Critical Thinking Ch.1

Warranted Assumptions

Assumptions in which we have good reason to hold them.

Wishful hinking

Believing something because it makes one feel good, not because there is a good reason for thinking that it is true.

Sociocentrism

Group-centered thinking.( Can hinder rational thinking by focusing excessively on the group)

Hasty generalization

In which one draws a conclusion about the large class of things from a small sample.

Conformism

Refers to our tendency to follow the crowd, that is to conform (often unthinkingly) to authority or group standards of conduct and belief.

Unwarranted Assumptions

Something taken for granted without good reason.

Assumption

Something we take for granted, something we believe to be true without any proof or conclusive evidence.

Sterotype

The assumption that individual people have all been stamped from one plate.

Critical Thinking

The general term given to a wide range of cognitive skills and intellectual dispositions needed to effectively identity, analyze, and evaluate arguments and truth claims; to discover and overcome personal preconceptions and biases; to formulate and present convincing reasons in support of conclusions; and to make reasonable, intelligent decisions about what to believe and what to do.

Self-interested thinking

The tendency to accept and defend beliefs that harmonize with one's self-interest.

Self-serving bias

The tendency to overate oneself--to see oneself as better in some respect than one actually is.

Group Bias

The tendency to see one's own group as being inherently better than others.

Egocentrism

The tendency to see reality as centered on oneself.

Relativism

The view that truth is a matter of opinion.

Cultural Relativism

The view that truth is a matter of social or cultural opinion.

Moral subjectivism

The view that what is morally right and good for an individual, A, is whatever A believes is morally right and good.

Cultural moral relativism

The view that what is morally right and good for an individual, A, is whatever A's society or culture believes is morally right and good.