Clipmarks | n2sooners's 'bias' clips

7 Thinking Errors You Probably Make

Sun, 09 Dec 2007 17:14:13 GMT

clipped by: gingembre
clipper's remarks: Common thinking errors explained, each backed by a scientific study. Food for thought!

Clip Source: www.lifehack.org

The brain isn’t a flawless piece of machinery. Although it is powerful and comes in an easy to carry container, it has it’s weaknesses. A field in psychology which studies these errors, known as biases. Although you can’t upgrade your mental hardware, noticing these biases can clue you into possible mistakes

The entire domain of the scientific method has largely been an effort to overcome the natural inclination towards bias in reasoning

common thinking errors:

1) Confirmation Bias

tendency to seek information to prove, rather than disprove our theories

2) Hindsight Bias

see past results as appearing more probable than they did initially

3) Clustering Illusion

see patterns where none actually exist

4) Recency Effect

give more weight to recent data

5) Anchoring Bias

a well-known problem with negotiations

6) Overconfidence Effect

people tend to grossly overestimate their abilities

7) Fundamental Attribution Error

Mistaking personality and character traits for differences caused by situations

Tags: psychology, human nature, bias, thinking, reasoning, critical thinking

Multiple intelligences

Sun, 23 Sep 2007 05:37:18 GMT

clipped by: pokkets
clipper's remarks: People think in different ways, have different talents, learn differently,and understand things in different ways. The education system is biased towards linguistic, thinking, and logical thinking to a lesser degree. People with strengths in other fields, could be taught in a way more suited to their talents

Clip Source: www.tecweb.org

Howard Gardner of Harvard has identified seven distinct intelligences. This theory has emerged from recent cognitive research and "documents the extent to which students possess different kinds of minds and therefore learn, remember, perform, and understand in different ways," according to Gardner (1991)

Visual-Spatial - think in terms of physical space, as do architects and sailors.

Bodily-kinesthetic - use the body effectively, like a dancer or a surgeon.

Musical - show sensitivity to rhythm and sound. They love music, but they are also sensitive to sounds in their environments

Interpersonal - understanding, interacting with others. These students learn through interaction.

Intrapersonal - understanding one's own interests, goals. These learners tend to shy away from others.

Linguistic - using words effectively. These learners have highly developed auditory skills and often think in words.

Logical -Mathematical - reasoning, calculating. Think conceptually, abstractly

Tags: intelligence, thinking, learning, mind, bias

Repetition Makes False Beliefs Permanent

Mon, 10 Sep 2007 03:24:18 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks: Politicians and other unscrupulous types have long exploited what psychological studies are now confirming: due to the neurophysiology of the learning process, simple repetitive association between two concepts is enough to make false propositions "feel" true and well-supported.

Worse, after enough exposure to such associations, subsequent denials can strengthen the perception of the falsehood instead of weakening it. (This is a major reason why the stigma of a false accusation can persist even after innocence is proven.)

Indeed, repetition seems to be a key culprit. Things that are repeated often become more accessible in memory, and one of the brain's subconscious rules of thumb is that easily recalled things are true.

Clip Source: www.washingtonpost.com

Persistence of Myths Could Alter Public Policy Approach

Contrary to the conventional notion that people absorb information in a deliberate manner, the studies show that the brain uses subconscious "rules of thumb" that can bias it into thinking that false information is true. Clever manipulators can take advantage of this tendency.

Clip Source: www.washingtonpost.com

The experiments do not show that denials are completely useless; if that were true, everyone would believe the myths. But the mind's bias does affect many people, especially those who want to believe the myth for their own reasons, or those who are only peripherally interested and are less likely to invest the time and effort needed to firmly grasp the facts.

The research also highlights the disturbing reality that once an idea has been implanted in people's minds, it can be difficult to dislodge. Denials inherently require repeating the bad information, which may be one reason they can paradoxically reinforce it.

