PSYC 2650 Chapter Notes -Confirmation Bias, Risk-Seeking, Modus Tollens
6 Dec 2012
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Deduction: a process though which we start with claims or assertions that we count as given and ask what follows from these premises- conclusion is by definition . Allows us to make predictions about upcoming events. People generally use a confirmation bias: a strong tendency to seek out confirming evidence and to rely on that evidence in drawing their conclusions. When assessing a hypothesis people will use information that confirms their evidence. When disconfirming evidence is made available, people fail to use it in adjusting their beliefs. When people encounter confirming evidence they take it at face value, however with disconfirming evidence they reinterpret it to diminish its value. People regularly fail to consider alternative hypotheses that might explain the available data just as well as their current hypothesis does. Belief perseverance: a tendency to continue endorsing some assertion or claim, even when the clearly available evidence completely undermines that claim.
