Charlie and the Cognitive Bias Factory
Charlie is conducting an evaluation for ADHD, and only gives teachers and parents ADHD scales and asks questions about ADHD symptoms. He prone to this well-known bias with his narrow approach.
What is Confirmation Bias?
Janice is a member of the school's SIT team. During a meeting about April's behavior, she says that she agrees with the team that the function of April's behavior might be attention, but deep down she thinks the function is escape. She doesn't want the team to be angry with her, but runs the risk of contributing to this bias by going along with the team.
What is Groupthink?
Mr. Carter is observing Emma in the classroom. She is exhibiting the same types of behaviors as Abby, who he knows has a diagnosis of ADHD. He concludes from his observation that Emma has ADHD too. Mr. Carter may be demonstrating this heuristic.
What is Representativeness?
When a school-based team makes very cohesive decisions that extend beyond their typical decisions, you could call it this.
What is "Groupthink outside the box"?
Empathetic Camouflage
What is Compassion Fatigue?
Charlie prefers to use the WISC-V and KTEA-3 for all evaluations because that is what he learned in school and that is what he knows best. But, he may be demonstrating this by always using the same tests.
What is the Default Effect?
Paula is frustrated with the 4th grade teachers because they are not collecting the data she needs to evaluate her intervention, even though they said they would. She thinks they are being purposefully defiant and they all may have personality disorders. She could be making this foundational mistake when assessing her colleague's behavior.
What is the Fundamental Attribution Error?
Jill conducted a complex and comprehensive evaluation for a student who qualified under Emotional Disability where there was a lot of trauma at home. She feels like she learned a lot and now she is trauma being expressed in a lot of other kids as well. But beware, she may be affected by this heuristic.
What is Availability?
When vampires on a Hulu show tend to focus on one DSM category over other relevant categories, you could call it this.
What is "What We Do In The Diagnostic Overshadowing"?
Titanic Price
What is Sunk Cost?
Charlie doubts the accuracy of the ratings he received from parents because they are much lower than ratings from teachers. But, he's sure parents are often inconsistent in their ratings and teacher scales probably have better reliability. He'll rely on teacher ratings when making decisions, but be wary - he may be demonstrating this bias.
What is Motivated Skepticism?
Daisy had to complete 35 evaluations this year and she still has 10 evaluations to do during the last 6 weeks of the year. She's had tough meetings and challenging evaluations, and can't wait for the year to be done. She's at-risk for being affected by this issue with the difficult year she's had.
What is Compassion Fatigue?
Toby is examining the manual for the ADOS, and sees that it has a specificity (likelihood of saying that someone has Autism when in reality they do have Autism) of .97. He assumes this means that any person with a high score must also have autism. But, he is "neglecting" this important statistic.
What is the Base Rate?
When you are making a bet and feel sure that your diagnostic decisions are correct, and you're willing to put money on it being above or below a certain amount, it may be this.
What is "over/underconfidence bias"?
A Freudian and/or Jungian New Year's Ball
What is Psychological Masquerade?
Charlie thinks most boys do not respond well to positive reinforcement, so when he is developing an intervention for Jason he focuses only on negative punishment since Jason is a boy. He may be showing this bias when developing an intervention for Jason.
What is Attribute Substitution?
Liam has a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder and requires substantial support in the classroom. His teacher mentioned concerns about anxiety, but you don't feel like that is an issue because kids with autism may appear anxious. You may be demonstrating this bias.
What is Diagnostic Overshadowing?
Glenn hears that Stan is struggling to pay attention in class. He gets a rating scale back from the teacher that suggests Stan has ADHD. Even though he had a comprehensive evaluation planned, he decides that he doesn't need to do most of it because of what he sees on the rating scale. Not being "open" to further evaluation suggests this.
What is Premature Closure?
When Bobby Witt Jr. runs from 1st to 2nd immediately after a pitch, but doesn't realize how unlikely it is that he will make it safely to 2nd, you could say he's engaging in this bias.
What is "Stolen Base Rate Neglect"?
Make a case for your position on this PBS Roadshow.
What is Argument from Antiquity?
Charlie sees his coworker John being heavily influenced by initial information from previous evaluations when making diagnostic decisions. Charlie is glad that there is no way his decisions could ever be affected by these biases. He may be demonstrating this when "seeing" himself next to John.
What is Bias Blind Spot?
You have been asked to review a random selection of previous evaluations from your district. You noticed that teams seem to be much more likely to qualify students than the data collected for evaluations would suggest. You think that teams may be showing this bias when making decisions during eligibility meetings.
What is Group Polarization?
Taylor heard that Mark has ADHD and she definitely saw it on the playground during recess. She interviewed parents and teachers, administered rating scales, and did some testing. Inattention and hyperactivity do not seem to be coming up as problems as much as she would have thought based on her observation. Nevertheless, Taylor continues to think Mark has ADHD based on her observation. It seems like she is experiencing this.
What is Belief Perseverance?
When one member of a branch of congress (not the senate) reminds you of another member of that same branch of congress, you could say that you're experiencing this.
What is "House of Representativeness Heuristic"?
Karl Pearson's Smoke-in-Mirrors
Illusory Correlation