Unit1 Section B
Why do smart people do dumb things?
Objectives:
➢ ➢ ➢ ➢
To master the reading skill To understand the text
To practice the phrases and patterns To learn about writing a survey report
Contents :
Warming up Reading skills Text study
Comparative study Unit Project
Warming-up
Lead-in video watching
1. What are the two examples of Sunk Costs Fallacy?
2. According to the speaker, what is Sunk Costs Fallacy Background Information
Cognitive Bias- A cognitive bias is a pattern of deviation in judgment that occurs
in particular situations, leading to perceptual distortion, inaccurate judgment, illogical interpretation, or what is broadly called irrationality. Many cognitive biases (认知偏差) are often studied for how they affect business and economic decisions and how they affect scientific and experimental researches.
Fundamental Attribution Error-A Fundamental Attribution Error (基本归因错误)
is a cognitive bias in social psychology. It refers to the tendency to judge a person in an unpleasant situation in a bad light and attribute his behavior to internal causes and qualities rather than consider the situation or circumstances that may have caused the person to behave in that manner. But, if we ourselves made the same errors, we would easily attribute the causes to external factors.
Confirmation Bias-A Confirmation Bias (确定性偏差) is a cognitive bias whereby
one tends to notice and look for information that confirms one’s existing beliefs, whilst ignoring anything that contradicts those beliefs. It is a type of selective thinking. For example: After having bought a piece of clothing, you will look for the same clothing in a more expensive store to confirm that you have bought a bargain.
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Reading skills
Skimming is a method of rapidly moving the eyes over a text with the purpose of getting the
main idea or a general overview of its content. For example, many people skim read a newspaper article just to get a quick overview, or a text to see whether it’s worth reading in detail. The key word for skimming is “general”.
Steps to help you to skim an article
1 Read the title – it is the shortest possible summary of the content of the article. 2 Read the introduction or lead-in paragraph(s).
3 Read any sub-headings, and identify the relationships between them.
4 Read the first sentence of each remaining paragraph; the main idea of most paragraphs
appears in the first sentence
Practice
Skim Text B to find answers to the following questions. 1 What is this text mainly about?
2 What common cognitive biases can cause smart people to make bad decisions? 3 How can we avoid being affected by various types of cognitive biases when making a decision?
Text Study
Text Comprehension
1. What is the traditional view about smart people according to Paragraph 1? (Para. 1)
Smart people, by virtue of what they’ve learned, will formulate better decisions.
2. What is the most typical characteristic of the fundamental attribution error? (Para.3)
One of the most common biases is what is known as the fundamental attribution error. Through this people attribute the ______________ to _____________ and their own to ________________, subconsciously considering their own characters to be ________.
3. What will you be affected if you are only interested in evidence that is in agreement with your own
belief? (Para.5) The confirmation bias.
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5. Why does the availability bias leads to strange and inaccurate conclusions? (Para.8)
Because it causes people to use evidence that is not so convincing and strong.
6. Why don’t people want to leave a bad investment situation and commit the sunk cost
fallacy? (Para.11)
Because they don’t want their previous investments to be wasted.
7. What is the purpose of this text?
The purpose of this text is try to help us learn about cognitive biases and be better at
decision-making.
Text Summary
Psychologists have uncovered cognitive biases are common to all people. One of the most common biases is_fundamental attribution error_. Through this people attribute the failures of others to character flaws and their own to mere __circumstance. __Confirmation_ bias is found together with fundamental attribution error. This one has two parts. First, people tend to gather and rely upon information that only confirms their existing views. Second, people avoid or veto things that refute their _pre-existing hypotheses__________. Similar to confirmation bias is the __overconfidence bias, Which means we could be correct 100 percent of the time we were ___100 percent sure_ about something, ____correct 80 percent__ of the time we were 80 percent sure about something. The availability bias is also related to _errors___ in estimation, In action this bias might lead someone to cancel a trip because of a report that the _biggest plane crash in history happened there_. The sunk cost fallacy can lead people to stay in damaging situations. The key to avoiding these biases remains the same: Rely on ___watertight logic__________, carefully examine the evidence and _____remain aware_______!
Practical phrases
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Practical phrases Specific meanings Examples By virtue of 因为；由于；凭借 By virtue of his work, he has access to a tremendous amount of the latest data available in this field. factor sth. into sth. 把…考虑在内 现在人们在选择食物时把热量考虑在内已变得更加普遍了。 Now it has become more popular for people to factor calories into their food choices. attribute sth. to sb. / sth. The company attributed to loss to higher material and labor costs. Come into play 开始起作用 在这一看似简单的决定的外表之下，有许多其它细节都起了作用。 Underneath the surface of this seemingly easy decision, there were so many other details that came into play. In that 因为，由于 市场竞争是好事，因为他往往会使价格下降，这必定会给消费者带来福利。 Market competition is good in that it tends to keep prices down, which will definitely benefit all consumers. In a row 连续的 反欺诈小组的工作人员突击搜查了这家公司的办公室后这家公司的股价连续下跌。 The company’s share price has fallen for three days in a row after fraud squad officers raided 把...归因于 公司把亏损归因于原料及劳动力成本的上涨。 由于工作原因，他有机会接触这一领域可以得到的大量的最新数据。 __________________________________________________
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its offices. Be/get stuck on sth 被困住；被难住 如果谈判确实在一些重大问题上陷入僵局，我会去找大使帮忙。 If the negotiations did get stuck on a number of key issues, I’d ask the ambassador for help.
Functional patterns
Doing sth. give sb. an awareness of sth./ doing sth. 用于表达“做某事使某人意识到其他事情” 。 Understanding how and in what situations they occur can give you an awareness of your own limitations. (Para. 2) 2. Sb. might assume that…, because… 用于表示“某人由于某些原因而假定某事”。 You might assume that the stock market will never fell to a new low, because companies have invested their retained earnings. 3. Doing sth. calls for sth. else， not… 用于表达“做成某事的首要因素，排除错误因素”。 Winning the championship calls for constant practice, not focusing your energy on your opponent.
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