Complex Cognitive Process: Thinking

1. Complex Cognitive Process: Thinking Ricky Cook, Chris Piccillo, and Jon Chreng

2. Thinking Defined: • Involves manipulating and transforming information in memory. • We think to form concepts, reason think critically, make decisions, think creatively and solve problems.

3. Reasoning… • Logical Thinking using inductive and deductive reasoning • Inductive reasoning involves reasoning from the specific to the general. • Analogies are good examples of inductive reasoning. • Murder is to crows as a gaggle is to ______. Geese

4. Reasoning Cont’d… • Deductive reasoning is reasoning from the general to the specific. Example: • Islands are completely surrounded by water. • Australia is completely surrounded by water. • Therefore: Australia is an island.

5. Critical Thinking… • Involves thinking reflectively and productively and evaluating the evidence . • One of the best ways to think critically is to present students with a controversial topic or article representing both sides of the issue.

6. Creative Thinking What is it?

7. Creative Thinking… • Creativity • Ability to think about something in novel/unusual ways and discover unique solutions. • J.P. Guilford (1967) • Convergent vs. Divergent thinking

8. Creativity and Intelligence… • Most creative students are intelligent, however… • many highly intelligent students are not particularly creative (Sternberg, 2006). • Creativity may appear in different domains.

9. Creativity in the Classroom… • Encourage creative thinking • Group and individual basis • Environment • Activities • Field trips • Facilitate • Student selection of activities

10. Classroom Cont’d… • Internal Motivation • Don’t overuse rewards • Flexibility • Involve the community • Writers, poets, musicians, scientists, etc…

11. Decision Making The Process and the Strategy

12. Discussion One: What is Decision Making? • What is involved in decision making? A Choice Scenario Gathering Evidence and Information • Def: involves thinking where individuals evaluate alternatives and make choices among them. Evaluating Alternatives Choose and Execute Alternative

13. Sounds Simple? • Our decision making strategies are NOT perfect! • In fact, decision making is sometimes difficult and prone to certain flaws of thinking!

14. Confirmation Bias Overconfidence Bias Hindsight Bias Belief Perseverance Availability Heuristic Representative Heuristic Flaws of Thinking

15. Checkpoint: Which Flaw of Thinking? • “I absolutely rock at math, man. I mean, I eat, sleep, and dream math! Math is like my anti-drug, yo. I’m so good at it, and there is absolutely ZERO percent chance I will drop my major. Therefore, I am deciding to be a math major.” Overconfidence Bias • “Man, five days watching the news, and five days I’ve seen baseball players shoot up steroids like it’s candy. Steroids is a HUGE problem that is sweeping ALL over baseball, and I stand by that fact staunchly. All baseball players should be admitted into an anti-steroid psychology program!” Availability Heuristic • Pretend it’s the same person as the first one after being a math major for a year: “Good grief, who knew math was going to turn into something this ghastly? I knew it! Why did you tell me I should be a math major? I told you I stunk at it! I knew I shouldn’t have been a math major!” Hindsight Bias • “Yo, every one of those thugs there tell me that harassing 83 year old lady is sweet fun, man! I’m a gonna go find me an 83-year old lady and harass her!” Confirmation Bias

16. Conclusion: Strategies for Making Good Decisions • Weigh the costs and benefits of various outcomes. • Avoid confirmation bias. • Resist belief perseverance. • Don’t engage in overconfidence bias. • Avoid hindsight bias. • Be aware of the availability and representative heuristics.

17. Activity: Nuclear Survival • In groups of 5: • You must come to a consensus regarding the five people who will be removed from the shelter • When you are finished write the names and occupations of the people your group decided would survive.