The Unbiased Mind treats bias and prejudice as uncritical thinking. It examines four thinking traps that prevent critical thinking:
Stereotypes - In an ordinary deck of playing cards, which king shows only one eye? Most people don't know. The perfectly normal "blindness" illustrates a mental shortcut that leads to stereotype and prejudice.
Problems with Cause and Effect - Listen to the mysterious "Curse of the Grecian Urn" and decide why ownership of a mysterious urn seems to cause so many untimely deaths. Could the urn be cursed or does it illustrate a common problem assigning cause and effect?
Seeing Only What We Expect to See - The "confirmation bias" explains why a thin person believes herself overweight, why a higher price on consumer goods usually leads people to believe they are of higher quality, and why believers in the most supernatural are most likely to see ghosts.
The Invisible Self - Here's a question the video asks viewers:"When you read printed words reflected in a mirror they are 'backwards and inside out.' Why doesn't that happen when you look at your face in a mirror?" See how your built-in-blind spot" leads to muddled conclusions.
23 minutes
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