Tags: politics, psychology, bias, manipulation, urban legends, beliefs, brain, cognitive science, myths, learning

Characteristics of Critical Thinkers

Sun, 27 May 2007 19:18:25 GMT

clipped by: willhelm

Clip Source: www.studygs.net

They are honest with themselves
They resist manipulation
They overcome confusion
They ask questions
They base judgments on evidence
They look for connections between subjects
They are intellectually independent

Tags: thinking, education, learning, issues, bias

26 Reasons What You Think is Right is Wrong

Fri, 16 Feb 2007 06:55:00 GMT

clipped by: f_pereztrejo

Clip Source: healthbolt.net

26 Reasons What You Think is Right is Wrong

Bandwagon effect - the tendency to do (or believe) things because many other people do (or believe) the same. Related to groupthink, herd behaviour, and manias. Carl Jung pioneered the idea of the collective unconscious which is considered by Jungian psychologists to be responsible for this cognitive bias.

Choice-supportive bias - the tendency to remember one’s choices as better than they actually were.

Illusion of control - the tendency for human beings to believe they can control or at least influence outcomes which they clearly cannot.

Neglect of probability - the tendency to completely disregard probability when making a decision under uncertainty.

Tags: risk, decision making

Ten Ways to Make Sure That Peace Stays Dead

Tue, 28 Nov 2006 11:41:24 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks:

Too many people on each side see the other as wholly culpable. Too many people on each side see themselves as wholly innocent, wholly victimized, ill-served by the well-meaning, abandoned by former allies, betrayed by the media, misunderstood by people who should know better, forgotten by the world.

Too many people on each side see only the suffering that has been caused them. Too many people have learned to wall themselves off from the suffering that they have caused.

Clip Source: www.haaretz.com

Ten ways to make sure that peace stays dead

By Bradley Burston

1. There is only one side to any story. My side.

2. The people on the other side, children included, are undeserving of sympathy.

3. Even the maimed and the dead on the other side are undeserving of sympathy.

4. The term massacre may only be used to describe casualties on my side.

5. The automatic fire, bombing, shelling or other lethal action taken by my side are acts of self-defense. If there are fatalities as a result of fire by my side, whether intentional or incidental, they deserved to die.

6. The concept of drawing comparisons of moral equivalency or mutual responsibility for violence is, in all cases, obscene, disgraceful, artificial, mendacious.

All political, military, social and religious modalities can be reduced to pure victims and pure villains, which is to say, Us and Them, which is to say, Us and animals/murderers/mass-murderers/racist genocidalists/Nazis/Hitler.

Option 7A: The goal of the left, the center, this newspaper, its writers, even some of its readers, is the destruction of the State of Israel.

Option 7B: The destruction of Israel is a worthwhile goal.

8. If I am a pro-Israel extremist, responding to a pro-Israel moderate, I should attack and dismiss the writer as a whiner, a crybaby, a defeatist, a moron, a wimp, an imbecile, a self-hater, an extreme leftist, naïve, brainwashed, a pipe-dreamer, duped by the pro-Arab bias of the mass media, a traitor.

9. If I am a pro-Palestinian extremist, responding to a pro-Palestinian moderate, I should immediately dismiss the writer as a sell-out, a fool, misguided, an Uncle Tom, unaware of the real facts, duped by a the pro-Israel bias of the mass media, a traitor.

10. The depth of my conviction, that is, the degree of my extremism, is directly proportional to the distance from my home to the Holy Land. The farther away, the more foaming-at-the-mouth my fanaticism.

Tags: israel, palestine, palestinians, israelis, middle east, war, terrorism, peace, list, suffering, victimization, vengeance, revenge, compromise, enemy, sympathy, fanatacism, extremism, dead, politics

Oh yeah, and don't trust yourself either!

Sat, 12 May 2007 09:41:19 GMT

clipped by: ouyangwulong
clipper's remarks: The Chinese philosopher Xun Zi said that human nature is not particularly good, but he went on to argue that doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to make it better. Too many people resign themselves to say "that's just the way things are" because that's easier than challenging their own beliefs.

Before we can be an agent for change, our ideas must be relentlessly refined in the furnace of critical introspection.

Follow the link to read all these cognitive hazards, and see where you find them in your life!

Clip Source: healthbolt.net

A cognitive bias is something that our minds commonly do to distort our own view of reality. Here are the 26 most studied and widely accepted cognitive biases.

Confirmation bias - the tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one’s preconceptions.

Congruence bias - the tendency to test hypotheses exclusively through direct testing.

Contrast effect - the enhancement or diminishment of a weight or other measurement when compared with recently observed contrasting object.

Déformation professionnelle - the tendency to look at things according to the conventions of one’s own profession, forgetting any broader point of view.

