Zelma is asked to think of all the words she can, beginning with the letters "squ" (e.g., squeak). She is then given a fill-in-the-blank task on which one of the items is "s _ _ o n g." Zelma keeps trying to make "squong" a word, and has great difficulty coming up with the common word strong. Zelam's ability to solve this problem been hampered by __________.
A) mental set
B) a lack of analogy
C) hierarchical thinking
D) automatization

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Zelma's difficulty in coming up with the word strong suggests that her thinking has been constrained by a mental set, which is the tendency to approach a problem in a particular way based on past experience with similar problems or based on previous learning. In this case, Zelma may have been focused on finding words that start with "squ" due to her previous experience with the task, and this mental set prevented her from considering other possibilities like the word strong.

Zelma Is Asked to Think of All the Words She