Discussion: Thinking About Thinking

As you have seen in your course materials, recognizing bias and errors in our thinking is crucial. Awareness of these errors is important for our study of cross-cultural psychology, but absolutely vital for interactions with others. As scholars we work to be as objective and evidence based as possible, and all too often these thinking errors cause us to misunderstand and misjudge people. Increasing awareness of our tendency to make these errors is helpful in all areas of life but is of particular value in helping professions. . That is why we talk about the ability to think about thinking, or metathinking.  Keep in mind that bias and errors in thinking are very human. The root cause is often the mind’s effort to save time and take shortcuts in understanding and responding to situations. Unfortunately, these shortcuts do not always result in accurate information, which may impact accurate decision making. That is why developing critical thinking skills involves evaluating your own thinking in order to know your vulnerabilities and how to enhance your decision-making skills.

Reminder – we are trying out a new discussion format in this class. To prepare:

• Our text discusses some common thinking errors.  Some may be familiar, some less so.  There are some that probably happen many times a day, while others may be used less frequently.  Read about the errors and the proposed antidotes and then consider situations in which you may have used one or more of these shortcuts.  
  • How did the error impact your interactions?  
  • What might have happened if you had been able to challenge your own thinking and avoid the error?  
  • Also, think beyond individual relationships to interactions between cultural or racial groups.  
  • How might these thinking errors be involved?

Our topic is thinking errors and metathinking and how these apply to everyday life.  Your goal is to generate conversation about what we are studying.  For this discussion, you will generate one question to pose to your classmates and then respond to at least two other questions (or responses) that your classmates post. Remember that you can draw from any part of the weekly readings, so pursue whatever sparks your interest, but be sure to provide background for your question.

For example, you might read about the thinking errors and find yourself thinking, “I wonder if a self-fulfilling prophecy has ever caused me to fail a test?”  That is a great question, but you would want your post to include background information that sets up the question.  So, you might write:

Reading about the self-fulfilling prophecy really made me think about the power of expectation, and I found myself wondering how this might have impacted my life in various settings.  If I am expecting things to turn out well or badly, could I actually make that prediction come true? My question is: Did Self-Fulfilling Prophecy ever make me fail a test?

Good so far, but it is really important to connect our discussion to course materials.  As scholars, we don’t ask people to simply believe we know what we are talking about; we demonstrate that our comments are grounded in research.  For this reason, along with the fact that we are working to master topics in our course, we want to show connections between what we are saying and what we have read.  It is fine to do additional research and draw other sources into the conversation, but in most cases, your post will use the text and / or other course resources.  Since you did not come up with the concept of self-fulfilling prophecy on your own, it would be appropriate to update your post like this:

Self-fulfilling prophecies can occur when our expectations cause us to act in certain ways that can subtly cause our expectations to be fulfilled (Shiraev & Levy, 2018).  When I considered the power of expectation, I found myself wondering how this might have impacted my life in various settings.  If I am expecting things to turn out well or badly, could I actually make that prediction come true?  My question is: Did the Self-Fulfilling Prophecy ever make me fail a test?

At this point, you have great background, but your question is a “yes or no” question, which is not ideal for creating conversation.  After some editing, your post might look more like this:

Self-fulfilling prophecies can occur when our expectations cause us to act in certain ways that can subtly cause our expectations to be fulfilled (Shiraev & Levy, 2018).  When I considered the power of expectation, I found myself wondering how this might have impacted my life in various settings.  If I am expecting things to turn out well or badly, could I actually make that prediction come true?  My question is: To what extent is our success or failure due to our expectations?

By Day 3

Post your one question with background to the discussion board.

Put your question in the subject line of your post and put your supporting text in the message area of the post.

Based on the example above, the discussion would look like this:

Subject: To what extent is our success or failure due to our expectations?

Message body: Self-fulfilling prophecies can occur when our expectations cause us to act in certain ways that can subtly cause our expectations to be fulfilled (Shiraev & Levy, 2018).  When I considered the power of expectation, I found myself wondering how this might have impacted my life in various settings.  If I am expecting things to turn out well or badly, could I actually make that prediction come true? 

Discussion Tips:

• Questions published earlier in the week get more responses.
• Support your question with at least one reference (textbook or other scholarly, empirical resources) in the message body

By Day 5

Respond to at least two peers’ main questions (or their response). Colleague replies do not need to be supported by a reference. 

Submission and Grading Information

Grading Criteria

To access your rubric:
Week 1 Discussion Rubric
 

Post by Day 3 and Respond by Day 5

To participate in this Discussion:
Week 1 Discussion