1. Do Now
What are some things that influence your decisions?

2. Unit 7B Cognition: Thinking, Problem Solving, Creativity, & Language
Thinking…. Part 2- Making Decisions & Forming Judgments

3. Recap on Heuristics
Quick thinking and rationale to help us make judgements and solve problems
This is prone to error because we are not following a step by step process to ensure the correct outcome
Sometimes these intuitive judgements are instantaneous
While a heuristic often helps us solve problems, it can also bias our judgment

4. Types of Heuristics
These helpful shortcuts can lead to smart people making dumb decisions
Representative Heuristic
shortcut for judging the how well an item fits its prototype
EX: Judging a person because they fit our personal mental pic of what a Oakie looks like
allows people to make quick judgments
but those judgments are often wrong as you often ignore all other relevant information
Availability Heuristic
shortcut for judging events based on how mentally available information is
EX: we think people win all the time in Vegas (because it is advertised a lot so we judge that people win a lot)
Because the info comes to mind easily we assume the action, event etc. is common (happens more often)
Info the “pops into mind”

5. Overconfidence Overconfidence
the tendency to be more confident than correct
EX: Students believing that it will only take 1 hour to do project when it actually takes 5
People often overestimate the accuracy of their own beliefs or decisions
it happens all the time in many different situations
Confidence does have its benefits though

6. Belief Perseverance Belief Perseverance
clinging to one’s initial beliefs even when presented with contrary evidence
EX: Tell a kid the Santa isn’t real.. Prove that Santa isn’t real and the kids say “nope, he’s real!”
The more we appreciate why our beliefs might be true the more we cling to them
We begin to ignore contradicting evidence

7. Intuition
Intuition
an effortless, immediate, automatic feeling or thought
EX: This ally is scary looking so its dangerous and I will NOT walk down it
instant help when we are in need
That gut feeling
Smart thinkers welcome intuition but check it against evidence to be sure

8. Impact of Framing Framing
the way an issue is presented
EX: Condoms are 95% effective or condoms have a 5% fail rate
Can have a profound effect on judgment
Framing can be used to manipulate people to influence our decisions so… be careful

9. Act it Out
6 groups
Representative heuristic
Availability heuristic
Overconfidence
Belief perseverance
Intuition
Framing
Each group will perform a little skit that demonstrate the assigned term
This will be quick I swear

10. Today
HW Quiz
Questions
HW= Language