The Surety of Fools. Developing good decision making and problem solving skills.
In the essay “Surety of Fools”,Daniel Kahneman argues for the need to be be cautious about the confidance we have in our judgements.According to his research,such confidence is false,a result of a cognitive fallacy,that causes us to ignore factual evidence so that we can continue to give our false beliefs the “illusion of validity”.
Using Kahneman’s ideas and examples to examine how cognitive fallacy and the illusion of validity impacts our ability to make judgements,please develop a position around the following assignment question:
How can we be good decision makers and problem solvers, if we cannot trust the confidence we have in our judgments and that of “experts” to guide our thinking?
You must discuss concepts such as “cognitive fallacy” and the “illusion of validity”,by giving specific examples and textual evidence from Kahneman’s essay.Do not just summarize Kahneman.You are expected to discuss the implications of Kahneman’s arguments.What does his argument about the illusion of validity imply about the role of confidence in the decisions we make?How can we guard against such cognitive bias and errors in judgment?Does confidence in one’s beliefs always signal lack of good judgment and ignorance of facts?
1. Select 4 quotes (these quotes can be from the page that I handed out since I have identified most of the important quotes) that you think will help you answer the following essay question:
How can we be good decision makers and problem solvers, if we cannot trust the confidence we have in our judgments and that of “experts” to guide our thinking?
2. Practice close reading the quotes using the following steps:
a) Summarize the passage in your own words in one to two sentences. What is Kahneman saying in this passage that you can connect to something else he has said in the essay?
b) What are the most important words and concepts in the quotes?
c) How can you explain the concepts and terms?
D) How do these important terms and concepts relate to Kahneman’s main idea in the passage?
E) How do these concepts and ideas in the quote relate to the essay as a whole?
f) What can you deduce from this analysis? What new discovery has you made? What did you think before and what do you think now? How has it changed the way you think
Professor’s name
Developing good decision making and problem solving skills.
October 21, 2018
Developing good decision making and problem solving skills
Human beings experience many situations in their daily activities that triggers judgement which in most cases are based on ones illusion of being valid and correct (kahneman). Illusion of being valid is the capability of human beings to overate themselves in making accurate prediction which are mostly false and inaccurate. Validity in illusion is made of assumptions which people believe to be right without using sense of figuring out how true they are. Judgment based on assumption affects relationship of oneself and others because every person their own opinion which they don’t want to change and accept its false validities especially on highly charged issues like politics. Most of human being assumption are opposing views, everyone believes they are correct and the other is wrong leading to negative argument. People are required to keep in mind that their opinions are not factual besides their belief of its validity because it will help them listen to other people’s opinion and exchange of ideas without quarrels and negative talks. This paper will discuss ways in which people can develop ability to make good decision and provide right solutions without relying on our confidence during judgment (kahneman)
Kahneman reveals that people are liable to thinking that the world is regular and predictable because of the overstated expectation and assumptions. Exaggerated confidence prevents people from understanding their illusions leading them to making conclusion and making false judgement (kahneman pg.220). People with high level of confidence are believed to have good stories which are hard to tell whether they are true or false because of the confidence shown by the character. Convincing a person who believes in their assumption is hard and it leads to unnecessary discussions and conflict.
Cognitive fallacy is a wrong mode of thinking which affects judgements and decision made by human being. Most fallacy are founded in human mind because of experience and amount of attention payed toward the situation or matter. A persons experience towards a particular matter that is biased can lead to fallacy thinking towards it and can result to wrong judgement. Attention is believed to be a limited source and people are selective on matters that they pay attention to. Poor attention towards maters leads to inappropriate judgement because people will judge according to their level of knowledge on the issue. Cognitive fallacy makes people think that they are logical and capable of weighing information available to them when making resolution and judgment on issues. Cognitive fallacy appears as a result of avoiding to think of every possible option when making conclusion which consumes a lot of time and effort event when creating simple choices. Skipping hard thinking in making choices leads people into relying on psychological shortcuts which are faster thinking leads to errors of cognitive fallacy because of a person’s motivation and limited ability of the mind to appropriately process the information.
Peoples reasoning are biased ever since. People fail to accurately harness response on solving problems. The conflict between individuals on response towards a problem c...