This is one of your assigned learning journal entries. While you should complete it this lesson (because its less likely that you will do a good job on it if you wait until the last minute!), the learning journal entries are submitted in two batches: the first 2 are due in Lesson 7 and the second 2 are due in Lesson 15, per the Course Schedule.
First, some background information. Take a moment to consider the following simple question:
A bat and ball together cost $1.10. The bat costs one dollar more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?
Please come up with your answer. Once you have an answer, then (and only then!) scroll down to check:
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You probably answered 10¢. That’s what most Harvard students answered. But the real answer is 5¢. Behavioral economist Daniel Kahneman explains why most people get this wrong:
A number came to your mind. The number, of course, is 10: 10¢. The distinctive mark of this easy puzzle is that it evokes an answer that is intuitive, appealing, and wrong. Do the math, and you will see. If the ball costs 10¢, then the total cost will be $1.20 (10¢ for the ball and $1.10 for the bat), not $1.10. The correct answer is 5¢. It is safe to assume that the intuitive answer also came to the mind of those who ended up with the correct number—they somehow managed to resist the intuition. Many thousands of university students have answered the bat-and-ball puzzle, and the results are shocking. More than 50% of students at Harvard, MIT, and Princeton gave the intuitive—incorrect—answer. At less selective universities, the rate of demonstrable failure to check was in excess of 80%. The bat-and-ball problem is our first encounter with an observation that will be a recurrent theme of this book: many people are overconfident, prone to place too much faith in their intuitions. They apparently find cognitive effort at least mildly unpleasant and avoid it as much as possible. (pp. 44–45)
This excerpt comes from Kahneman’s 2011 book Thinking, Fast And Slow (Links to an external site.), which posits that we have an intuitive mental system and a logical mental system, and we often use the wrong one at the wrong time.
Please view the following video. It’s an interview with Kahneman in which he explains the basics of his ideas. (And you can always Google it if you wish to learn more about Kahneman’s ideas; fyi he won the Nobel Prize in Economics.) https://www.youtube.com/embed/PirFrDVRBo4?rel=0 Video 3.1. Length: 00:06:35, Thinking Fast vs. Thinking Slow
Next, go to the Project Implicit page (Links to an external site.). You will be taking a brief (15-minute) online test, initially devised by researchers at Harvard U. In the box titled Project Implicit: Social Attitudes, select Go to continue as a guest.
On the next page, click I wish to proceed (assuming you have read the information and you so wish). On the ensuing page, select a test that interests you, any test. The blurb next to each test will give you some sense of what it’s about.
Begin the test. You will need approximately 15 uninterrupted minutes. Please pause at this point to take the test. Once you have finished the test, and you have received your results, then check out the debriefing and other material on the website, which will explain more about what the research is about and how to interpret your score. Remember, if the results show you have an implicit bias, it does not mean that you yourself are necessarily biased. Consider: Many things come from the social environments we live in, from the media and other information that we are constantly bombarded with. These all affect our perceptual processes! Also, be aware that the word bias is very loaded, and that this website is defining it with two variables: number of errors and response latency (the lag in milliseconds before you hit the keys). These variables represent their operational definition of subconscious bias.
Now, based on all of the above, here’s your journal assignment: What are the linkages that you perceive between the Kahneman video and his ideas, the Implicit Association Test, and the types of situations that you or other managers might encounter at work? Can you think of an example? There is no right or wrong answer; this is designed to make you think and analyze (450 to 500 words; please put total #words at end of your answer).
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