Psychology
110
Neil Lutsky, Carleton
College
October 30,
2002
Class Outline:
The Soft Voice of Human
Reason: Thinking and Decision Making
I. Introduction: How rational an
animal?
- Reason in
expectancy
value and rational
choice models.
- The strange case of Mary
Tofts.
- Challenges to
reason.
II. Shortcomings of logical
reasoning?
- Deductive
reasoning and
affirming the consequent.
- Inductive reasoning.
- Confirmation
biases.
- Definition
and demonstrations.
- Domain
specific vs.
abstract
logic
training.
- Cognitive
heuristics.
- Representativeness.
- Availability.
- Framing.
- Advice from the
Harvard Business
Review.
- Encouraging critical
thinking through
explicit
instruction and
immersion.
III. Descriptive accounts of differences in
reasoning.
- Piaget's model of cognitive development.
- Background.
- Four periods of
cognitive development.
- Sensorimotor.
- Preoperational
thought.
- Concrete
operations.
- Logical
operations.
- Perry's scheme of intellectual
development:
Dualism,
Multiplicity,
Relativism,
Commitment.
VI. Factors in problem solving:
background
knowledge,
mental
set, motivation, and
restructuring.
- Get properly
motivated (or in the mood).
- Restructuring the problem: Analogies and creative
thinking.