Critical Thinking Chapter 3 Summary

Representativeness Bias or Representativeness Heuristic is a shortcut in trying to associate present people or events to past experience. It is the probability that event A is connected to event B because they share common physical characteristics. We observe a person or object and if it shares similar qualities from another object we are familiar with, then we assume that the object is a part of that category.

While the media might not directly contribute to discrimination, the media is undoubtedly a significant aspect of modern day society that influences how people think about racial issues (Royce, 2009, p. 1, 17). Many people claim that racism no longer exists; however, the minorities’ struggle with injustice is ubiquitous. Whites are attempting to keep blacks and other minority families locked into an impoverished political and economic position by using various tactics to isolate them, such as mass incarceration that stems from the War on Drugs. The New Jim Crow helps us in seeing how history is repeating itself and how to legalized discrimination among the blacks and Hispanics by implementing the mass incarceration.

My mother and I is quite similar to one another, except with connection. Mom likes to be surrounded by her family, close friends and dependent on others. The contrast, I am independent but I do like being close to my family and friends.

In terms of the anchoring bias, regularly revisit of the original decision based on the newly gathered data needs to be set up within the organization. Additionally, the decision maker should avoid the Confirmation Trap in which Bazerman and Moore (2009) argues that people tend to seek information that confirms their expectations and hypotheses. To recognize the bias, Mike Francis could

If the salience of various aspects of an outcome is not the same when it is chosen or experienced then anchoring on the current state also causes errors. For example, the purchase of membership in

As previously mentioned, one of the most fundamental aspects of determining a desired goal with the best statistical probabilities of success includes approaching the process in a truly objective fashion. Generally speaking though, personal bias or its influence tends to become interjected as a natural occurrence in human processes even where its prevention remains a high priority. That would also seem to indicate that emotions strongly warrant omission in the decision-making process and there is significant literary support for that line of thinking. However, the technical literature demonstrates considerable contradictions worthy of at least a modicum of discussion here and perhaps some clarification to boot. Antonio Damasio, a world renowned

All humans are flawed in that their brains immediately want to come to one conclusion or another and can subconsciously lead themselves to a conclusion even when attempting to reduce cognitive and perceptual biases. To combat this, there will be the need to implement checks and balances on the human brain in order to ensure that there are few or no biases being reached by the brain. Much of this can be done by exercising some of the tactics of checks and balances as highlighted by readings this week. A simple concept, it states; that in respect to the outcome of an analysis, if the opposite outcome was reached would I, the analyst be surprised by that outcome? This is an interesting method to check the human brain and ensure that a thought provoking and rational decision is reached. The perception of a situation by the human mind is something that is more fragile the longer the mind is exposed to that perception. As it is based on the expectation of what the situation is, it is difficult to stop the mind from creating a picture of

Representative Heuristics is used in making judgments under uncertainty. In making judgments, people usually pay attention to the similarity between such event and a standard process. In one example, when I had severe pain and had ulcers in my stomach, everybody in the family asked me about whether I had experienced stress and worries over my life. Everybody was concerned that I was young and had started worrying about life to the point of developing ulcers. In so doing, they referred to a similar case in the neighborhood where severe mental stress had resulted in severe ulcers. Yet, the ulcers were caused by a certain bacterial infection in my stomach. It was successfully treated and I regained my health.

The availability heuristic is strongly contained in this scenario. In the scenario the incident of the woman who was killed by a shark followed by what the media reported about the shark attack influenced me to think that I was prone to getting bitten by a shark if my friends and I decided to go swimming.

Chapters sixteen through eighteen delve into three heuristics: the heuristic of causes trumping statistics, the heuristic of regression to the mean, and the heuristic of intuitive predictions. All three of the heuristics control our daily lives more greatly than we realize and influence our humanity in a variety of ways; however, the heuristic of regression to the mean caught my attention most firmly. Not only is this heuristic unique to the human mind, but it also helps explain why we approach certain topics or ideas the way we do.

Decision making is a process that involves an individual to make a choice between multiple options available. In an often subconscious effort to facilitate that choice, a person may use heuristics. Heuristics are general strategies to arrive at a correct conclusion (Matlin, 2013). They have been described as “mental shortcuts” to make decisions rapidly. These are adaptive, based on one’s past experiences, and often instantaneous tools one uses to produce what is hoped to be the best outcome when faced with a choice. Three of the most commonly used heuristics in the decision making process are the representative heuristic, the availability heuristic, and the anchoring and adjustment heuristic. While these

107). This finding has been supported through many forms of research but one of the most influential studies was found in the research study of Fischhoff (1977). In his study, Fischhoff had people answer general questions and divided them in three different groups – the memory group, the hypothetical group, and the reliability group. The memory and reliability groups were all asked to answer questions and recall their responses; only the memory group was given knowledge of the right answers. On the other hand, the hypothetical group was given the correct answers and then asked to indicate how they would have answered the questions if they did not know them (Bradfield & Wells, 2005, p. 120). Fischhoff’s study proved to be groundbreaking for the development of hindsight bias research. He discovered many signs of hindsight bias in both the hypothetical group and the memory

It is an ultimate consequence of the huge volume of accessible information. Several decision biases such as heuristic thinking, narrow framing, or choice bracketing are the consequences of limited attention. Psychological literature has identified two basic features of human information processing: i) selection of the set of items and ii) the processing of selected items by allocating limited mental resources (Pashler, 1998). Consider a situation where a student focuses on understanding the academic implications of taking PhD-level courses in the very first semester, s/he may be unable to focus on dissertation research carefully at the same time. Additionally, attentional biases can influence individual’s beliefs which depends on the memory and salient information processing (Tversky and Kahneman, 1973). Therefore, limited attention would be a special case of divided attention under heuristic thinking and information processing (Lacetera et al.,

Poldma dissects the Interior Design one element at a time. Her book will assist with the research

CSGC required reading “Problem Solving and Psychological Traps” illustrates how cognitive biases influence and affect decisions through psychological factors, paradigms and facts and assumptions in which ultimately affect how an individual makes a decision. Therefore, hidden psychological traps significantly impact leaders’ decision-making processes. Psychological factors termed heuristics are a mental shortcut based on past experiences for making decisions; sometimes even referred to as common sense or an easy way to solve problems. Cognitive biases are likely to affect how and why leaders will make their decisions. If leaders do not surround themselves with an effective staff (i.e. team) who can identify and communicate the cognitive biases that exist within one’s own framework,