1. Barriers to Reasoning Rationally
Or…why do we do dumb things

2. Exaggerating the improbable
We are influenced by the availability heuristic—the tendency to judge the probability of an event by how easy it is to think of examples or instances.

3. Take a plane or a car?

5. Avoid or minimize risk and losses
Avoiding loss
Avoid or minimize risk and losses

6. Risky!!

7. Confirmation bias
We pay attention to information that confirms what we believe while ignoring information that opposes our beliefs

8. Confirmation bias The New Deal and Unemployment

9. Mindset of mental set
Try to solve new problems using procedures that worked before on a similar problem

11. Mindset of patterns
Tendency to find patterns in events, even though these patterns are just random noise.

12. Such as a supposed link between immunizations and autism

13. Believing that an outcome was predictable all along
Hindsight bias
Believing that an outcome was predictable all along

15. The need for cognitive consistency
Cognitive dissonance is a state of tension that occurs when a person simultaneously holds two cognitions that are psychologically inconsistent
Or holds a belief that is inconsistent with the person’s behavior

17. People are motivated to reduce dissonance
Changing a belief
Changing a behavior
Rationalizing