Psychology

What is the meaning of “priming” in psychology? How does priming work? When is it useful? Why is it controversial? Priming is a technique based on the theory that when an idea is triggered, its associations can cause you to behave in a meaningfully different way without your consciously realizing it. The concept of priming takes the idea of association beyond mere thought, to the functional level. We’ll cover what priming is, how it’s used, and why it’s controversial.

What is narrow framing? Does it help or hinder our decision-making process? Narrow framing is when you focus on the details at the expense of the big picture. Narrow framing can hurt your decision-making skills because it keeps you from seeing your choices in context. We’ll cover what narrow framing is, how it differs from broad framing, and how to counter narrow framing in your everyday life.

What is associative thinking? What is its function, and how might it lead to bias? Associative thinking is fast, subconscious thinking that associates one concept with another. The ideas can involve memories, emotions, and physical sensations. We’ll cover how associative thinking works and how you use it in everyday life.

What is the illusion of validity? Why is it an illusion, and why is it a problem? The illusion of validity is the tendency to be overconfident about our skills of prediction. We’re especially vulnerable to the illusion of validity when faced with data points that seem to form a coherent narrative. Learn what the illusion of validity is and why it happens, with examples.

How can you measure your well-being, according to Daniel Kahneman in Thinking, Fast and Slow? We’ll cover the steps of measuring well-being and how to improve well-being.

What does “representativeness” mean in psychology? What are examples of representativeness heuristics? The representative heuristic is when you organize objects by their similarities and categorize them around a prototype. The representativeness heuristic describes when we estimate the likelihood of an event by comparing it to an existing prototype in our minds. We’ll go more in depth into the above representative heuristic definition and cover multiple representative heuristic examples in psychology.

What is cognitive ease? What is it good for, and when does it hinder you? Cognitive ease is an internal measure of how easy or strained your cognitive load is. In a state of cognitive ease, you’re probably in a good mood, believe what you hear, trust your intuitions, feel the situation is familiar, are more creative, and are superficial in your thinking. We’ll cover the properties of cognitive ease and how to use the concept to get your point across and convince others of its truth.

What is the conjunction fallacy? How can you avoid it? Conjunction fallacy is the belief that the conjunction of two events happening is more probable than one happening. Often, extra details that create a coherent story make the events in that story seem more probable, even though the extra conditions needing to be met make the conjunction less probable. The best way to illustrate this is with a conjunction fallacy example. We’ll cover two examples of the conjunction fallacy and how to counter this bias.