Rationality and good judgement are typically affected by certain ways of thinking which are often studied within the psychological community. Within the community, these different ways of effected thinking are called cognitive biases. Breaking down the overall umbrella of the term cognitive bias yields subcategories of decision-making, social and memory biases, among others. Biases such as these affect all humans in one way or another. My personal experience with cognitive biases include confirmation bias, authority bias and egocentric bias. This list is definitely not complete, as I am sure there are many more biases I experience without even realizing what is happening. That being said, the first experience I would like to present is …show more content…
The definition is “…the tendency to attribute greater accuracy to the opinion of an authority figure (unrelated to its content) and be more influenced by that opinion” (Wikipedia, n.d.). As an example, I saw my primary care physician for back pain in 2011 to seek advice and a diagnosis to improve my quality of life. My physician told me it was most likely due to muscle soreness and advised me to discontinue lifting weights for approximately one month, use ice and heat and rest until the pain went away. I took her word on this, regardless of her specialty, because she was a doctor with many years of experience and education beyond what I had. I followed her instructions based on the fact she had authority over medical knowledge which was out of my scope of knowledge. The pain continued for many months and I finally saw a neurosurgeon who informed me I had bulging discs at the L3-L4 and L4-L5 areas of the lumbar spine which was causing the pain. I realized my bias was based on the fact she was a doctor without regard to her specialty or …show more content…
The definition of this bias is “…the tendency to rely too heavily on one's own perspective and/or have a higher opinion of oneself than reality” (Wikipedia, n.d.). I am aware I have a massive ego, which contributes to this bias in a large way. One of my many hobbies is playing video games and having friendly competitions or tournaments with my friends. The Mass Effect series of video games is, by far, my favorite series of all time. When Mass Effect 3 was released in 2012, I dedicated as much of my spare time as possible to mastering the storyline and multiplayer modes within the game. In multiplayer, the levels of difficulty are bronze, silver, gold and platinum. My best friend, James, and I played silver and gold regularly for a few months and decided to give platinum a try. We lost by an immeasurable amount. The second time we tried platinum, we won; but just barely. For a few years after, I thought I had the most points in that match because I had more experience playing the game and I knew I was better at it than James, who is better at many more games than me. I did not realize until last year, 2016, James was actually the one who had the most points in that match. I thought, because of my skill in the game, I was the one with the most points. We reviewed the game capture during a debate of who obtained the most points, and he won by
Blindspot, authors Mahzarin R. Banaji and Anthony G. Greenwald reveal how people formulate decisions and judgments automatically based on their exposure to cultural attitudes regarding age, gender, race, ethnicity, social class, religion, disability status, and nationality. They claim a section of our brain, a“blind spot,” is responsible for storing the hidden biases that lead us to select choices and decisions in our life. Furthermore, the authors aim to unfold the scientific logic of their analysis of the effects of hidden biases so people will be “better able to achieve the alignment,” between their behavior and intentions (Banaji and Greenwald, 2013) preface
The Zundel vs. Citron case explains bias as, “a state of mind that is in some way predisposed to a particular result or that is closed with regard to particular issues,” (Zundel vs. Citron). Due to the importance that bias can play in a decision, the courts have created a legal test to determine if it exists in any given situation. The test is, “what would an informed person, viewing the matter realistically and practically – and having thought the matter through –
Personal bias constantly influences one’s rational judgement. People use their personal experience to convince themselves that what type of person one should be, which is not a fair judgement about individual guilty.
The self-serving bias is the tendency for an athlete to accommodate to factors that paint the athlete in a favorable light. In the athletic realm, individuals portray the self-serving bias to foster future, effective performance in a sport. Whereas an athlete will attribute positive events to the doing of themselves, an athlete will attribute negative events to the doing of others. Although an individual may be inaccurate when imputing a factor, the self-serving bias is a method by which an individual safeguards esteem. It is this protection of esteem that is paralleled in the attribution theory. For instance, an athlete uses the self-serving bias to attribute success as a byproduct of the team. On the other hand, the athlete uses the self-serving
Thought processes can greatly influence people's social interactions, and the way that they live their lives. Cognitions develop how people perceive themselves and others on a daily basis. It is important to investigate how people attribute actions and behaviors exhibited, not only by themselves, but also those around them. These attributions shape the way an observer feels and reacts to others, and how people feel about themselves due to their own actions. The correspondence bias (fundamental attribution error) and the self-serving bias are two errors made in attribution by virtually every human being (Baron & Byrne, 2000). Both of these biases can be shown not only in adults, but also children (Guern, 1999). Even sport spectators display these biases when watching their favorite teams (Wann & Schrader, 2000). When the self-serving bias is absent in people's cognitions, they will show the self-defeating attributions. It is important to study people that demonstrate self-defeating attributions, because these individuals also show symptoms of depression (Wall & Hayes, 2000). Clearly, attributions are an imperative aspect of social cognition. Attributional bias is discussed by Marie Beesley. It is also important to investigate the factors that affect people's judgment biases in decision making and reasoning skills, which is explored by Amanda Wheeler. Because these two processes are so vital to the way in which people perceive themselves and others, and to the way a person chooses to behave, it is important to understand the factors that can cause inaccurate judgments. Judgment biases affect the way people form conclusions and make attributions about others, as well as abou...
