Cognitive biases and scientific thinking principles : Imagine you are shopping for a laptop. Describe how each of the biases above might play a role in your thinking or in the thinking of other people involved. Give one good example for each bias (5 total).  First, explain the bias and then describe how it is involved in the example.

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Cognitive biases and scientific thinking principles.

The purpose of this assignment is to help you better understand cognitive biases and scientific thinking principles. You will practice identifying instances of biases in your everyday reasoning.  You will consider how scientific thinking principles can be used to counteract cognitive biases.

  • 300-500 words
  • Be sure to answer ALL 4 questions.

Consider the following cognitive biases described in Ch. 8:

  • Availability Heuristic
  • Representativeness Heuristic
  • Framing
  • Hindsight Bias
  • Confirmation Bias

 

  1. Imagine you are shopping for a laptop. Describe how each of the biases above might play a role in your thinking or in the thinking of other people involved. Give one good example for each bias (5 total).  First, explain the bias and then describe how it is involved in the example. (10 points)

 

  1. Choose one of the “Psychomythology” boxes in your textbook from the list below. What is the myth? Describe how at least one of the cognitive biases above could have given rise to the myth. (4 points)

Ch. 4 Psychic healing of chronic pain

Ch. 6 Are we what we eat?

Ch. 7 Smart pills

 

  1. Describe how scientists used scientific skepticism and scientific thinking principles to debunk the myth. You should explicitly discuss at least two of the 6 Scientific Thinking Principles introduced in Chapter 1 (Figure 1.7).  (4 points)

 

  1. Why do we have cognitive biases, if they so often lead us astray? (2 points)