Introduction
After reading Cordelia Fine’s book, “A Mind of Its Own: How Your Brain Distorts and Deceives,” surprisingly Fine’s concepts relate to our course themes: elements of logic, critical thinking, and argumentation as the fundamental components of assessing and estimating threats and opportunities in the national security environment. Fine argues, "Your brain is vainglorious. It 's emotional and immoral. It deludes you. It is pigheaded, secretive, and weak-willed. Oh, and it 's also a bigot.” Drawing on a wide range of studies in cognitive psychology, her book explores traits of the brain broken down into eight comprehensible chapters; "The Vain Brain," "The Emotional Brain," "The Immoral Brain," "The Deluded Brain," "The Pigheaded
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Although, Pherson believes if you focus on the problem and analyze the data effectively you’ll eventually solve the problem. On the other hand, Fine argues that there are too many outside distractions that could throw your brain’s critical thinking process off and mentions, “Your brain has a tendency to see the correlations that it expects to see, but which aren’t actually there.” One would have to gain a new perspective on what Fine insists that our brains interpret on its own, analyzes questions on its own, distracts you from solving problems, and dictates how we interact daily with others. How can you critically analyze a problem effectively if your brain doesn’t allow you to …show more content…
Groupthink and an individual’s ability to “think outside of the box” are two great tools we will discuss. In Session 2 we read, Susan Cain’s, “The Rise of the New Groupthink.” Cain mentioned, “…decades of research show that individuals almost always perform better than groups in both quality and quantity, and group performance gets worse as group size increases.”
In fact, Fine says, “The brain evades, twists, discounts, misinterprets, even makes up evidence all so that we can retain that satisfying sense of being in the right.” So, Cain believes that we should stop depending so much on Groupthink and allow individuals to make decisions independently.
In support of Cain’s belief, if Fine believes that the brain can easily support a pigheaded or egotistical individual then that one person could potentially damage a groupthink session especially if the end goal is as important as say, “ending world hunger.” Do you think it’s better to depend on one intelligence analyst’s prediction versus a Groupthink
Do we control the judgments and decisions that we make every day? In the book, Blindspot, authors Mahzarin R. Banaji and Anthony G. Greenwald reveal how people formulate decisions and judgments automatically based on their exposure to cultural attitudes regarding age, gender, race, ethnicity, social class, religion, disability status, and nationality. They claim a section of our brain, a“blind spot,” is responsible for storing the hidden biases that lead us to select choices and decisions in our life.
It has been noted from the text that our perception influences the thinking and decisions we make. It shows that choices differ because of the different understanding that individual have. In addition, our intuition is essential and at many times it provides us with guidance on how to make decisions. However, we can see that this intuition can be misleading at times and therefore the best thing is to evaluate the available evidence before making decisions. In my view decision making tends to have disciplinary across individuals. The best thing can be is to take time and individuals should not rush when it comes to making critical decisions. It is because of the outcomes that might be expected in the
A. Preventing "Groupthink" Psychology Today. 20 Apr. 2011. The. Psychology Today.
Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink explores the subconscious phenomenon “thin-slicing” and its manifestations in everyday life. “Thin-slicing” refers to the latent processes the brain executes, modeled from past experiences, which determine patterns in situations or behaviors. Gladwell expands upon this when he refers to “snap decisions” and “rapid cognition”, using the two terms interchangeably, as very quick “thin-slicing”. All three of these processes derive from neurological automaticity, which arises from repeat exposure to similar stimuli.
Cooper, Joel. Cognitive Dissonance: Fifty Years of a Classic Theory. Los Angeles: SAGE, 2007. Print
It is very rare that a book can be so compelling that it changes the way you think. Daniel Kahneman achieved this in his groundbreaking book Thinking, Fast and Slow. In his work, Kahneman challenges common notions of human psychology by offering a unique perspective of why we make certain decisions. Based off his contributions throughout his career, Kahneman compiles his experimental findings on human behavior into a complete manual to the human mind. The book delves into human nature and cognition, how we process our decisions and in what frame of mind do we create our perception of the world. More specifically, Kahneman deals with the irrationality of the way we think that leads to biases, mental shortcuts and defense mechanisms. His findings not only acts as an informative self-help but questions the very nature of everyday life.
As John Ruskin once said, “The essence of lying is in deception, not in words.” This essence is debated in “The Ways We Lie”, written by Stephanie Ericsson, and “Doubts about Doublespeak”, written by William Lutz. In “The Ways We Lie”, Ericsson talks about the different ways people lie on a day to day basis. By comparison, in “Doubts about Doublespeak”, Lutz discusses the different forms of doublespeak that many individuals frequently use. Lutz considers doublespeak as a language that distorts the meaning of words in order to deceive another person, and only “pretends to communicate” (83). Although both authors agree that lying is about the use of deceptive language, Ericsson describes this use of language as occasionally being necessary,
Landau, Elizabeth. "How Your Brain Makes Moral Judgments." CNN. Cable News Network, 01 Jan. 1970. Web. 15 Mar. 2014.
How exactly does the human brain work? Are humans evil by nature or are they good samaritans most, if not all, the time? As studies throughout history have shown, this is not the case. Humans are inherently evil because they are always seeking as much power as they can, revert to challenging authority and selfishness in times of peril, and become intimidated easily by “authority” figures egging them on, which is reflected in The Lord of the Flies by William Golding, as well as The Zimbardo Experiment conducted by Psychologist Phillip Zimbardo.
Groups however, do not always make good decisions. Juries sometimes render verdicts that run against the evidence presented. Groups tend to: fail to adequately determine their objectives and alternatives, fail to assess the risks associated with the group’s decision, fail to cycle through discarded alternatives and to reexamine their worth after a majority of the group discards the alternative, fail to seek expert advice, select and use only information that supports their position and conclusions, and does not make contingency plans in case their decision and resulting actions fail. Many times people’s lives are affected and little thought or care is put into it.
The human psyche frequently experiences the phenomena of internal contradiction, followed by an internal struggle for some semblance of balance or consistency (Hall, 1998). Cognitive dissonance acts as motivation for people to behave in a manner that effectively reduces said dissonance and restores balance. Leon Festinger’s theory of cognitive dissonance explores this occurrence and the subsequent actions that people take in order to create a balance between their ideals.
Stewart, G., Manz, C., & Sims, H., (1999). Teamwork and Group Dynamics. New York: Wiley. pp. 70- 125.
A group can be define as ‘any number of people who (1) interact with one another; (2) are psychologically aware of one another and (3) perceive themselves to be a group’ (Mullins, L, 2007, p.299). Certain task can only be performed by combined effort of a group. Organisation can use groups to carry out projects, which will help to achieve its overall aim. However, for the group to be successful they must understand what is expected of them and have the right skill to complete the task. . (Mullins, L, 2006)
Engleberg, Isa N. and Dianna R. Wynn. Working in Groups. 6th ed. Boston: Pearson, 2012. Print.
Working in groups is challenging at times. Other times it is very rewarding. We are so focused on life that we do not take time to reflect on things as much as we should. Being in a Groups class has opened my eyes to a whole new world. I have begun to question, explore, and even understand how things work. I even get how they work sometimes. Not only is there a process involved in making individual decisions, process is involved in group decisions as well. This paper attempts give insight into my reflection of my group decision process.