Disconfirmation bias - the tendency for people to extend critical scrutiny to information which contradicts their prior beliefs and uncritically accept information that is congruent with their prior beliefs.

Illusion of control - the tendency for human beings to believe they can control or at least influence outcomes which they clearly cannot.

Tags: cognative blind spots, logic, politics, mind, science

Introduction to critical thinking

Fri, 12 Jan 2007 19:33:37 GMT

clipped by: kankamuso
clipper's remarks: Good article at source site.

Clip Source: www.freeinquiry.com

Raymond S. Nickerson (1987), an authority on critical thinking, characterizes a good critical thinker in terms of knowledge, abilities, attitudes, and habitual ways of behaving. Here are some of the characteristics of such a thinker:

uses evidence skillfully and impartially
organizes thoughts and articulates them concisely and coherently
distinguishers between logically valid and invalid inferences
suspends judgment in the absence of sufficient evidence to support a decision
understands the difference between reasoning and rationalizing
attempts to anticipate the probable consequences of alternative actions
understands the idea of degrees of belief
sees similarities and analogies that are not superficially apparent
can learn independently and has an abiding interest in doing so
applies problem-solving techniques in domains other than those in which learned
can structure informally represented problems in such a way that formal techniques, such as mathematics, can be used to solve them
can strip a verbal argument of irrelevancies and phrase it in its essential terms
habitually questions one's own views and attempts to understand both the assumptions that are critical to those views and the implications of the views
is sensitive to the difference between the validity of a belief and the intensity with which it is held
is aware of the fact that one's understanding is always limited, often much more so than would be apparent to one with a noninquiring attitude
recognizes the fallibility of one's own opinions, the probability of bias in those opinions, and the danger of weighting evidence according to personal preferences

Tags: critical thinking, psychology, learning

26 Ways We Decieve Ourselves

Thu, 31 May 2007 05:49:56 GMT

clipped by: _Bane_
clipper's remarks: Pretty good list with links defining each of the different ways we deceive ourselves. We are all probably guilty of quite a few of these.

Interesting read.

Clip Source: www.healthbolt.net

Confirmation bias - the tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one’s preconceptions.

Neglect of probability - the tendency to completely disregard probability when making a decision under uncertainty.

Outcome bias - the tendency to judge a decision by its eventual outcome instead of based on the quality of the decision at the time it was made.

Selective perception - the tendency for expectations to affect perception.

Status quo bias - the tendency for people to like things to stay relatively the same.

Tags: debate, argument, perception, mind, humanity

'Mind's eye' influences visual perception

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 10:14:20 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: ..even a single instance of imagery can tilt how you see the world one way or another..

Clip Source: www.physorg.com

Letting your imagination run away with you may actually influence how you see the world. New research from Vanderbilt University has found that mental imagery—what we see with the "mind's eye"—directly impacts our visual perception.

"We found that imagery leads to a short-term memory trace that can bias future perception," says Joel Pearson, research associate in the Vanderbilt Department of Psychology. and lead author of the study. "This is the first research to definitively show that imagining something changes vision both while you are imagining it and later on."

"You might think you need to imagine something 10 times or 100 times before it has an impact,"

Our results show that even a single instance of imagery can tilt how you see the world one way or another, dramatically, if the conditions are right."

"These findings are important because they suggest a potential mechanism by which top-down expectations or recollections of previous experiences might shape perception itself,"

Tags: 'mind's eye', visual perception, brain, imagination

Political Junkies: Why it Feels Good to Be an Extremist

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 02:28:12 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks: In The Political Brain, psychologist Drew Western summarizes fMRI experiments exploring the neuro-psychology of systematic bias and rationalization in the brains of political extremists. Finding ways to dismiss contradictory evidence triggers pleasant emotional releases in partisans' brains, eventually becoming a pleasurable, learned behavior.

Once partisans had found a way to reason to false conclusions, not only did neural circuits involved in negative emotions turn off, but circuits involved in positive emotions turned on.

The partisan brain didn't seem satisfied in just feeling better. It worked overtime to feel good, activating reward circuits that give partisans a jolt of positive reinforcement for their biased "reasoning."

