Fallacies and Cognitive Biases Flashcards
Ad Fidentia
Person 1 claims that y is true, but is person 1 really sure about that?
Therefore y is false.
Accident Fallacy
X is a common and accepted rule
therefore, there are no exceptions to x
Ad Hoc Rescue
Claim X is true because of evidence Y
Evidence Y is demonstrated to no be acceptable evidence
Therefore guess Z then, even though there is no evidence for guess Z
Ad Hominem (Abusive)
Person 1 is claiming Y
Person 1 is a moron
Therefore, Y is not true
Ad Hominem (Circumstantial)
Person 1 is claiming Y
Person 1 has a vested interest in Y being true
Therefore, Y is false
Ad Hominem (Guilt by association)
Person 1states that Y is true
Person 2 states that Y is true, and person 2 is a moron
therefore, person 1 must be a moron
Ad Hominem (Tu Quoque)
Person 1 is claiming that Y is true, but person 1 is acting as if Y is not true
Therefore, Y must not be true
Affirming a Disjunct
P or Q
P.
Therefore, not Q
P or Q
Q.
Therefore, not P
Affirming the Consequent
If P then Q
Q
Therefore P
Alleged Certainty
Everybody knows that x is true
therefore, X is true
Appeal to Accomplishment
Person 1 claims that Y is true
Person 1 is accomplished
Therefore, Y is true
Appeal to Anger
Person 1 claims that X is true
Person 1 is outraged
therefore, X is true
Appeal to Authority
According to person 1, Y is true
therefore Y is true
Appeal to education
Person 1 makes claim Y
Person 1 has no formal education
therefore, claim Y is false
Appeal to Celebrity
Celebrity 1 makes claim Y
Therefore, Y is true
Appeal to Common Belief
Many people believe X
therefore X must be true
Appeal to Common Folk
X is common folk wisdom
therefore you should accept X
Person 1 is a common man who proposes y
you are also a common man
therefore you should accept Y
Appeal to Coincidence
Evidence suggests that X is a result of Y
yet on insists that X is a result of chance
Appeal to Consequences
X is true/false because if people did not accept X as being true/false then there would be negative/positive consequences
Appeal to Definition
The dictionary definition X does not mention Y
Therefore, Y must not be a part of X
Appeal to Desperation
Something must be done
X is something
Therefore X must be done
Appeal to Emotion
X must be true
Imagine how sad it would be if it wasn’t true
Appeal to Extremes
If X is true, then Y must also be true
given that Y is the extreme of X
Appeal to Fear
If you don’t accept X as true/false, something terrible will happen to you
therefore X must be true
Appeal to Flattery
X is true
(flattery)
Therefore X is true
Appeal to Force
If you don’t accept X as true, I will hurt you
Appeal to the Moon
If we can put a man on the moon, we can do X
Appeal to Nature
X is natural
Y is not natural
Therefore X is better than Y
Appeal to Novelty
X has been around for years
Y is new
therefore Y is better than X
Appeal to Probability
takes something for granted because it would probably be the case (or might be the case).
Example of appeal to probability
Something can go wrong (premise). Therefore, something will go wrong (invalid conclusion).
Argument from Fallacy
assumes that if an argument for some conclusion is fallacious, then the conclusion itself is false
logic of argument from fallacy
If P, then Q. P is a fallacious argument. Therefore, Q is false
Base Rate Fallacy
making a probability judgment based on conditional probabilities, without taking into account the effect of prior probabilities. If presented with related base rate information (i.e. generic, general information) and specific information (information only pertaining to a certain case), the mind tends to ignore the former and focus on the latter. This is what the base rate fallacy refers to.[
John is a man who wears gothic inspired clothing, has long black hair, and listens to death metal. How likely is it that he is a Christian and how likely is it that he is a Satanist?
