Intro Class --Intro self --Intro class --name --something about yourself --Syllabus/this class --Forer Effect -- says

that people tend to accept vague and general personality descriptions as uniquely applicable to themselves without realizing that the same description could be applied to just about anyone --Forer!s students in "#$% rated this as $ &' on average Gil 1,2 (hy )* we believe what isn!t so+ ---e g urban legends, adoption - fertility myth, etc ---.*/ just stupidity of gullibility ---often, there are identifiable patterns or 0determinants0 that lead us to accept erroneous beliefs ---Sometimes, it what we (1./ to believe 2covered later in course3 ---Sometimes, just a matter of how the mind wor4s 205ognitive determinants03 Something out of nothing (hy do we see a face on 6ars, or a mountainside+ (hy do 1rabs see 01llah 14bar0 on a flower petal+ ---.*/ a case of desiring to see order or patterns in random things ---2not motivational3 ---7ather, 8umans are very good at seeing patterns ---(89+

Several reasons: ---survival 2need to learn from e;perience, and see predators, etc 3 ---Clustering illusion 07andom events should alternate0 2not true< =ust over time, equal chance of either outcome, equal outcomes3 ---6ore generally, Judgment by representativness ---0representativness0 > li4e goes with li4e ---spicy food causes heartburn, not bland food+ ---smelly food causes gas+ ---seems li4e it ought to be true, but is it+ ---often legitimate, but .*/ 1?(19S ---why we e;pect coin-toss to go 8/8/8/8/8/8/8/ c f p &@ -- Aombing ?ondon )ivide the map into squares clusters of hits< )ivide it diagonally no pattern at all< *ur great ability to recognize patterns, unfortunately causes us to see patterns which don!t e;ist Statisitcal regression Regression effect ---/his is how regression got its name--Sir Francis Balton noticed that the sons of tall fathers tended to be shorter than their fathers while sons of short fathers tended to be taller /he sons 0regressed to the mean0 ---Suppose you score far below average on a test Statisticians would e;pect you score better if tested again ---/his happens because there are two types of people with very low pre-test measurements: those who are truly low, and those with higher underlying values but appear low due to random variation (hen post-test measurements are made, those who

are truly low will tend to stay low, but those with higher underlying scores will tend to migrate up toward overall the mean, dragging the group!s mean post-test measurement with them 1 similar argument applies to those with pre-test measurements greater than the overall mean The Regression fallacy ---Suppose we tested students on some ability /he group with the lowest "@C of scores is tested again later and the average score is higher Is this because they improved over time+ 6aybe, but we need to do more testing to tell ---1ssuming that that higher scores on the second testing is due to real improvement is falling for the regression fallacy Similarly, =ohnny gets a "@@C on the DS1/ and lower on the S1/ -- Is it because he slac4ed off or got dumber+ Drobably not -regression again ---So, misidentifying regression - instead 0e;plaining0 it by some other means/cause 2typically ad hoc3 is the regression fallacy ---e g the Sports Illustrated jin;