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Situation where you Acted or Reacted 'Mindlessly,'

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Present a situation in which you acted or reacted 'mindlessly' (see web links below), rather than thoughtfully, and which did not turn out well for you. Using the critical thinking concepts discussed in Chapter 1 and concepts of Chapter 8 and/or from the internet, which specific, more effective thinking strategies could you have utilized in that situation and what might have been a more positive outcome? The thinking strategies you discuss must be research-related, not personal opinions.

Suggested source to support this assignment:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12206276&dopt=Citation

http://www.securitymanagement.com/news/road-rational-decision-making

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Solution Summary

This solution discusses a situation where people often react or act mindlessly, as well as potential reasons for this to occur. References are provided with this 1,000 word answer.

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Hi,

Financial matters are always prone to critical thinking errors. A good example might be where you bought a car or an expensive piece of clothing and regretted it later when you checked your finances.

The second source lists these reasons for mindless behavior:
"First is availability bias. This refers to our tendency to respond to terrifying but very rare crises with panic, consuming resources, time and money needlessly.

Next is probability neglect, the reverse of availability bias. Probability neglect describes our habit of ignoring the risk of high-impact, low probability events. This is why people complacently build houses in flood plains that suffer infrequent but catastrophic floods or ignore building codes in hurricane zones.

Finally, we are prone to unreasoning fears. Sunstein calls this the Goldstein Effect. In George Orwell's 1984, The Party has declared Emmanuel Goldstein to be an Enemy of the People and made him the target of mindless Two Minute Hate rituals. Sunstein says an example of the Goldstein Effect in contemporary America is our irrational rejection of nuclear power."

A better way to say this is outlined in this paper by Tversky & Kahnemann, two of the most prominent researchers in the area of decision making.

Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (2004). The Framing of Decisions and the Psychology of Choice. New York, NY, US: Psychology Press. Retrieved August 12, 2008, from PsycINFO database.

"Presents evidence showing systematic reversals of preference by variations in the framing of problems, contingencies, or outcomes. Selected illustrations of preference ...

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