9.2 Biases
More actions
Some of the psychological biases that make our probability judgments go awry.
The Lesson in Context
This lesson is in the middle our "heuristics and biases" series and tends to be one of the more popular lessons in the course. It focusses on people's "hot" biases that are more emotionally or socially driven. Unfortunately, people that know about these biases are generally not actually less likely to fall into them. We choose to teach the students about them anyways.
- Orders of Understanding is about how each event arises from multiple influences, some more important than others. Human behavior, for instance, is affected by both individual differences and by circumstance or context, including pressures to conform and obey, and we often overestimate the former and underestimate the latter (FAE).
- The first lesson on H&B is on "cold" biases around numbers and frequencies. The second lesson (this one) is on "hot" biases, more emotion and value-laden thinking. Both involve heuristics, strategies for making quick judgments that can be useful in some contexts but can also go awry.
- Confirmation bias is a broader form of bias in which people tend to look for and believe evidence or arguments supporting what they already believe or expect, and to neglect or dismiss evidence and arguments against what they believe or expect. It can exacerbate other biases, including status quo bias, temporal discounting, and/or the fundamental attribution error.
- Herd thinking is what happens when people in a group conform too much to each other's ideas, neglecting problems with their ideas and convincing each other to become more confident in their shared ideas than is warranted. This tendency is undergirded by the pressure to conform to the group and also the pressure to go along with anyone in the group perceived as an authority (obedience).
- Scenario Planning involves considering four different possible future scenarios. It is one strategy that may reduce status quo bias and temporal discounting by making more salient a variety of possible futures, and how they may differ from the present in both desirable and undesirable ways.
Takeaways
After this lesson, students should
- Be wary of underestimating the influence of context or circumstance on human behavior (their own and others'). E.g. Circumstance excuses my bad behavior more than it excuses the bad behavior of others.
- Be aware of the pressure to conform, in oneself and others, and the difficulty of resisting this pressure.
- Be able to sort situations by the difficulty of resisting conformity, according to:
- Number of people conforming
- Identification with the group
- Confidence that the group is mistaken
- Presence or absence of a dissenter
- Be aware of the pressure to obey authority, in oneself and others.
- Be able to sort situations by the difficulty of resisting obedience, according to:
- Perceived authority of the "authority" giving instructions
- Proximity of the authority
- Proximity of the "victim"
- Presence of another disobeying
- Availability or salience of alternative, disobedient behaviors
Additional Learning Goals
What follows are additional learning goals that we would like to include, but aren't deeply covered in this discussion's lesson plan. We would like to cover them if we had more time.
[Term]
- [Term]
[Term]
- [Term]
[Example Name]
- [Example Description]
[Example Name]
- [Example Description]
[Description of misconception.]
[Description of misconception.]
Useful Resources
[[address] Discussion Slides Template]
[[address] The discussion slides for this lesson.]
[[address] [Title]]
[[address] [Description.]]
[[address] [Title]]
[[address] [Description.]]
[[address] [Title]]
[[address] [Description.]]
[[address] [Title]]
[[address] [Description.]]
Recommended Outline
Before Class
[Any steps that need to be taken before class.]
During Class
| [n] Minutes | [Activity.] |
| [n] Minutes | [Activity.] |
Lesson Content
Activity 1
[Brief description of and motivation for the activity]
[Common misconception or thing to look out for.]
[Thing you really need to look out for!]
[Title]
[Useful tip, guideline, or other background.]
Instructions
| [n] Minutes | [Activity.] |
| [n] Minutes | [Activity.] |
Discussion Questions
[Question 1]
[Possible misconception that may need to be corrected and clarified.]
[Intended answer to the above question.]
[Question 2]
[Possible misconception that may need to be corrected and clarified.]
[Intended answer to the above question.]