If people were asked this question, they would likely underestimate the probability of him being a Christian, and overestimate the probability of him being a Satanist. This is because they would ignore that the base rate of being a Christian (there are about 2 billion in the world) is vastly higher than that of being a Satanist (estimated to be in the thousands).[
Example of Base Rate Fallacy
Conjunction Fallacy
it is assumed that specific conditions are more probable than a single general one.
Linda is 31 years old, single, outspoken, and very bright. She majored in philosophy. As a student, she was deeply concerned with issues of discrimination and social justice, and also participated in anti-nuclear demonstrations.
Which is more probable?
- Linda is a bank teller.
- Linda is a bank teller and is active in the feminist movement.
The majority of those asked chose option 2.
Example of the conjunction fallacy
Masked Man Fallacy
the substitution of identical designators in a true statement can lead to a false one
Logic of Masked Man Fallacy
Premise 1: I know who X is.
Premise 2: I do not know who Y is.
Conclusion: Therefore, X is not Y.
Lois Lane believes that Superman can fly.
Lois Lane does not believe that Clark Kent can fly.
Therefore Superman and Clark Kent are not the same person.
Masked Man Fallacy
Ambiguity Effect
The tendency to avoid options for which missing information makes the probability seem “unknown”. The effect implies that people tend to select options for which the probability of a favorable outcome is known, over an option for which the probability of a favorable outcome is unknown.
A risk-averse investor might tend to put their money into “safe” investments such as government bonds and bank deposits, as opposed to more volatile investments such as stocks and funds. Even though the stock market is likely to provide a significantly higher return over time, the investor might prefer the “safe” investment in which the return is known, instead of the less predictable stock market in which the return is not known.
Example of the Ambiguity Effect
Anchoring
The tendency to rely too heavily, or “anchor,” on one trait or piece of information when making decisions (usually the first piece of information that we acquire on that subject)[
the initial price offered for a used car sets the standard for the rest of the negotiations, so that prices lower than the initial price seem more reasonable even if they are still higher than what the car is really worth.
example of achoring
Attentional Bias
the tendency of our perception to be affected by our recurring thoughts
people who frequently think about the clothes they wear, pay more attention to the clothes of others.
Example of Attentional bias
Availability heuristic
a mental shortcut that relies on immediate examples that come to mind. The availability heuristic operates on the notion that if something can be recalled, it must be important. Subsequently, people tend to heavily weigh their judgments toward more recent information, making new opinions biased toward that latest news.
A person claims to a group of friends that those who drive red cars receive more speeding tickets. The group agrees with the statement because a member of the group drives a red car and frequently receives speeding tickets.
Example of the Availability heuristic
Availability Cascade
A self-reinforcing process in which a collective belief gains more and more plausibility through its increasing repetition in public discourse (or “repeat something long enough and it will become true”).
Backfire Effect
When people react to disconfirming evidence by strengthening their beliefs
Confirmation Bias
tendency of people to favor information that confirms their beliefs or hypotheses
Belief Bias
The tendency to see oneself as less biased than other people, or to be able to identify more cognitive biases in others than in oneself
Cheerleader Effect
The tendency for people to appear more attractive in a group than in isolation
Choice-Supportive Bias
The tendency to remember one’s choices as better than they actually were
if a person buys a computer from Apple instead of a computer (PC) running Windows, he is likely to ignore or downplay the faults of Apple computers while amplifying those of Windows computers. Conversely, he is also likely to notice and amplify advantages of Apple computers and not notice or de-emphasize those of Windows computers.
Example of Choice-Supportive Bias
Clustering Illusion
The tendency to over-expect small runs, streaks, or clusters in large samples of random data (that is, seeing phantom patterns).
Conservatism
The tendency to revise one’s belief insufficiently when presented with new evidence
Contrast Effect
The enhancement or reduction of a certain perception’s stimuli when compared with a recently observed, contrasting object.
A person will appear more or less attractive than that person does in isolation when immediately preceded by, or simultaneously compared to, respectively, a less or more attractive person.
Contrast Effect
Decoy Effect
Preferences for either option A or B changes in favor of option B when option C is presented, which is similar to option B but in no way better.