These reward circuits overlap substantially with those activated when drug addicts get their "fix," giving new meaning to the term political junkie.
Clip Source: daily.sightline.org
How is it that even smart people can ignore a pile of evidence that contradicts their deeply-held beliefs. Why is it I get a rush when I'm making fun of a politician I don't agree with -- even if it's his flubs or quirks I'm mocking, not necessarily his ideas?
According to the research of Drew Western, political partisans -- and especially the smart, well-informed ones -- not only feel better when their brains downplay contradictory political information, they actually get a little emotional "high" when the brain (unconsciously) rejects evidence that contradicts their deeply held political beliefs.
In a series of brain scans of political partisans asked to consider contradictory statements by the politicians they supported, Western found that the brain reverted to the comfort zone of its long-held biases -- and doing so actually made people feel good.

Tags: science, politics, neuroscience, psychology, brain, reason, extremism, bias, beliefs

Greek Wisdom

Tue, 01 May 2007 00:28:26 GMT

clipped by: ontoforever
clipper's remarks: I agree with this. It would be good to live by, I think.

Clip Source: www.futilitycloset.com

The condensed wisdom of Greece's "seven sages," as recorded on the temple wall at Delphi:

Solon of Athens - "Nothing in excess."
Chilon of Sparta - "Know thyself."
Thales of Miletus - "To bring surety brings ruin."
Bias of Priene - "Too many workers spoil the work."
Cleobulus of Lindos - "Moderation is the chief good."
Pittacus of Mitylene - "Know thine opportunity."
Periander of Corinth - "Forethought in all things."

Tags: greek, wisdom, delphi, sage, sages, advice, condensed, ancient, history, philosophy

Women cannot afford to get angry

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 21:25:59 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: www.eurekalert.org

Whether you are running for president or looking for a clerical job, you cannot afford to get angry if you are a woman, Yale University psychologist Victoria Brescoll has found.

Brescoll and Eric Uhlmann at Northwestern University recently completed three separate studies to explore a phenomenon that may be all-too-familiar to women like New York Senator Hillary Clinton: People accept and even reward men who get angry but view women who lose their temper as less competent

The studies, published in the March issue of Psychological Science, provide women with recommendations for navigating emotional hazards of the workplace. Brescoll says it pays to stay emotionally neutral and, if you can't, at least explain what ticked you off in the first place.

"An angry woman loses status, no matter what her position,'' said Brescoll, who worked in Clinton's office as a Congressional Fellow in 2004 while she was preparing her doctoral thesis on gender bias.

Tags: women, anger

Danger! CAMERA Alert on Wikipedia!!!

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 05:00:08 GMT

clipped by: righthand

Clip Source: electronicintifada.net

(EI

pro-Israel group's plan to rewrite history on Wikipedia

A pro-Israel pressure group is orchestrating a secret, long-term campaign to infiltrate the popular online encyclopedia Wikipedia to rewrite Palestinian history, pass off crude propaganda as fact, and take over Wikipedia administrative structures to ensure these changes go either undetected or unchallenged

A series of emails by members and associates of the pro-Israel group CAMERA

indicate the group is engaged in what one activist termed a "war" on Wikipedia

Gilead Ini, a "Senior Research Analyst" at CAMERA, calls for "volunteers who can work as 'editors' to ensure" that Israel-related articles on Wikipedia are "free of bias and error, and include necessary facts and context."

communications indicate that the group not only wanted to keep the effort secret from the media, the public, and Wikipedia administrators

material they intended to introduce included discredited claims that could smear Palestinians

conceal Israel's true history

Tags: israel, lobby, wikipedia, usa, history, war, secret, propaganda

Uncritical thinking kills

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 12:49:23 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: blogs.discovermagazine.com

When I saw this website, I laughed. I couldn’t help it; it’s a funny idea.

That webcam site is a joke. It’s not real, it’s a satire on people who think the LHC would cause the end of the world. I laughed when I saw it.

But I’m not laughing now.

In India the other day, a young girl, distraught with fear that the world was ending when the LHC turned on, killed herself. She died, because she didn’t understand the truth.

Now that site is less funny, isn’t it? All over the world, in all different countries, people are raised to believe in superstitious nonsense, and raised to believe with all their hearts that it’s real.

And when we do that, we do far more than remove people from reality. We leave them vulnerable to all manners of nonsense, from believing in fairies to truly and honestly thinking the LHC will destroy the planet

Children die

Question authority. Be skeptical of claims. Ask for evidence. Apply good logic. Avoid bad logic. Analyze the results. Look for bias.

And doubt. Doubt doubt