A thirty-something year old single mom, Lorelai , lives with her teenage daughter Rory in the small town of Stars Hollow, Connecticut, with nosy and often judgmental neighbors. Rory, finished as the Valedictorian of her high school and has chosen to attend Yale University (her Grandfather’s Alma mater) even though she always dreamed of going to Harvard. Use your knowledge of AP Psychology to define each term and explain how each relates to the scenario. Belief perseverance
Representative heuristic
Observational learning
Procedural memory
Hindsight bias
Association areas
Dopamine

Belief perseverance is the tendency to cling to beliefs even after they have been discredited. Rory has chosen to attend Yale even though she has always dreamed of going to Harvard, even though she’s already made the decision to go to Yale she still clings to her dream of going to Harvard.

The representative heuristic is when one estimates the probability of events in terms of how it seems to represent or match particular prototypes, it might even lead us to ignore other relevant information. If one finished as the Valedictorian of their high school, according to certain prototypes it’s given they would go to an elite university like Yale. Rory’s nosy neighbors along with her classmates weren’t surprised that she chose to attend Yale.

Observational learning is when one learns a behavior by watching another (model) demonstrate it, as well as noting the positive and negative consequences of their actions and using this as a guide for one's own future actions. Rory knew her grandfather went to Yale and her grandfather might have been an important person in her life for her to choose Yale over her dream school Harvard.

Procedural memory is a kind of long-term memory that involves performing a variety of actions and skills. When Rory is getting ready for her first day of university, she makes herself breakfast, her favorite omelet that she has made many times. She is ready to leave she puts on her shoes, she ties her shoelaces remembering how difficult it was.

Hindsight bias is the tendency to believe after learning an outcome, that one would have foreseen it; also known as the "I knew it all along" phenomena. Her nosy and sometimes judgemental neighbors said they knew that Rory would go to Yale all along.

Association areas are the areas of the cerebral cortex that are not involved in the primary motor or sensory functions instead, it is more involved in higher mental functions like learning, remembering, thinking, and speaking. Rory used a lot of her higher mental functions like learning, remembering, thinking, and speaking, she used her association areas a lot in high school, which in turn allowed her to finish as Valedictorian of her high school.

Dopamine influences movement, learning, attention, and emotion. Being sad can really affect one's attention and learning ability in a bad way so Rory tried to stay happy by exercising in order to keep her dopamine levels high throughout school so she could do well in school.