The students completed this project in two steps. First, working on their own, they each reviewed the readings already covered and created a personal list of 3 theories/concepts/exercises that left the most impression on them and that they would like to share with other college students. They must explain their choices–succinctly and compellingly, like making elevator pitches–with their targeted audience in mind. Then, in groups of 4, the students discussed and assessed their lists, with the aim to generate a collectively edited, negotiated, and refined list, signed off by all contributing members of the group.
Group 1 (Michael Bakan, Ann-Kathrin Merz, Sandra Puetate, Hwangchan Yu) focus on cognitive ease and related cognitive biases such as confirmation bias, belief perseverance, and mere exposure effect. They then connect this discussion with what they’ve learned from the segment on strategic thinking.
Group 2 (Gonzalo Aguirre, Kevin Chen, Flannery Murphy, Sander Parson) talk about cognitive ease as a phenomenon of lazy thinking (borrowing from Daniel Kahneman). They are likewise concerned about confirmation bias, especially as this affects college students’ learning experience. They then talk about the importance of understanding the mind and, above all, appreciating the interdependence of thoughts, feelings, and desires. They end by bringing together three phenomena–WYSIATI (what you see is all there is), availability heuristic, and egocentric immediacy.
Group 3 (Stephanie Leow, Jessica Powers, Erik Schofer, Maximillian Thomas) share the preceding groups’ interest in cognitive ease and heuristics in general. But they’ve added three new concepts: inert information, activated knowledge, and activated ignorance. They use familiar college-student experiences to illustrate these concepts and the importance to be cognizant of them.
Group 4 (Nash Hale, Sabrina Magalhaes, Kenneth Reyes, Jessica Wahl) have an overlapping interest with the other groups in confirmation bias and egocentrism. In addition, they highlight the concept of reasonable credulity, according to which it takes a certain degree of critical thinking to discern what counts as a genuine expert view. They also discuss the importance of having a growth mindset–as it applies not only to intelligence, but also to things like interpersonal skills and moral progress. In this regard, the group have the great insight that “if you assume that other people have the potential for growth in these areas, you will probably have a different approach to interaction with them and to changing others’ minds.”
For some of the concepts mentioned here, check out the Heuristics and Biases page.