Have you ever noticed that experts sometimes have a hard time being understood by others? Sometimes it seems that shortly after they begin, people are lost and don’t understand what they’re saying. Perhaps the reason this happens is because the expert is so familiar with her topic that she talks in a way that makes…
NOTE: This is one of a series of ten blog posts on cognitive biases that have applications in education. When we are too optimistic, we get overconfident and may fail to plan and act accordingly. I have seen no better example of this cognitive bias than the commercial from Prudential below. Watch the first 30…
NOTE: This is one of a series of ten blog posts on cognitive biases that have applications in education. Some times are better than others in terms of people being mentally prepared to begin something new. Eating healthier, going to the gym, or quitting smoking… are they more likely to successfully begin on a Friday…
NOTE: This is one of a series of ten blog posts on cognitive biases that have applications in education. People view a situation differently depending on how the information is framed for them. Consider what happened in this experiment by economists Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman. Participants were given the hypothetical situation that a disease…
NOTE: This is one of a series of ten blog posts on cognitive biases that have applications in education. Sometimes people don’t take a concern as seriously as they should because they haven’t had to deal with the issue for some time. Consider Southern California where major earthquakes are always a real possibility. As of…
NOTE: This is one of a series of ten blog posts on cognitive biases that have applications in education. Imagine that we are about to play a game where we pay money to each other based on a coin flip. If it’s heads, you pay me $10. If it’s tails, how much would you want…
NOTE: This is one of a series of ten blog posts on cognitive biases that have applications in education. People rely too heavily on the first piece of information they receive when making a decision. For example, donors are likely to donate more money if their choices are $100, $500, $1000, and $2000 than if…
NOTE: This is one of a series of ten blog posts on cognitive biases that have applications in education. I believe that of all the cognitive biases, the social norms approach has the most promise for education. It helps fill the gap where educators want to make a change but aren’t sure which change is…
NOTE: This is one of a series of ten blog posts on cognitive biases that have applications in education. Have you ever gone to a movie theater, only to realize that the movie you hoped would be good was actually terrible? Perhaps you left the theater, but perhaps you stayed, thinking that you already paid…
NOTE: This is one of a series of ten blog posts on cognitive biases that have applications in education. Most people tend to stick to a routine even though there is no requirement to do so. Customers order the same items off the menu even though there may be other meals they would enjoy more.…
NOTE: This is one of a series of ten blog posts on cognitive biases that have applications in education. Over the last year I have become extremely interested in learning about how aspects of behavioral economics and psychology affect our ability to be effective educators. Specifically, humans’ ability to make sense of the world is…