Mental Traps Quiz – Printable Version
20 multiple-choice questions with an explained answer key, ready to print.
Print the sheet (or save it as a PDF from the print window), hand it out, then mark it together using the answer page: every answer is explained. Perfect for a party, a birthday, a classroom, a care home or a team activity.
Name: ………………………………Score: ……… / 20
- Which bias leads us to overestimate our own skills or knowledge?
- A. Confirmation bias
- B. Dunning-Kruger effect
- C. Anchoring bias
- D. Halo effect
- Which optical illusion makes two lines of equal length appear different?
- A. Müller-Lyer illusion
- B. Café wall illusion
- C. Zöllner illusion
- D. Ponzo illusion
- Which bias leads us to judge a person globally based on a single characteristic?
- A. Halo effect
- B. Availability bias
- C. Confirmation bias
- D. Anchoring bias
- Which illusion makes circles of the same size appear different depending on their surroundings?
- A. Ebbinghaus illusion
- B. Zöllner illusion
- C. Müller-Lyer illusion
- D. Ponzo illusion
- Which bias leads us to make decisions based on initial information, even if it is irrelevant?
- A. Negativity bias
- B. Anchoring bias
- C. Availability bias
- D. Confirmation bias
- Which bias leads us to believe that others think like us?
- A. Confirmation bias
- B. Availability bias
- C. Anchoring bias
- D. False consensus effect
- Which bias leads us to attribute our successes to our skills and our failures to external factors?
- A. Self-serving bias
- B. Anchoring bias
- C. Availability bias
- D. Confirmation bias
- Why do we struggle to react when a car comes at us the wrong way?
- A. Because the surprise effect temporarily paralyses our reaction
- B. Because our brain misjudges the other vehicle's speed
- C. Because the brain needs time to correct a situation perceived as abnormal
- D. Because a cognitive bias leads us to underestimate the danger
- How does the brain interpret ambiguous signals in a stressful environment?
- A. It ignores them
- B. It requests more information
- C. It amplifies them positively
- D. It interprets them as threats by default
- Which phenomenon explains why we find it difficult to change our minds even when faced with tangible evidence?
- A. Cognitive inertia
- B. Belief perseverance
- C. Functional fixedness
- D. Mental rigidity
- How does our brain handle contradictory information when making a decision?
- A. It amplifies it
- B. It discards it to avoid cognitive dissonance
- C. It integrates all of it
- D. It stores it for later
- Why does the brain struggle to accept change?
- A. It is biologically incapable of change
- B. Due to lack of neuroplasticity
- C. It prefers the comfort of the familiar to save energy
- D. It fears the unknown
- What tendency leads our brain to forget the unpleasant details of a memory over time?
- A. Positivity bias
- B. Memory rewriting
- C. Adaptive forgetting
- D. Fading Affect Bias
- Why does the brain tend to create linear stories from disconnected events?
- A. Narrative bias
- B. Need for coherence
- C. Memory construction
- D. Causality bias
- Which effect explains our difficulty in objectively evaluating our own emotions?
- A. Reflexive deficit
- B. Introspection bias
- C. Introspection illusion
- D. Emotional myopia
- Which bias leads us to overestimate our ability to have predicted an event after it occurred?
- A. Survivorship bias
- B. Hindsight bias
- C. Mastery bias
- D. Prediction illusion
- How does the brain react to information overload?
- A. It stores it in long-term memory
- B. It overloads completely
- C. It activates selective filtering
- D. It processes it more slowly
- Why do we perceive similarities between people from groups outside our own?
- A. Group bias
- B. Cognitive stereotyping
- C. Out-group homogeneity effect
- D. Categorisation bias
- How does the framing bias influence our choices?
- A. The way information is presented changes our judgement
- B. It pushes us towards the safest choice
- C. It only influences our emotions
- D. It makes us more rational
- What is the tendency to remember unfinished tasks better than completed ones called?
- A. The Zeigarnik effect
- B. The Barnum effect
- C. The mere-exposure effect
- D. The Stroop effect
Answer key — Mental Traps Quiz
- B. Dunning-Kruger effectThe Dunning-Kruger effect is a cognitive bias whereby less competent individuals overestimate their own abilities.
- A. Müller-Lyer illusionThe Müller-Lyer illusion uses arrow heads to make two lines of equal length appear different.
- A. Halo effectThe halo effect is the tendency to let a general impression (positive or negative) influence our judgements on specific aspects.
- A. Ebbinghaus illusionThe Ebbinghaus illusion uses circles of different sizes to make equally sized circles appear different.
- B. Anchoring biasThe anchoring bias is the tendency to rely too heavily on the first piece of information encountered (the 'anchor') when making decisions.
- D. False consensus effectThe false consensus effect is the tendency to overestimate the extent to which others share our beliefs and behaviours.
- A. Self-serving biasThe self-serving bias is the tendency to attribute successes to internal factors (such as skills) and failures to external factors.
- C. Because the brain needs time to correct a situation perceived as abnormalWhen a situation is perceived as abnormal (such as a car going the wrong way), the brain takes extra time to process the information and adjust its perception in order to trigger the appropriate reaction.
- D. It interprets them as threats by defaultUnder stress, the brain prioritises survival and interprets ambiguity as a potential danger.
- B. Belief perseveranceThe brain tends to maintain initial beliefs even after the evidence that founded them has been refuted.
- B. It discards it to avoid cognitive dissonanceTo avoid psychological discomfort (dissonance), the brain minimises or rejects information contradicting the decision made.
- C. It prefers the comfort of the familiar to save energyThe brain processes the familiar automatically and cheaply, whereas the new requires a significant energy expenditure.
- D. Fading Affect BiasThe Fading Affect Bias is the tendency for the negative emotions associated with a memory to fade faster than the positive ones.
- A. Narrative biasThe brain is designed to create meaning and uses the narrative bias to link independent facts into a coherent story.
- C. Introspection illusionWe believe we understand the causes of our behaviours and emotions better than we actually do.
- B. Hindsight biasThis is the tendency to believe, after the fact, that we had predicted the event or that it was inevitable.
- C. It activates selective filteringFaced with overload, the brain uses filters to process only a fraction of the available information.
- C. Out-group homogeneity effectWe tend to see members of an outside group as all identical, while perceiving diversity within our own group.
- A. The way information is presented changes our judgementPresenting the same situation positively or negatively (e.g.
- A. The Zeigarnik effectPsychologist Bluma Zeigarnik reportedly noticed it in Viennese waiters: they remembered unpaid orders, then forgot them as soon as they were settled.