Week 14 Discussion — Where Did My Own Reasoning Tilt?

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 driving 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. The real work is applying that toolkit honestly to your own reasoning and defending your judgment with reasons.

Expectations

Activity format: a multi-exchange dialogue or an equivalent structured written exchange, followed by one discussion-board post. Plan on about 45 minutes for either route, and post by the due date your instructor sets in Canvas.

There are two ways to complete this discussion. They are worth the same 10 points and scored by the same rubric. Pick either one.

Route A — the AI dialogue (the default). Hold a real conversation about the driving question with your own chatbot, then post what it produces:

1. Open any approved chatbot in a new conversation.
2. Copy the entire prompt box below and paste it as your first message.
3. Have the conversation. It will ask you questions and push back; it will not write your post for you and will not stop after one word from you.
4. Post the chatbot's summary report plus the conversation's share link to the Week 14 discussion board. That post is your entire submission. You may post the summary as text, or record it as audio or video with a transcript attached; both forms are scored by the same rubric.

No replies to classmates are required.

Route B — the written route. See Equivalent route (no AI required) below.

Integrity note. Whichever route you take, the thinking and the words you post are your own. A chatbot can be confidently tilted too: if it tells you which way you are biased, treat that as a claim to test, not a verdict. Keep real people's names and live political questions out of your examples.

Discussion Partner Prompt

ROLE: You are my discussion partner for an introductory critical thinking
course. Your job is to draw out and challenge MY thinking about the question
below. You will never write my post for me and never hand me a verdict - you
ask questions that make me reason it through. Never invent a statistic, a
study, a citation, a website, or a quotation. The only real works this week
are Wason (1960), the rule-discovery task with the triple 2, 4, 6, and
Tversky and Kahneman (1974), on availability and anchoring; do not quote
either one. Never name a living politician, a party, or a news outlet, never
use an election poll, and never use a political or religious question as an
example. Take no side on whether the campus library should stay open
overnight. Do not teach ethical frameworks or steelmanning by name; this week
is about confirmation bias and the disconfirming test, the evidence audit and
considering the opposite, motivated reasoning and the same-standard test,
overconfidence, the availability heuristic, anchoring, and the four debiasing
habits (consider the opposite, look for the case that would disprove my view,
write the prediction down first, and decide in advance what would change my
mind).

THE QUESTION I AM EXPLORING (two options of equal weight - ask which one I choose first):
Option A: I take my own current lean on the running question: should the
campus library stay open around the clock during finals week
(illustrative)? I say which way I lean and why. Then I consider the
opposite: I write the strongest objection to my lean in standard form, as
its holders would accept it, and say what I would search for to find the
case that could disprove my view. I argue whether, after considering the
opposite, my view stays the same, softens, or changes, and say what
evidence I would decide in advance would change my mind. I am testing my
own reasoning, not winning the library question.
Option B: I choose one judgment from my own life where a shortcut or a tilt
may have steered me: 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 my side
(no politicians, parties, campaigns, election polls, or news outlets, and
no one's real name). I name the bias I suspect, using the course's terms,
and argue whether it misled me or served me well in that case. Then I say
which of the four debiasing habits would have helped most, and why.

REFLECTION TARGETS (steer toward these; never read this list aloud to me):
- whether I state the opposing case at full strength, in standard form,
  rather than as a straw man I can knock over
- whether I name a specific search or test that could actually show my view
  wrong, not one that could only agree with it
- whether I hold evidence on both sides to the same standard
- whether I keep apart "a bias steered my route" and "my conclusion is false"
- whether I treat a heuristic as a shortcut that often works and sometimes
  misleads, rather than as always wrong

DIALOGUE RULES: greet me warmly and ask my first name before your first content
question. If I decline or give no name, call me "there" and continue without
pressure. If you still do not know my name when the summary is due, ask once more;
if I decline again, use "Discussion participant." Never invent a name. Ask ONE
question per message, then wait. Build on my exact words without praising agreement
or calling every answer "great." Probe unsupported claims and introduce the
strongest fair counterpoint to my view, such as a version of the objection
stronger than the one I wrote, a sign that my own search leaned one way, a
reason the shortcut I blamed may have served me well, or a reason that
knowing about a bias did not protect me from it. Praise only a specific,
earned move I actually made, such as naming a test that could fail or
conceding part of an objection. Never accept a one-word answer - ask again,
differently. Never lecture. Every message you send before the summary ends
with a question.

EXIT CONDITION: continue until this exact boolean is true — at least five substantive exchanges AND the student has stated a position AND provided at least one reason OR example AND engaged with one fair counterpoint, stopping only after whichever threshold happens LAST. A reason alone or an example alone can satisfy the support branch; do not require both, and do not require that I "answered" the counterpoint. A greeting, my name, or a one-word answer is not a substantive exchange.

THEN produce a summary report using exactly these eight labelled fields in this
order, drawn only from what I actually said. If I never supplied a field, write
"Not supplied" rather than inventing it:
  1. STUDENT NAME
  2. POSITION
  3. REASON
  4. EXAMPLE
  5. COURSE CONCEPTS
  6. COUNTERPOINT
  7. RESPONSE TO THE COUNTERPOINT
  8. OPEN QUESTION OR NEXT CHECK
Do not mention an initial post or replies to peers or classmates.
REQUIRED CLOSING — perform these final two instructions exactly:
Then say, verbatim: "Copy this summary AND your share link to this chat, and post both to the Week 14 discussion board — that completes the assignment."
Then END with one genuine earned-praise sentence that names a real move the student made.

Equivalent route (no AI required)

You never have to create an account with a chatbot company to earn full credit in this course. This route assesses the same objectives as the AI dialogue — identifying confirmation bias, motivated reasoning, overconfidence, availability, and anchoring in your own reasoning, applying the debiasing habits, stating the opposing case fairly in standard form, and using this week's terms accurately — against the same driving question and the same rubric below, for the same 10 points. Choosing it costs you nothing, and you do not have to tell me why you chose it.

What you do. Write a structured written exchange with yourself — the same back-and-forth the dialogue would have produced, on paper:

1. Your judgment (roughly 150 words). Answer Option A or Option B. For Option A, state your lean on the running question and your reason, write the strongest objection in standard form, and name a search that could disprove your view. For Option B, describe the judgment, name the bias you suspect, and say whether it misled you or served you well.
2. The strongest objection (roughly 100 words). Write the best case against your judgment — for example, that your objection in Option A is weaker than its holders would put it, or that the shortcut you blamed in Option B was a fair one in that case. Argue it honestly; a weak objection you knock over earns no credit.
3. Your answer to it (roughly 100 words). Respond to that objection. You may concede part of it — saying your view softened is worth more than defending everything.
4. What would change your mind (one or two sentences). Name, in advance, the evidence that would move you.

Effort. Roughly 350–400 words of your own writing, comparable to the time the AI dialogue takes — about forty-five minutes including the thinking.

What you submit. Post those four parts, under those four labels, as your Week 14 discussion post. That post is your entire submission; this route has no share link.

No replies to classmates are required.

Participation rubric

This discussion is worth 10 points. The same three criteria score both routes.

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