Denomination Effect
The tendency to spend more money when it is denominated in small amounts (e.g. coins) rather than large amounts (e.g. bills).
Distinction Bias
The tendency to view two options as more dissimilar when evaluating them simultaneously than when evaluating them separately
A consumer may pay a much higher price for the higher-quality television, even though the difference in quality is imperceptible when the televisions are viewed in isolation. Because the consumer will likely be watching only one television at a time, the lower-cost television would have provided a similar experience at a lower cost
Distinction bias
Duration Neglect
people’s judgments of the unpleasantness of painful experiences depend very little on the duration of those experiences
subjects place their hands in painfully cold water. Under one set of instructions, they had to keep their hand in the water for an additional 30 seconds as the water was slowly heated to a warmer but still uncomfortably cold level, and under another set of instructions they were to remove their hand immediately. Otherwise both experiences were the same. Most subjects chose to repeat the longer experience.
Duration Neglect
Essentialism
Categorizing people and things according to their essential nature, in spite of variations
Exaggerated Expectation
Based on the estimates, real-world evidence turns out to be less extreme than our expectations (conditionally inverse of the conservatism bias).
Focusing Effect
The tendency to place too much importance on one aspect of an event.[
Forer Effect
individuals will give high accuracy ratings to descriptions of their personality that supposedly are tailored specifically for them, but are in fact vague and general enough to apply to a wide range of people.
effect can provide a partial explanation for the widespread acceptance of some beliefs and practices, such as astrology, fortune telling, graphology, and some types of personality tests.
Forer Effect
Endowment Effect
The fact that people often demand much more to give up an object than they would be willing to pay to acquire it.[
Experimenter’s/Expectation Bias
The tendency for experimenters to believe, certify, and publish data that agree with their expectations for the outcome of an experiment, and to disbelieve, discard, or downgrade the corresponding weightings for data that appear to conflict with those expectations.[
Framing Effect
Drawing different conclusions from the same information, depending on how or by whom that information is presented.
Recency Illusion
the belief that things you have noticed only recently are in fact recent”
Functional Fixedness
limits a person to using an object only in the way it is traditionally used.
if someone needs a paperweight, but they only have a hammer, they may not see how the hammer can be used as a paperweight.
Functional Fixedness
Gambler’s Fallacy
The tendency to think that future probabilities are altered by past events, when in reality they are unchanged. Results from an erroneous conceptualization of the law of large numbers.
“I’ve flipped heads with this coin five times consecutively, so the chance of tails coming out on the sixth flip is much greater than heads.”
Gambler’s Fallacy
hard-easy effect
occurs when, based on a specific level of difficulty of a given task, subjective judgements do not accurately reflect the true difficulty of that task. This manifests as a tendency to overestimate the probability of success in difficult tasks, and to underestimate the probability of success in easy tasks.[
Hindsight Bias
Sometimes called the “I-knew-it-all-along” effect, the tendency to see past events as being predictable[42] at the time those events happened.
Hostile Media Effect
The tendency to see a media report as being biased, owing to one’s own strong partisan views.
Hot-Hand Fallacy
The “hot-hand fallacy” (also known as the “hot hand phenomenon” or “hot hand”) is the fallacious belief that a person who has experienced success has a greater chance of further success in additional attempts.
Hyperbolic discounting
Given two similar rewards, humans show a preference for one that arrives sooner rather than later. Humans are said to discount the value of the later reward, by a factor that increases with the length of the delay.
Identifiable Victim Effect
The tendency to respond more strongly to a single identified person at risk than to a large group of people at risk
IKEA Effect
The tendency for people to place a disproportionately high value on objects that they partially assembled themselves, such as furniture from IKEA, regardless of the quality of the end result
Illusion of Control
The tendency to overestimate one’s degree of influence over other external events
Illusion of Validity
belief that additional information generates additional relevant data for predictions, even when it evidently does not.
