Why people believe strange things

I have learned the concept cognitive biases from this clip. Cognitive biases are the incorrect
judgments which people have interpreted and perceived through inveracious phenomenon and
information. In general terms, it is that people believe what they want to believe, which is the
selective perception by oneself . People vary in background, cultures, education, and religion.
This clip gave us a good example of how people perceive things differently on a religious
iconography---Virgin Mary, or perception of a face on the surface of Mars . I have read a book
in which the author of this book said You are what you read. People who believe certain
religions tend to perceive certain phenomenon as a miracle. People who love to read romatic
novels tend to be more emotional and sensitive. This is also an example of me. I am from China,
in a unfamliar situation like at Salt Lake Community College I tend to feel more amiable and have
more sense of identity to classmates who come from China or Asia . Our life expectation and
experience make us who we are.
In China , it is very offensive to mention death on holidays, they think death is a very ominous
thing and they should avoid speaking of it. But here in a western country, I have attended two
funerals of my husbands family. People were calm and peaceful during the whole procedure. In
China, people are supposed to express their extreme lament and sorrow during a persons funeral.
This is how cultures among different countries vary. Culture as one of significant factors forms
and influence our future values of world and perception.
Here in the textbook page 174 ---perceptual hypotheses: you probably feel fairly certain that
your perception accurately matches the real world, but this is not always the case. Our
perceptions are based on perceptural hypotheses: educated guesses that we make while
interpreting sensory information. These hypotheses are informed by a number of factors,
including our personalities, experiences. and expectations. We use these hypothese to generate
our perceptual set .
This excerpt annotates why people believe weird things . This perceptural hypotheses may lead to
explain various perceptions from people to people , and how subjective we perceive this world to
be.
The strategies of how we accurately perceive the abundant information around us as much as
possible are: 1, Improve and develop our knowledge in broad and various fields of study . 2, Exert
critical thinking and the scientific method to distinguish infromation. 3, Reflect on our life
experiences avoiding our subjective judgement prior to conveying our viewpoint. 4, Study
phychology as a means to expand and refine our understanding of ourself and others .