Week 1: Errors in thinking Flashcards
What is most of our thinking?
Most of our thinking is unconcious
A lot of concious thinking involves shortcuts
Conscious thought and attention, aimed at respondiing to specific situation requires effort
What are two modes of thinking?
1) System 1 –> quicky, automatic, very prone to irrational bias
2) system 2 –> slower, more logical, more rational
What is a short cut path that is unconcious?
A “quick and dirty” path direct from the thalamus to amygdala, cutting out cortex altogether
Means we can react without concious thought
Slower path travels up to cortex for possible, concious processing.
What are two shortcuts in thinking?
1) Heuristics
2) Being on “auto pilot”
What is Heurisitics?
- rule of thumb solutions
- quick decision making process that quickly takes best fit approach to finding a solition and that often does not take all info into account
- useful as allows one to focus on KEY facts
- Easiest but not always best solution
Describe being on “auto pilot”
- Using preexisting schema to react to a situation
- this often works well
- Trouble occurs when schema does not quite fit the situation
What is attribution bias?
- When we attribute our errors to situational factors
- Attribute errors of others to character flaws
What is discounting of disconfirmatory evidence?
Tendency to stick with a diagnosis once it’s been chosen, even when new/ conflicitng information comes in
What is inadvertently putting people into sets?
Automatically putting people into sets of people, e.g. police offer, refugees
Language is key here e.g. benefit scroungers
What is availability bias?
Tending to come up with a solution that happens to be on your mind e.g. 5th case of depression that week
What is affective bias?
Basing decision on emotional reaction to a patient
What is the theory of cognitive dissonance
When we are being inconsistent. We find ourselves acting in a way that does not fit with our thoughts or values, this causes discomfort.
Often we change our thinking, rather than altering our actions: e.g. 1) stealing is wrong 2) I have taken 3 staplers from work 3) well ive only borrowed them …
What is pressure to conform?
Pressure to conform study:
participants gave a wrong answer, the non acting participant also gives the wrong answer due to pressure to conform
3 or more opposing people is enough to encourage conformity
What is the effect of stress and fatigue?
Stress and fatigue affect:
1) ability to fully perceive situation accurately and respond appropriately is effortful
2) when stressed ability to think flexibly declines
3) far more likely to resort to quick/ automatic/ error prone thinking
4) errors more likely
What is diffusion of responsibility?
The more people are aware of a problem, the more everyone thinks someone else will do something