Illusory Correlation
Inaccurately perceiving a relationship between two unrelated events
Impact Bias
The tendency to overestimate the length or the intensity of the impact of future feeling states
Information Bias
The tendency to seek information even when it cannot affect action.
believing that the more information that can be acquired to make a decision, the better, even if that extra information is irrelevant for the decision
info bias
Insensitivity to Sample size
occurs when people judge the probability of obtaining a sample statistic without respect to the sample size.
Sunk Cost Fallacy
The phenomenon where people justify increased investment in a decision, based on the cumulative prior investment, despite new evidence suggesting that the decision was probably wrong.
The term has been used to describe the United States commitment to military conflicts including Vietnam in the 1960s - 1970s and in Iraq in the 2000s, where sunk costs in terms of dollars spent and lives lost were taken as justifying continued involvement
Sunk Cost Fallacy
Just-world hypothesis
The tendency for people to want to believe that the world is fundamentally just, causing them to rationalize an otherwise inexplicable injustice as deserved by the victim(s).
Less is better effect
type of preference reversal that occurs when the lesser or smaller alternative of a proposition is preferred when evaluated separately, but not evaluated together.
seven ounces of ice cream overflowing in a small cup was preferred over eight ounces of ice cream in a much larger cup
Less is better effect
Loss aversion
“the disutility of giving up an object is greater than the utility associated with acquiring it”.
Mere exposure effect
The tendency to express undue liking for things merely because of familiarity with them
In studies of interpersonal attraction, the more often a person is seen by someone, the more pleasing and likeable that person appears to be.
mere exposure effect
Money illusion
The tendency to concentrate on the nominal (face value) of money rather than its value in terms of purchasing power
Experiments have shown that people generally perceive an approximate 2% cut in nominal income with no change in monetary value as unfair, but see a 2% rise in nominal income where there is 4% inflation as fair, despite them being almost rational equivalents.
Money illusion
moral credential effect
occurs when a person’s track record as a good egalitarian establishes in them an unconscious ethical certification, endorsement, or license that increases the likelihood of less egalitarian decisions later.
negativity effect
The tendency of people, when evaluating the causes of the behaviors of a person they dislike, to attribute their positive behaviors to the environment and their negative behaviors to the person’s inherent nature or of young people to be more negative information in the descriptions of others
Normalcy bias
The refusal to plan for, or react to, a disaster which has never happened before.
Observation Selection bias
The effect of suddenly noticing things that were not noticed previously – and as a result wrongly assuming that the frequency has increased.
Observer-expectancy effect
When a researcher expects a given result and therefore unconsciously manipulates an experiment or misinterprets data in order to find it
Omission bias
The tendency to judge harmful actions as worse, or less moral, than equally harmful omissions (inactions)
An additional real world example is when parents decide not to vaccinate their children because of the potential chance of death - even when the probability the vaccination will cause death is much less likely than death from the disease prevented
Omission bias
Optimism Bias
The tendency to be over-optimistic, overestimating favorable and pleasing outcomes
Ostrich Effect
Ignoring an obvious (negative) situation
people in Scandinavia looked up the value of their investments 50% to 80% less often during bad markets
Ostrich Effect
Outcome Bias
One will often judge a past decision by its ultimate outcome instead of based on the quality of the decision at the time it was made, given what was known at that time. Individuals whose judgments are influenced by outcome bias are seemingly holding decision makers responsible for events beyond their control.
How can you avoid the outcome bias?
To avoid the influence of outcome bias, one should evaluate a decision by ignoring information collected after the fact and focusing on what the right answer is, or was at the time the decision was made.
Pessimissm Bias
The tendency for some people, especially those suffering from depression, to overestimate the likelihood of negative things happening to them.
Planning Fallacy
The tendency to underestimate task-completion times
Pro-innovation Bias
The tendency to have an excessive optimism towards an invention or innovation’s usefulness throughout society, while often failing to identify its limitations and weaknesses
A feeling of nuclear optimism emerged in the 1950s in which it was believed that all power generators in the future would be atomic in nature.
