Logical Fallacies
This fallacy happens when someone attacks a person’s character, intentions, or qualifications instead of responding to their actual argument.
What is Ad Hominem?
This term refers to systematic errors in thinking that shape how we process information, perceive others, and make decisions, often because the brain is simplifying the 11 million bits of input it receives each second into only about 40 it can consciously handle.
What is Cognitive Bias?
This term describes when people follow the actions or emotions of a larger group without thinking for themselves, often just to feel like they belong and stay safe in uncertain situations.
What is Herd Mentality?
These three features of small groups explain how they function: members rely on one another to meet needs, follow shared norms, and often produce greater “synergy” than individuals working alone.
What is interdependence, shared norms, and synergy?
This fallacy uses popularity as proof, arguing that something must be true or right simply because “everyone” believes or does it.
What is Bandwagon Appeal?
This bias makes events seem more predictable after they happen, as in studies where people “remember” having assigned higher original probabilities to the outcomes of President Nixon’s trip to China and Russia once they know what actually occurred.
What is Hindsight Bias?
In this famous conformity study, participants judged line lengths and often gave clearly wrong answers just because everyone else in the group did.
What is Asch Conformity Experiments?
This psychological phenomenon happens when a cohesive group prioritizes harmony and conformity over critical analysis, leading to poor solutions, self‑censorship, and closed‑off discussion.
What is Group Think?
In this fallacy, the conclusion is used as its own support, so the argument “proves” itself by assuming what it’s trying to prove.
What is Circular Reasoning?
This bias leads people to interpret new information as supporting their existing beliefs, like when social media feeds mostly show posts you already agree with or detectives seek only evidence that backs their favorite suspect.
What is Confirmation Bias?
This experiment, where college students played the roles of guards and prisoners, had to be stopped early when guards became abusive and prisoners showed extreme emotional distress.
What is Stanford Prison Experiment?
High cohesion, directive leadership, and tight deadlines are all conditions that increase the risk of this phenomenon, because members don’t want to hurt friends’ feelings, contradict the leader, or slow down a rushed decision.
What are common causes of Group THink?
This fallacy claims that taking one small step will automatically trigger a chain of extreme, often negative, consequences without good evidence for each step.
What is Slippery Slope?
One bias makes us overestimate the likelihood of events that easily come to mind, like lottery wins, while another causes us to miss obvious things in front of us when our attention is focused elsewhere, such as a driver failing to notice a car swerving into their lane.
What is Availability Bias and Inattentional Blindness?
In this obedience experiment, “teachers” believed they were giving painful electric shocks to a “learner,” but continued when an authority figure told them to go on.
What is Milgram Obedience Experiment?
Building this kind of climate—marked by trust, respect, constructive criticism, and open communication—reduces herd mentality, because people feel safe to disagree and share ideas instead of staying silent.
What is Psychological Safety?
This fallacy assumes that because two things happen together or one follows the other, one must have caused the other, confusing correlation with causation.
What is False Cause?
First studied by Tversky and Kahneman using quick multiplication problems, this bias appears when people rely too heavily on the first number or piece of information they see, such as an initial price, and adjust too little from that starting point.
What is Anchoring Bias?
Conducted at a boys’ summer camp, this study helped develop Realistic Conflict Theory by creating competition between two groups, then forcing them to cooperate on shared goals.
What is Robbers Cave Experiment?
One strategy to fight groupthink is to assign this rotating role to a team member, whose job is to question assumptions, challenge the initial consensus, and help make ideas more concrete rather than just listing reasons they won’t work.
What is Devils Advocate Role?