Week 14 Discussion — Where Did My Own Reasoning Tilt? — Traditional alternative (no AI)

Instructors: publish this instead of the adaptive version if you prefer, and unpublish or delete the adaptive one.

Hook

It is easy to spot a bias in someone else's argument and much harder to catch one in your own. This week asks you to turn the tests on yourself, where there is no single right answer about how far a shortcut misled you or how much an objection should move you.

Your discussion question — choose Option A or Option B; they carry the same weight and the same rubric, and you say which you picked.

Option A: Take your own current lean on the running question: should the campus library stay open around the clock during finals week (illustrative)? Say which way you lean and why. Then consider the opposite: write the strongest objection to your lean in standard form, as its holders would accept it, and say what you would search for to find the case that could disprove your view. Argue whether, after considering the opposite, your view stays the same, softens, or changes, and say what evidence you would decide in advance would change your mind. You are testing your own reasoning, not winning the library question.

Option B: Choose one judgment from your own life where a shortcut or a tilt may have steered you: a purchase with a "was" price, a plan that ran long, a fear that grew after one vivid story, or a search that only found your side (no politicians, parties, campaigns, election polls, or news outlets, and no one's real name). Name the bias you suspect, using the course's terms, and argue whether it misled you or served you well in that case. Then say which of the four debiasing habits would have helped most, and why.

There is no single right answer about how much a bias shaped a real judgment, or how far an objection should move a view. What the course settles is the toolkit: confirmation bias, motivated reasoning, overconfidence, the availability heuristic, anchoring, and four habits that push back. Pick the option you actually care about, and make your case.

Expectations

Activity format: one initial post followed by two substantive peer replies. Plan on about 45 minutes across the two deadlines; your instructor sets both due dates in Canvas.

Your initial post — by the first due date (early in the module week):

• Say which option you chose.
• For Option A, state your lean on the running question and your reason, write the strongest objection in standard form as its holders would accept it, name a search that could disprove your view, and say whether your view stays, softens, or changes. For Option B, describe the judgment, name the bias you suspect, say whether it misled you or served you well, and name the debiasing habit that would have helped most.
• Say in one sentence what evidence, decided in advance, would change your mind.
• Use at least two of this week's terms (confirmation bias, disconfirming test, evidence audit, consider the opposite, motivated reasoning, same-standard test, overconfidence, availability heuristic, anchoring, debiasing habits) correctly.
• Length: roughly 150–250 words if written. You may instead record your post as audio or video (about two minutes) and attach a transcript; both forms are scored by the same rubric.
• Write from your own reasoning, in your own words, and keep real people's names, election polls, and live political questions out of your examples.

Your replies — by the second due date (the end of the module week):

• Reply substantively to at least two classmates.
• A substantive reply does more than agree: state the opposing case more strongly than the classmate did, point out a test they named that could only agree with them, or suggest a shortcut that may have served them well. "Nice post!" on its own does not count, and pointing out a bias is never a reason to dismiss a classmate's view.

What a strong post looks like:

I chose Option B. When I bought headphones marked "was 150 dollars, now 90," I felt I had saved a lot, but I never checked what other stores charged. That looks like anchoring: the old price set my sense of a fair price. In fairness, the old price may have said something about quality, so the shortcut was not useless. The habit that would have helped is deciding in advance what I would pay before seeing any tag. If two other stores sold the same pair for about 90 dollars, I would admit the deal was only the going price.

Notice how it names one bias in the writer's own judgment, gives the shortcut its fair due, and says what evidence would change the writer's mind. The headphone prices are illustrative. That is the bar.

Participation rubric

This discussion is worth 10 points. The three criteria below look at your initial post and your peer replies.

Post early if you can — the best threads happen when people have time to reply before the second due date.

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