Pro-innovation Bias
Pseudocertainty effect
The tendency to make risk-averse choices if the expected outcome is positive, but make risk-seeking choices to avoid negative outcomes
Reactance
The urge to do the opposite of what someone wants you to do out of a need to resist a perceived attempt to constrain your freedom of choice
Reactive devaluation
Devaluing proposals only because they are purportedly originated with an adversary.
Restraint Bias
The tendency to overestimate one’s ability to show restraint in the face of temptation.
Rhyme as reason effect
Rhyming statements are perceived as more truthful.
“If the gloves don’t fit, then you must acquit.”
rhyme as reason effect
Risk compensation
The tendency to take greater risks when perceived safety increases
Selective Perception
the tendency to not notice and more quickly forget stimuli that causes emotional discomfort and contradicts our prior beliefs
a teacher may have a favorite student because they are biased by in-group favoritism. The teacher ignores the student’s poor attainment. Conversely, they might not notice the progress of their least favorite student
selective perception
Semmelweis reflex
The tendency to reject new evidence that contradicts a paradigm
social comparison bias
having feelings of dislike and competitiveness with someone that is seen physically, or mentally better than yourself.
A majority of people in society base their moods and feelings on how well they are doing compared to other people in their environment.
social comparison bias
social illusion effect
judging others who have more property, education, wealth, talents, etc. to be a higher level human being
Social desirability bias
the tendency of respondents to answer questions in a manner that will be viewed favorably by others
stereotyping
Expecting a member of a group to have certain characteristics without having actual information about that individual.
Subadditivity effect
The tendency to judge probability of the whole to be less than the probabilities of the parts.[
Subjective Validation
Perception that something is true if a subject’s belief demands it to be true. Also assigns perceived connections between coincidences
time-saving bias
people’s tendency to misestimate the time that could be saved (or lost) when increasing (or decreasing) speed.
In one study, participants were asked to judge which of two road improvement plans would be more efficient in reducing mean journey time. Respondents preferred a plan that would increase the mean speed from 70 to 110 km/h more than a plan that would increase the mean speed from 30 to 40 km/h, although the latter actually saves more time
TIME-saving bias
unit bias
The tendency to want to finish a given unit of a task or an item.
well traveled road effect
Underestimation of the duration taken to traverse oft-traveled routes and overestimation of the duration taken to traverse less familiar routes
zero-risk bias
Preference for reducing a small risk to zero over a greater reduction in a larger risk.
Zero-sum heuristic
Intuitively judging a situation to be zero-sum
Defensive attribution hypothesis
Attributing more blame to a harm-doer as the outcome becomes more severe or as personal or situational similarity to the victim increases.
incompetent people will:
- tend to overestimate their own level of skill;
- fail to recognize genuine skill in others;
- fail to recognize the extremity of their inadequacy;
- recognize and acknowledge their own previous lack of skill, if they are exposed to training for that skill
Dunning-Kruger Effect
Egocentric Bias
Occurs when people claim more responsibility for themselves for the results of a joint action than an outside observer would credit them.
Extrinsic incentives bias
when people view others as having (situational) extrinsic motivations and (dispositional) intrinsic motivations for oneself
False consensus bias
The tendency for people to overestimate the degree to which others agree with them
Fundamental attribution error
The tendency for people to over-emphasize personality-based explanations for behaviors observed in others while under-emphasizing the role and power of situational influences on the same behavior
Group attribution error
The biased belief that the characteristics of an individual group member are reflective of the group as a whole or the tendency to assume that group decision outcomes reflect the preferences of group members, even when information is available that clearly suggests otherwise.
Halo Effect
The tendency for a person’s positive or negative traits to “spill over” from one personality area to another in others’ perceptions of them
illusion of asymmetic insight
People perceive their knowledge of their peers to surpass their peers’ knowledge of them
illusory superiority
Overestimating one’s desirable qualities, and underestimating undesirable qualities, relative to other people.
Ingroup bias
The tendency for people to give preferential treatment to others they perceive to be members of their own groups.
