PS101 Chapter : PsychologyReadingNotes.docx.doc
Document Summary
Scientific approach more reliable than those based on intuition and common sense. Human intuition: prince charles, george w. bush, bob woodward. Our thinking, memory and attitudes operate on two levels: conscious and unconscious. Hindsight bias and judgmental overconfidence illustrate why we cannot rely solely on intuition and common sense. Hindsight bias: the tendency to believe, after learning an outcome, that one would have foreseen it. Common sense more easily describes what has happened than what will happen. Hindsight bias and overconfidence often lead us to overestimate our intuition, but scientific inquiry can help us sift reality from illusion. Three main components of scientific attitude: curiosity, skepticism, humility. Curiosity: a passion to explore and understand without misleading or being misled. Skeptic: one who is willing to question any truth claim, asking for clarity in definition, consistency in logic, and adequacy (sufficiency) of evidence. Humility: an awareness of our own vulnerability to error and openness to surprises and new perspectives.
