Critical thinking

2019-05-31 20:10:22 Groupthink
(reading time – 1 min.)

Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon that occurs when decisions are made due to the unified nature of decision-makers. It happens when the decision-makers strive for unanimity, and this overrides their motivation to consider alternative views. As a result, independent thinking is lost.

As an example consider the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Many of the senior officers at Pearl Harbor did not take warnings from Washington DC about potential invasion seriously despite the fact that Japanese messages had been intercepted. Those who didn't take action believed that the Japanese wouldn't dare to attempt an assault against the U.S. because they would recognize the futility of war with the United States.

Topic: #CognitiveBiases
Source: Wikipedia Open / Comment

2019-04-27 14:26:50 Attentional bias
(reading time – 40 sec.)

Attentional bias is the tendency for people's perception to be affected by their recurring thoughts at the time.

For example, smokers tend to possess a bias for cigarettes and other smoking-related cues around them, due to the positive thoughts they've already attributed between smoking and the cues they were exposed to while smoking.

Topic: #CognitiveBiases
Source: Wikipedia Open / Comment

2019-03-30 18:00:37 Base Rate Fallacy
(reading time – 50 sec.)

Base rate neglect is the tendency for people to mistakenly judge the likelihood of a situation by not taking into account all relevant data.

Lots of food companies exploit the Base Rate Fallacy on their packaging. When something says "50% extra free," only a third (33%) of what you're looking at is free. If you think half of what you're looking at is free, then you've committed the Base Rate Fallacy. For example, when you buy six cans of Coke labelled "50% extra free," only two of the cans are free, not three. (It's because the original pack had four cans, and 50% of the original amount is two cans.)

Topic: #CognitiveBiases
Source: howtogetyourownway.com Open / Comment

2019-03-15 20:05:22 Illusory correlation
(reading time – 40 sec.)

In psychology, illusory correlation is the phenomenon of perceiving a relationship between variables (typically people, events, or behaviors) even when no such relationship exists.

This, for exmaple, can occur when people judge whether two events, such as pain and bad weather, are correlated. They rely heavily on the relatively small number of cases where the two events occur together. People pay relatively little attention to the other kinds of observation (of no pain or good weather)

Topic: #CognitiveBiases
Source: Wikipedia Open / Comment

2019-02-16 18:52:41 Projection bias
(reading time – 45 sec.)

In behavioral economics, projection bias refers to people’s assumption that their tastes or preferences will remain the same over time.

We may have learned from experience not to go to the supermarket when we are hungry – we tend to buy all kinds of junk that we don’t normally eat or want to eat, and not only is our bill higher than normal but we also end up with stuff we don’t consume or don’t want to consume. This happens because at the time of shopping we incorrectly anticipate that our future hunger will be as great as it is now.

Topic: #CognitiveBiases
Source: Wikipedia Open / Comment

2019-01-21 18:00:29 Bounded Rationality
(reading time – 20 sec.)

The idea that in decision-making, people are limited by the information they have, the cognitive limitations of their minds, and the finite time. As a result, they seek for a “good enough” decision and tend to make a satisficing (rather than maximizing or optimizing) choice.
For example, during shopping when people buy something that they find acceptable, although that may not necessarily be their optimal choice.

Topic: #CognitiveBiases
Source: Wikipedia Open / Comment

2018-12-16 17:01:17 Dunning-Kruger effect
(reading time – 20 sec.)

The Dunning-Kruger effect occurs where people fail to adequately assess their level of competence — or specifically, their incompetence — at a task and thus consider themselves much more competent than everyone else. This lack of awareness is attributed to their lower level of competence robbing them of the ability to critically analyse their performance, leading to a significant overestimation of themselves.

In simple words it's "people who are too ignorant to know how ignorant they are".

Topic: #CognitiveBiases
Source: rationalwiki.org Open / Comment

2018-12-02 20:04:05 Denomination effect
(reading time – 20 sec.)

The denomination effect is a form of cognitive bias relating to currency, suggesting people may be less likely to spend larger currency denominations than their equivalent value in smaller denominations.

The effect occurs because large denominations are regarded as less fungible – that is, psychologically less replaceable with equivalent notes – than smaller denominations, the researchers said.

Topic: #CognitiveBiases
Source: ezonomics.com Open / Comment

2018-11-23 17:58:58 Default effect
(reading time – 40 sec.)

The Default effect is a tendency to choose the default option when you are given a choice between several ones.

For example, scientific studies carried out regarding the relation of the Default Effect on organ donation found that there are less donors in countries where consent is not given by default. If you are simply put on the organ donor list by default because you haven’t actively expressed that you do not wish to be one then you probably would never even really consider this. Whereas if you were asked to actively give your consent then you would be more prone to start thinking about it in detail and might become more emotionally involved and less likely to agree.

Topic: #CognitiveBiases
Source: tactics.convertize.com Open / Comment