ShmoopTube

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And here's your shmoop du jour brought to you by $1,000,000 these

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shmoop teachers are getting pricey so into will wait for a Black Friday deal [Little girl putting coins in piggy bank]

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all right here's a question Joe and Mike are asked to think of creative ways that

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save the company 1 million dollars next year

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Joe is told that a solution is needed quickly or many people will lose their

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jobs while Mike is told that a quick solution is needed so that the jobs of

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many people can be saved the difference in the way that the problem is presented

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is referred to as what ?

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all right 1 million a lot of pressure we'd really hate to be Joe and Mike [Joe and Mike appear together]

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right now so what's the difference between Joe and Mike trying to save

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people jobs and Joe and Mike trying to stop people from losing their jobs

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answer nothing but the distinction that Joe and Mike's bosses are making is a [Joe and Mike's boss appears in office]

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conscious one but how would we describe it well not with the term fixedness

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that's for sure functional fixedness is a cognitive bias

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that limits them individual to using an object in the way it's normally used so

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let's say Joe and Mike were tasked with popping a bunch of balloons and they [Balloons appear in a box]

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came across a fork while Joe and Mike experienced functional fixedness they [Joe and Mike popping balloons]

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would say that the fork couldn't possibly be used for popping balloons

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because it's only used for eating food let's go in Mike these balloons well [Man eating a balloon]

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this is in our answer but hey we're not judging what you want guys you're the

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million dollar idea man the answer isn't see either a mental set describes the

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way in which we group problems in order to see solutions for similar problems

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from the past well if Joe and Mike were instead tasked

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with opening a stuck jelly jar they might recall that running a jar under [Man attempts to open jelly jar]

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hot water worked last time and they'd assume this would work again mental says [Jar thrown into hot water]

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however sometimes lead people away from seeing more obvious solutions like the

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arrows indicating to twist the other way and this that's the brightest bulbs

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today go and microwave well D) anchoring

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describes the cognitive bias where and people rely too heavily on the first

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piece of information they receive and then anchor into it so if we first said

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to Joe and Mike that we clean out their gutters for $200 they think it was a [Lots of leaves stuffed into a gutter]

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ridiculous prize sure but they be anchored into thinking it's a price we

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realistically want so we'd scale down a bit because we're

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nice people and Joe and Mike would think they were given an awesome deal but [Joe and Mike look at anchor in shop window]

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ultimately cleaning up gutters is something people do for less than an

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eighth of our first price anchoring a great tactic for used-car salesmen and

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sailors alike but not our answer and adjustment describes the way we balance

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conflicting needs if we're peelin Thursday we adjust our behavior to take [Joe takes sip of water]

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the water and meet that need if we're tired we find a way to get some rest and [Mike sleeping]

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for hungry left we're even enjoy a package of Oreos that's the immediate

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success so E is not what we're looking for well that just leaves us with a

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framing framing describes the way in which a problem is presented or framed

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depending on the framing of a problem humans can be motivated or limited in [Man inspecting problem in a frame]

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their creativity in general humans don't like taking risk

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so when problems are presented in terms of a loss like it was the joke

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he's far less likely to take risk or be creative but because Mike's problem was

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framed in terms of saving jobs he's more inclined to get creative with a solution [Mike appears and dogs parachute either side of him]

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because there's no risk of loss looming over his head some generalists best of

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frame problems in the most neutral way possible so a is the correct answer

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let's definitely guys are still snacking on jelly covered balloons and what [Joe and Mike eating balloons]

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company might want to look elsewhere for a million-dollar solution just a thought

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