Moral Luck
The tendency for people to ascribe greater or lesser moral standing based on the outcome of an event
naive cynicism
Expecting more egocentric bias in others than in oneself
Projection bias
The tendency to unconsciously assume that others (or one’s future selves) share one’s current emotional states, thoughts and values
self-serving bias
The tendency to claim more responsibility for successes than failures. It may also manifest itself as a tendency for people to evaluate ambiguous information in a way beneficial to their interests
Shared information bias
Known as the tendency for group members to spend more time and energy discussing information that all members are already familiar with (i.e., shared information), and less time and energy discussing information that only some members are aware of (i.e., unshared information).[
Bizarreness effect
Bizarre material is better remembered than common material.
Choice-supportive bias
In a self-justifying manner retroactively ascribing one’s choices to be more informed than they were when they were made.
Change bias
After an investment of effort in producing change, remembering one’s past performance as more difficult than it actually was
Consistency bias
Incorrectly remembering one’s past attitudes and behaviour as resembling present attitudes and behaviour
Context effect
That cognition and memory are dependent on context, such that out-of-context memories are more difficult to retrieve than in-context memories
recall time and accuracy for a work-related memory will be lower at home, and vice versa)
Context Effect
Cryptomnesia
a forgotten memory returns without it being recognized as such by the subject, who believes it is something new and original. It is a memory bias whereby a person may falsely recall generating a thought, an idea, a song, or a joke,[1] not deliberately engaging in plagiarism but rather experiencing a memory as if it were a new inspiration.
Egocentric bias
Recalling the past in a self-serving manner, e.g., remembering one’s exam grades as being better than they were, or remembering a caught fish as bigger than it really was
Fading affect bias
A bias in which the emotion associated with unpleasant memories fades more quickly than the emotion associated with positive events.[
False memory
A form of misattribution where imagination is mistaken for a memory.
Self-generation effect
That self-generated information is remembered best. For instance, people are better able to recall memories of statements that they have generated than similar statements generated by others.
google effect
people are less likely to remember certain details they believe will be accessible online
Hindsight bias
The inclination to see past events as being more predictable than they actually were; also called the “I-knew-it-all-along” effect.
Humor effect
That humorous items are more easily remembered than non-humorous ones
Illusion of truth effect
That people are more likely to identify as true statements those they have previously heard (even if they cannot consciously remember having heard them), regardless of the actual validity of the statement. In other words, a person is more likely to believe a familiar statement than an unfamiliar one.
next in line effect
That a person in a group has diminished recall for the words of others who spoke immediately before himself, if they take turns speaking
Picture superiority effect
The notion that concepts that are learned by viewing pictures are more easily and frequently recalled than are concepts that are learned by viewing their written word form counterparts
Primacy Effect
That items near the end of a sequence are the easiest to recall, followed by the items at the beginning of a sequence; items in the middle are the least likely to be remembered
Processing Difficulty Effect
That information that takes longer to read and is thought about more (processed with more difficulty) is more easily remembered
Rosy retrospection
The remembering of the past as having been better than it really was.
Self-relevance effect
That memories relating to the self are better recalled than similar information relating to others.
Source confusion
Confusing episodic memories with other information, creating distorted memories.[
Spacing Effect
That information is better recalled if exposure to it is repeated over a long span of time rather than a short one.
Spot light effect
The tendency to overestimate the amount that other people notice your appearance or behavior.
Testing Effect
The fact that you more easily remember information you have read by rewriting it instead of rereading it
Verbatim Effect
That the “gist” of what someone has said is better remembered than the verbatim wording.[104] This is because memories are representations, not exact copies.
Zeigarnik effect
That uncompleted or interrupted tasks are remembered better than completed ones.
Affirming a disjunct
A or B
A
Therefore, it is not the case that B
To be on the cover of Vogue Magazine, one must be a celebrity or very beautiful. This month’s cover was a celebrity. Therefore, this celebrity is not very beautiful.
