class: center, middle, inverse, title-slide .title[ # Exam 1 week ] .subtitle[ ## How To Think - Week 5 ] .author[ ### Fernando Alvear ] .institute[ ### University of Missouri ] .date[ ### Feb 13 ] --- # Exam week - Monday Feb 13: Exam review - Wednesday Feb 15: Exam (in class) - Friday Feb 17: Lecture (Logic) --- # Exam details - 20 multiple choice questions - 1 point each: 20 points - 2 short essay questions - 2 questions 20 points each: 40 points. - 60 points total - 50 minutes (class time) - Handwritten notes will be allowed. --- # Topics covered - The psychology of reasoning. - Week 2: Reasoning processes - Week 3: Mindset - Week 4: Beliefs and credences About **reasoning processes**: - System 1 and system 2 - Characteristics of each system - Examples - System 1 and cognitive pitfalls - Use of heuristics - Availability heuristic - Representativeness heuristic - Resistance to change - Evidence primacy effect - Motivated reasoning - Confirmation bias --- # Topics covered (cont.) About the right **mindset** for good reasoning - Curiosity - Scout vs. soldier mentality - Thoroughness - Look for several explanations (avoid _possibility freeze_) - Look for additional evidence (avoid _optional stopping_) - Openness - Considering the opposite - Thinking in terms of degrees of confidence --- # Topics covered (cont.) About **beliefs and degrees of confidence** - Terminology - Proposition - Belief - Disbelief - Suspension of judgment - Credence - Why think in terms of credence? - We have _indirect_ control over beliefs - Allow the updating process - Allow us to avoid believing with insufficient evidence - Allow us to attain accurate beliefs over time - Allow us to adopt beliefs only when we have sufficient evidence --- # Essay questions - 2 short essay questions - 2 questions 20 points each: 40 points. Rubric: 20%: **Clarity**. The answer is exceptionally clear and easy to understand. 30%: **Exposition**. The answer contains all necessary _definitions_, _explanations_, and _examples._ The answer can be understood by a person who is not in this class. 50%: **Completeness**. The answer completely answers the question, without leaving any aspects of the question unanswered. There's no minimum answer length, but consider that the answer must answer all aspects of the question. --- # Short essay sample questions - Explain the different cognitive systems involved in processing information about the world and forming beliefs about it. Provide examples to illustrate each of these processes, and explain why they are different. - What is confirmation bias? Provide a good definition and an example. How the technique "considering the opposite" can help to counteract it? Explain by applying this technique to the example you provided. - Why system 1 can lead us to fall in cognitive pitfalls? Answer this question by making reference to the four cognitive pitfalls discussed in class so far, providing examples when necessary. - Why the scout mindset (as opposed to the soldier mindset) is the appropriate mindset to reason better? Explain by discussing the differences between these two attitudes and how they apply to reasoning. - Why thinking in terms of credences is beneficial to form accurate propositional attitudes? Explain by discussing at least two beneficial aspects of credences in the process of belief-formation.