discussion prompt #2 Parking Garage and Biases
Biases affect all of us, and we are all prone to committing fallacious reasoning at times. This discussion allows us to investigate some of our own sources of biases and ways in which we may be prone to fall for fallacious reasoning.
Prepare: Prior to answering this question, make sure that you have completed the “Parking Garage” and “Buying a Car” scenarios. Make sure to read Chapters 7 and 8 of our book, paying special attention to ways in which people are affected by biases (including the sections “Stereotypes” and “Purpose and Potential Bias” in Chapter 8).
Reflect: Think about why you made the choices you made in each scenario. Do those choices tell you anything about yourself and the way that you think? Would you do anything different if you were to do it again?
Write: Address your experiences in each scenario in the following posts:
Part 1: Answer the following questions: Why did you take the route you did in the parking garage scenario? Did you notice that you had preconceptions about different types of people and situations? Could those types of preconceptions ever lead to problematic inferences?
Part 2: In the Buying a Car scenario, did you feel that the salesman had ulterior motives? Did they lead him to have any biases in terms of he wanted you to purchase? Point out some of the biases that you have in real life. Are you am interested party when it comes to certain types of questions? How does that potentially cloud your judgment? Relate your answer to the content about biases in Chapter 8.
Guided Response: Respond substantively to at least three of your classmates’ posts in a way that furthers the conversation. For example, you might let them know if you have had similar biases as they have had and the ways in which those biases have affected your life as well. You also might give some indication of the sense in which it is possible to overcome these biases to have a more neutral point of view. Would such a view help you make better decisions?
