Online Contemporary Issues Seminar Series

Cognitive Bias

Saturday, September 30, 2023

“It is an acknowledged fact that we perceive errors in the work of others more readily than in our own.” ― Leonardo da Vinci

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“A compelling narrative fosters an illusion of inevitability.”
― Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow

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For millennia, philosophers have explored thinking, rationality, and judgement, with many writing about the tension we experience between our passions, our beliefs, and our reason. Later, psychologists have also written about the irrationality and sometimes hidden causation of our judgements. In the last fifty years, much work has been done in the area of cognitive bias. Cognitive bias is defined as a systematic pattern of deviation from norm or rationality in judgment. Individuals create their own subjective reality from their perception of available input. An individual’s construction of reality, not the objective input, may dictate their behavior in the world. Thus, cognitive biases may sometimes lead to perceptual distortion, inaccurate judgment, illogical interpretation, and irrationality. The field has advanced to articulate a Cognitive Bias Codex. Click here to view the graphic, which includes linked descriptions to currently identified biases.

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This monthly online series will explore texts from some of the field’s most widely known authors, exploring the mechanisms of judgement in areas ranging from economics to cosmology to racism.

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September 30 Reading:

Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases:
Biases in judgments reveal some heuristics of thinking under uncertainty.

Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman

Science Magazine – 27 Sep 1974 – Vol 185, Issue 4157

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Schedule:

12:00-2:00PM PDT

Tutor:

Andy Gilman

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Location:

Online. Register to receive the link.