Our five senses –sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch help the ways in which we perceive the world around us. And while they seem to work independently at time they can effect each other and the way we comprehend something. Seeing something pretty, touching something soft, eating something cold and smelling something rotten are the sense we use to connect with the world around us and will all effect how we move forward in that situation. When you look at the top picture say the color of the word not the word itself. It is harder than it seems and takes a little practice to do it efficiently. It is because we see the spelling we were taught not the color it was written in. It is hard to process it the other way, but not impossible. Take the bottom picture for another example is this a
The author Vincent Ruggiero defines critical thinking in his book Beyond Feelings: A Guide to Critical Thinking, as a “search for answers, a quest.” It is the idea that one does not accept claims, ideas, and arguments blindly, but questions and researches these things before making a decision on them. From what I learned in class, critical thinking is the concept of accepting that there are other people and cultures in this world that may have different opinions. It is being able to react rationally to these different opinions.
Thus, our predictions about others' beliefs or behaviors, based on casual observation, are very likely to err in the direction of our own beliefs or behavior. For example, college students who preferred brown bread estimated that over 50% of all other college students preferred brown bread, while white-bread eaters estimated more accurately that 37% showed brown bread preference (Ross, Greene, & House, 1977). This is known as the false consensus effect (Ross et al., 1977; Mullen, Atkins, Champion, Edwards, Hardy, Story, & Vanderlok, 1985). The false consensus effect provides the basis for the following demonstration, which emphasizes the need for systematic rather than casual observation. You can use the set of six questions, below, to investigate this.
BIAS BY SELECTION OF SOURCES – counting more sources that help one perspective over an alternate. This inclination can likewise be seen when a news person uses such expressions as "experts accept", "spectators say," or "most individuals accept". Specialists in news stories are similar
A confirmation bias is when an individual searches for information that he or she believes in while ignoring any evidence that may contradict, or oppose it. An example of a confirmation bias that I have experienced in my own life is when I was writing a research paper on stem cell research for my biology class. While writing the research paper, I only researched and wrote about the positive aspects of stem cell research, and neglected to research any negative aspects because as the time I believed that stem cell research was primarily beneficial, and as a result I only wrote about the positive aspects on the topic.
Every human being in this world is unique. We all think, eat, and act differently. Cognitive bias is one of the primary parts of our thinking process. Cognitive bias are errors such as judgements that we as humans consistently make. This may relate to our reasoning or decision making. Confirmation bias is one I find every interesting. Confirmation bias is when you think something is true and no matter how many things prove that your point is not true, you will not change your mind about your opinion. This make be an issue because this error can prevent us from accurately understand our true reality.
Our text defines cognitive biases as the “tendency to make systematic errors when they process information” (Lewicki & Saunders, 2010, p. 150). My first cognitive bias was issue framing and risk. I had already in my mind framed this negotiation from the stand point of man (knows everything) versus women (knows nothing) and therefore I was willing to take more risk because I believed I had the upper hand (Lewicki & Saunders, 2010, p. 153-154). The other cognitive bias I was guilty of was that of overconfidence. I was over confident because I believed I was matched up against someone that I believed was not as knowledgeable as I was, unfortunately I was wrong. When she told me that she had saved the doors from the landfill because she and her brother had bought her house as an investment property and renovated it and she had refinished all of her doors in her home. She also revealed that she had gotten a couple offers from a few antique store owners in town. I asked her how much they had offered her and she told me $100 per door. My wife and I peruse the antique stores in town a few times a year and have found some antique doors for sale for as much as $250 dollars. Some of the doors and in much worse shape than the ones she had for sale. At that point I knew I was in trouble. There was no way I was going to pay $100 per door. I asked her how much she wanted for the doors and she told me that
According to Ennis (1962), he define thinking disposition is a tendency to do something given certain conditions. Thinking dispositions are tendencies toward particular patterns of intellectual behavior. Furthermore it is an effort to further identify the nature of these patterns of thinking, several scholars and educators have proposed more precise definitions.
An example of this is when people form judgements about certain events or topics such as the news. When people form judgements they do not come out of thin air; people form judgements using shared and personal knowledge, reason, perspective, and emotions. Depending on the topic, emotions may or may not play a large role in the formation of people’s judgements. This past summer, the Supreme Court legalized same sex marriage which caused a huge controversy among many people. I remember seeing friends having large debates over social media about the court’s ruling. In summer school two people got into a heated argument when discussing the topic in my government class. When people asked me for my opinion on the ruling, I simply refused to comment so that I would not get into a debate with another person. Were people placing a large emphasis on their emotions when forming their judgements? There was a sense of confirmation bias among the people when they were debating. This confirmation bias stemmed from a strong emotional attachment to one’s opinions. It is up to the person to decide whether or not they act on their emotions. Because of my religious background, I felt discontent with the ruling. I began to think, “Was I too quick to come up with an opinion on the ruling?” Like the others, I could not repress my emotions towards the topic. But,