Philosophy Final Part 1 Flashcards
System 1
feels automatic and effortless
can’t be turned off
source of impressions, feelings, intuitions and emotions
System 2
voluntarily controlled
chosen
associated with dilated pupils and accelerated heart rate
come with feeling of effort
System 1 and 2 conflict
system 2 has to override system 1’s automatic reactions, but wrong impression doesn’t always go away
i.e. when you know the lines are the same length, but one looks longer than the other
cognitive illusions
system 2 has to override initial reaction of system 1
confabulation
system 2 creates reasonable-seeming explanations for unreasonable inclinations generated by system 1
cognitive laziness
system 1 suggests an initial conclusion, system 2 may come up with a solution but you are already satisfied
rationality
being lazy and not using system 2 is a matter of rationality
intelligence
something measured, IQ test, but doesn’t determine how prone you are to biases
anchor-and-adjust heuristic
when making a judgement or estimate along a scale, we unknowingly use a reference point suggested to us as a mental anchor
implicit association tests
measure levels of cognitive difficulty when performing tasks with category
base rates
chance of a random person being a certain thing
heuristic
a cognitive shortcut used to bypass a more effortful type of reasoning
anecdotal reasoning
small samples are inherently weak as evidence, observations are not random samples
selection effects
when our overall impression is biased because the cases we observe have been selected by a process that filters them out
availability cascades
when the media’s focus on a topic and the emotional reaction of the public to that topic feed on each other, resulting in a cycle of escalating intensity
echo chambers
when our sources of information and commentary have all been selected to support our opinions and preferences
survivorship bias
i.e. knowing a lot of people who smoke and thinking smoking is safe, forgetting that many who smoked have died
publication bias & file drawer effect
not everything is published, researchers file away results they aren’t interested in
familiarity effects
the subconscious inclination to think something is true just because you are familiar with it
salient hypothesis bias
when observations that support a hypothesis bring it to mind, but observations that disconfirm it do not bring it to mind
explanation freeze
when one seeks to explain something and only a small number of explanations come to mind, resulting in an overestimate of the probability of those explanations
law of large numbers
as we increase our sample size, we get closer to the true population values
cognitive ease/familiarity
assuming that if an answer is familiar, it must be true
evidence for the familiarity effect
people prefer how they look in the mirror to pictures
seeing a company’s name induces us to find it more familiar and positive
serial position effect
people tend to remember the last part of events the most
i.e. patients rated the procedure with more pain at the end as more painful
myside bias
believing things that you have some attachment to, persist in believing them without good evidence, seeking out evidence that confirms them ignoring evidence against
evidence of myside bias
70% of people in a survey said they are less likely than average to get divorced, only 2% of students in a survey considered themselves worse than average in leadership ability
superiority illusion
people tend to think they are better than they really are
optimism bias
when people are asked about things that might happen to them in the future, they tend to be optimistic
self-serving bias
people believe their successes come from their stable attributes, and that their failures come from situational factors
belief persistence
hanging on to beliefs for no good reason
selective search
seeking out confirming evidence and finding problems with disconfirming evidence
salient hypothesis vs. selective search
salient hypothesis: if you see conflicting evidence, you don’t consider your hypothesis
selective search: you only seek out confirming evidence and find problems with conflicting evidence
cognitive dissonance
the mental discomfort that comes from making changes in one’s beliefs/attitudes
makes-sense reasoning
assuming that since something makes sense, it must be true
conformity effect
tendency for one’s opinions to conform to other individuals in a group
in-group bias
tendency to hold positive opinions about members and beliefs of a group simply because it is my group
why are some forms of conforming belief rational
sometimes it gets people closer to the right answer
i.e. average of guesses is accurate than the average guess
groupthink
state of collective reasoning where a lack of dissenting voices makes the group’s decision reflect a false sense of consensus or confidence
fundamental attribution error
tendency to ascribe behaviors and outcomes to stable attributes of individuals rather than chance factors
hindsight bias
tendency to see an event as having been predictable even when there was no good way to predict it
hindsight bias
tendency to see an event as having been predictable even when there was no good way to predict it
pattern seeking
we are oversensitive to patterns in random data
cluster effect
specific type of pattern-seeking where people think that random distributions over an area are clustering
just-world bias
tendency to assume that people get what they deserve
how can hindsight bias lead to overconfidence
causes us to think that we were ore accurate than we were when predicting an outcome, leading to more, less-accurate predictions in the future
how to counteract just-world bias
imagine yourself in someone else’s situation
blindspot bias/GI Joe fallacy
simple knowing about the existence of biases doesn’t help us avoid them
active open-mindedness
allowing for consideration of new possibilities, new goals and evidence against possibilities that seem strong
trigger action plan
how to avoid biases
depends on trigger of noticing bias
TAP explanation freeze
notice: trying to explain something
action: think of three or more hypotheses
TAP representative heuristic
Notice: you are pattern-matching individuals to a stereotype, you are thinking with simple plurals
action: stop, demand plurals be clarified
TAP anchor and adjust
notice: need value on a scale
action: check for anchor, adjust
TAP ingroup bias
notice: members of outgroup seem evil
action: reject moralizing explanations of their views, try an idealogical turing test
TAP hindsight bias
notice: prediction situation
action: clarify predictions and endpoints, track outcomes
attachment (TAP Myside)
notice: feel need for evidence, happy when conforming, mad when contrary
action: step back, look at evidence, consider opposite
Soldier mindset (TAP myside)
Notice: feel need to defend view
action: image opposite defended by loved on, steel-man opposing view, reframe winning
belief overkill (TAP myside)
notice: when every consider against a belief seems to go the same way
action: isolate each belief
steelman
come up with the best possible version of the opposing view and defend it with the best arguments
ideological turing test
convincing someone that you hold the opposite viewpoint
calibrated probability judgements
judgements that have been checked, to see whether our confidence intervals match track record of success
four cognitive virtues of rationality
- patience (don’t jump to conclusions)
- humility (fight overconfidence with uncertainty)
- fairness (scout mindset)
- vigilance (be on lookout for bias)
