#facilitiation

[daveosociologist]

More on Cognitive Errors

There are several other cognitive errors that regularly appear in our political discussions, including those related to gun violence. These include the following: Mind reading: Although there is little evidence that most of us can accurately read minds, many indulge in that exercise anyway.  Mind reading sounds like this: “I know what they’re thinking, they’re thinking X and that means we need to…

[daveosociologist]

Cognitive Errors – Polarized Thinking

Polarized Thinking is a cognitive error that is a close cousin to over-generalization and filtering.  This error is very common in our political culture.  “Polarized thinking”  involves forcing complex issues into “either/or” pairings.  This forced pairing then encourages debate between which of the paired options is better and discourages exploration of the information, experiences, or values…

[daveosociologist]

Cognitive Errors – Overgeneralization and Filtering

We continue our series on cognitive errors today with a discussion of over-generalization and filtering. Over-generalization involves using one piece of data, or just a few data points to form broad conclusions.   This thinking pattern is well represented in discussions on gun violence.  Here are a few examples: +Background checks are “useless” because “criminals will never submit to them.”…

[daveosociologist]

Cognitive Errors – Catastrophizing and Personalization

Continuing our series on cognitive errors, we review two in this post that often lead to flare-ups of incivility.  These are  catastrophizing and personalization. Catastrophizing is evidenced by a dramatic anticipation of disaster and corresponding defensive reaction. For example, +”They’re preparing for armed rebellion and ready to destroy our country” or +”The ultimate goal of the liberals is a…