately - Most accurate interpretation: this is a normal post-conflict decompression; the conversation was difficult and the partner is processing; this is not evidence of bond rupture

Self-regulation response (rather than anxious pursuit): "I notice I want to check in again. The checking-in is about my anxiety, not about information I need. I can tolerate this discomfort for 90 minutes and see what happens."

Chapter 22 — Goals and Intrinsic Motivation

Exercise 22.3 — WOOP Application

Example WOOP:

Wish: I want to establish a consistent morning practice that includes 20 minutes of reflection before checking my phone.

Outcome: Clearer thinking in the morning. More intentional start to the day. Reduced reactive email response before priorities are set.

Obstacle: I reach for my phone before I'm fully awake — it's a habitual response to waking that doesn't involve deliberate choice. Also: some mornings I have genuinely urgent early commitments that feel like they conflict.

Plan: - "When my alarm goes off, I will pick up the journal that is on my nightstand (not my phone, which is charging in the kitchen) and write for 10 minutes before doing anything else." (Implementation intention) - "When I have a genuinely urgent commitment that prevents the full practice, I will do a 3-minute shortened version: one sentence about today's intention." (Obstacle-specific plan)

Assessment of this WOOP: - The internal obstacle (habitual morning phone reach) is accurately identified and addressed structurally (phone in kitchen) - The plan includes a degraded version for obstacle conditions — the most common reason practices collapse is absence of the degraded version - The wish is realistic and time-bound enough to produce a cue-routine-reward habit structure

Chapter 24 — Decision-Making

Exercise 24.5 — The Pre-Mortem

Scenario: You are about to accept a leadership role with more scope and team size than your current position, in a company you know less well than your current employer.

Pre-mortem: Imagining it is one year later and the decision has failed badly. What happened?

Sample failure narrative: "The company's culture turned out to be significantly more political than the interview process suggested. The team I inherited was larger and more dysfunctional than presented — two high-performers had already decided to leave when I arrived. The scope was real but the resources were not; my key project was underfunded from the start. I was set up for a visible failure in month six."

What this pre-mortem reveals: 1. Information I don't have: Team dynamics; real departure intentions; resource reality vs. pitch reality 2. Questions to ask before deciding: - Can I talk to the team before accepting? (Even briefly?) - Can I see the actual budget for the priority project? - Can I speak with someone who left the company in the last 18 months? 3. Risk that is real but manageable: Cultural fit is always uncertain in a new company; the question is whether due diligence reduces the uncertainty to an acceptable level

Using the pre-mortem: Not to produce reasons to decline the opportunity, but to identify the specific information that, if obtained, would most reduce the uncertainty.

Chapter 29 — Habit Formation

Exercise 29.5 — The Minimum Viable Habit

Scenario: You want to build a daily exercise habit but have repeatedly failed to maintain an ambitious version (5 days/week, 45 minutes).

Applying the minimum viable habit:

Ambitious version (that has failed): 5 days/week, 45-minute workouts, gym membership required

Minimum viable version: "Every day, I put on workout clothes. That's it. The workout is optional."

Why this works: - The cue (morning, getting dressed) is already in the daily routine - The friction reduction (clothes on = 90% of the activation energy for exercise) means the minimum viable habit often produces the full behavior - The success criterion (clothes on) is achievable even on the worst days, preventing the abstinence violation effect - Over time, the identity shift ("I am a person who puts on workout clothes daily") precedes and enables the behavioral change

Progression: Week 1: Clothes on daily, no pressure to work out Week 2: Clothes on + a 5-minute walk (never more unless intrinsically motivated) Week 4: Habit baseline established; expand naturally

Chapter 32 — Anxiety and Depression

Exercise 32.4 — Identifying the Core Belief

Scenario: A person with significant performance anxiety identifies the following automatic thought pattern: "If I make a mistake in front of the group, they will think I'm incompetent."

Identifying the core belief:

Automatic thought: "If I make a mistake, they'll think I'm incompetent."

Downward arrow technique: - "And if they think I'm incompetent, what does that mean?" → "They'll lose respect for me." - "And if they lose respect for me?" → "I'll be excluded, or treated as lesser." - "And if that happens?" → "It means I actually am lesser. That I don't belong here."

Core belief identified: "I am fundamentally insufficient; my belonging is contingent on performance."

Clinical note: This core belief pattern is the foundation of performance anxiety and much contingent self-esteem. The treatment target is not the automatic thought ("they'll think I'm incompetent") but the core belief from which it emerges. Cognitive restructuring that challenges only the surface thought without addressing the underlying belief produces temporary relief.

Behavioral experiment to test the belief: "Make a small, deliberate error in a low-stakes group context (admit not knowing something, ask a question that reveals uncertainty). Observe what actually happens. Compare the predicted outcome (exclusion, loss of respect) with the actual outcome."

Chapter 37 — Group Dynamics

Exercise 37.4 — The Devil's Advocate Practice

Scenario: Your team has reached apparent consensus on a strategy. You are asked to serve as devil's advocate.

Effective devil's advocate practice:

Common mistake: Generating objections that sound like personal opposition or pessimism. This activates defensiveness and produces the opposite of genuine consideration.

Effective approach: 1. Frame explicitly: "My role right now is to surface the strongest possible case against this strategy, not to express my personal view." 2. Steelman the opposition: "The most serious version of the objection to this plan is..." 3. Focus on assumptions, not conclusions: "This plan assumes [specific assumption]. What would need to be true for that assumption to be wrong?" 4. Use hypothetical framing: "If someone smart were arguing against this, they would say..."

The goal of devil's advocacy: Not to generate opposing views, but to ensure that the opposing views have been genuinely heard before being dismissed. The test is whether, after the devil's advocate session, the team could accurately summarize the strongest case against their chosen direction.

Chapter 39 — Technology

Exercise 39.2 — Notification Cost Calculation

Example calculation:

  • Daily notification count: 87
  • Estimated notifications requiring immediate action: 8
  • Estimated notifications that could have waited without meaningful consequence: 79
  • Mark's interruption recovery estimate: 23 minutes

Theoretical maximum recovery cost: 79 × 23 = 1,817 minutes = 30+ hours per day

Note on interpretation: This is not an estimate of actual lost time — notifications do not each produce full 23-minute recoveries. The calculation's value is not its precision but its direction: the accumulated cost of the interruption pattern is orders of magnitude higher than intuition suggests, and most notifications are recoverable without consequence by batching.

Practical implementation: Identify the 5-10 apps generating the highest proportion of non-urgent notifications. Disable push notifications for all of them. Check on a batch schedule (2-3 times per day). Track whether any meaningful information was lost.

Most people report: essentially no meaningful information loss; substantial reduction in stress and attention fragmentation.

Additional worked examples are available in the instructor's supplement. Exercises not included here have no single correct answer — they are designed to produce honest self-assessment and personal application. The value is in the engagement, not the answer.