Cognitive Biases (Taylor's Version)
After Emmy first learned about Taylor Swift from the album Evermore she judged all other albums based on how much she liked Evermore, where she was engaging in this bias.
What is Anchoring?
Janice is on the school's SIT team. During a meeting about April's behavior, she agrees with the team that the function of April's behavior is 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 this bias by going along with the team.
What is Groupthink?
Mr. Carter is observing Emma and she is exhibiting the same types of behaviors as Abby. Abby 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, but those decisions are not typical and very creative, you could call it this.
What is "Groupthink outside the box"?
Empathetic Exhaustion
What is Compassion Fatigue?
What is the Availability Heuristic?
Paula is frustrated with the 4th grade teachers because they are not collecting the data she needs to evaluate her intervention. She thinks they are being purposefully defiant and they all 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 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 sees trauma being expressed every other student. But beware, she may be affected by this heuristic.
What is Availability?
When the outside of a yellow fruit is the expert and everyone listens to it's wisdom without question.
What is "A-peel to Authority"?
The Titanic Price
What is Sunk Cost?
Talisa's husband is a huge Swiftie, and he's a really nice guy. She thinks that all people who are Swifties must also be really nice, but she's probably engaging in this bias.
What is Illicit Transference?
Daisy had to complete 35 evaluations this year and still has 10 evaluations left. 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 has autism. But, he is "neglecting" this important statistic.
What is the Base Rate?
When you are making a bet about feeling very sure that your diagnostic decisions are correct, and you're willing to put money on your decisions being above or below a certain level of accuracy, it may be this.
What is "over/under-confidence bias"?
Studying how people think and feel during a New Year's Ball with costumes
What is Psychological Masquerade?
Morgan only reads reviews of Taylor Swift albums that are positive and glowing because she can't imagine why anyone would think otherwise. But, she is probably engaging in this bias by only focusing on positive reviews.
What is Confirmation Bias?
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. The teacher's BASC has a score that suggests Stan has ADHD. Even though Glenn had a comprehensive evaluation planned, he decides he doesn't need to do it because the teacher's rating on the BASC. Not being "open" to a more comprehensive evaluation suggests this.
What is Premature Closure?
When Bobby Witt Jr. is on 1st base and then runs to 2nd base immediately after a pitch, if he does not realize how unlikely it is that he will be safe at 2nd base, you could say he's engaging in this bias.
What is "Stolen Base Rate Neglect"?
What is Illicit Transference?
Toby thinks that the more people like Taylor Swift, the happier they are. He concludes that listening to Taylor Swift increases happiness, so he develops a social-emotional intervention for children called Fear Less. But, his connection between Taylor Swift and happiness may be one of these.
What is an Illusory Correlation?
You have been asked to review a random selection of previous evaluations from your district. You noticed that many teams are more likely to qualify students than the data 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 (note the italicized r)
Illusory Correlation