Affirming a disjunct
Affirming the consequent
- If P, then Q.
- Q.
- Therefore, P.
If I have the flu, then I have a sore throat. I have a sore throat. Therefore, I have the flu.
Affirming the consequent
Denying the Antecedent
If P, then Q. Not P. Therefore, not Q.
If it is raining, then the grass is wet. It is not raining. Therefore, the grass is not wet.
Denying the Antecedent
We don’t read that trash. People who read that trash don’t appreciate real literature. Therefore, we appreciate real literature.
Affirmative conclusion from a negative premise
No mammals are fish
Some fish are not whales.
Therefore, some whales are not mammals.
Fallacy of exclusive premises
The pen touches the paper.
The hand touches the pen.
Conclusion: The hand touches the paper.
Fallacy of four terms
Illicit Major
- All A are B
- No C are A
- Therefore, no C are B
- All dogs are mammals
- No cats are dogs
- Therefore, no cats are mammals
Illicit Major
Illicit Minor
All A are B. All A are C. Therefore, all C are B.
Pie is good. Pie is unhealthy. Thus, all good things are unhealthy.
Illicit Minor
All colonels are officers
All officers are soldiers.
Therefore, no colonels are soldiers.
Negative conclusion from affirmative premises
a: All A is B. (affirmative)
e: No A is B. (negative)
i: Some A is B. (affirmative)
o: Some A is not B. (negative)
Negative Conclusion from affirmative premises
- All students carry backpacks.
- My grandfather carries a backpack.
- Therefore, my grandfather is a student.
fallacy of the undistributed middle
Fallacy of the unidistributed middle
- All Z is B
- Y is B
- Therefore, Y is Z
Argument from ignorance
It asserts that a proposition is true because it has not yet been proven false (or vice versa)
There is no compelling evidence that UFOs are not visiting the Earth; therefore, UFOs exist, and there is intelligent life elsewhere in the Universe.
Argument from ignorance
Argument from silence
where the conclusion is based on the absence of evidence, rather than the existence of evidence.
Argument to Moderation
asserts that the truth can be found as a compromise between two opposite positions.
“Some would say that hydrogen cyanide is a delicious and necessary part of the human diet, but others claim it is a toxic and dangerous substance. The truth must therefore be somewhere in between.”
Argument to Moderation
ad hominem
a claim or argument is rejected on the basis of some irrelevant fact about the author of or the person presenting the claim or argument
To allow every man an unbounded freedom of speech must always be, on the whole, advantageous to the State, for it is highly conducive to the interests of the community that each individual should enjoy a liberty perfectly unlimited of expressing his sentiments”.[
Begging the Question
Circular Reasoning
reasoner begins with what they are trying to end with
he comfort level of the floor that shoppers are standing on while reviewing products can affect their assessments of product’s quality, leading to higher assessments if the floor is comfortable and lower ratings if it is uncomfortable.
context effect
people rank television commercials as either good or bad in relation to their enjoyment levels of the show during which the commercials are presented. The more they like or dislike the show the more likely they are to rate the commercials shown during the show more positively or negatively (respectively).
context effect
while studying for a test it is better to study in the environment that the test will be taken in (i.e. classroom) than in a location where the information was not learned and will not need to be recalled
transfer-appropriate processing
people choose, and presumably eat, much greater weights of Tootsie Rolls and pretzels when offered a large as opposed to a small unit size (and given the option of taking as many units as they choose at no monetary cost). Additionally, they consume substantially more M&M’s when the candies are offered with a large as opposed to a small spoon (again with no limits as to the number of spoonfuls to be taken).
unit bias
“If you like the president’s politics, you probably like his voice and his appearance as well. The tendency to like (or dislike) everything about a person—including things you have not observed—is known as the blank.”
Halo-Effect
If someone says an out-of-stock product in a shop may be in within the next two weeks and it may be in this week, and it may be in tomorrow, then it seems more likely it will be in sooner rather than later.
Conjunction Fallacy
