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Cognitive Bias song

Cory Doctorow at 11:41 am Wed, May 5, 2010

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An AP Psychology teacher wrote a song enumerating several types of cognitive bias -- the blindspots in our thinking -- for his students. It's catchy, it's educational, and it might save you from getting conned, voting for a bastard, or having a stupid fight with your spouse!

Cognitive Bias VideoSong (via Freakonomics)

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I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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  • Lester

    I don’t think this is a good song, but now I don’t know why…

  • mhlaxp

    Educational songs are the best. My favorite remains this Hugh Blumenfeld sing-a-long about phenomenology:

    http://hugh-blumenfeld-the-phenomenology-sing-a-mp3-download.kohit.net/_/224907

    • PaulR

      Me, I’m waiting for Daniel Dennett to record a sing-a-long about heterophenomenology.

      • Anonymous

        Rhyming <=> Ancient Wisdom

  • Hools Verne

    Of course when they work in our favor we call them heuristics and AP Psychology teachers don’t get smug and write bad songs.

  • Chas44

    That song is “catchy” like poison ivy is catchy.

  • antiemantiem

    He’s kind of like Tom Lehrer crossed with Randy Travis. Excellent!

  • dean10003

    i wrote this on the youtube site where his typo is getting him kicked in the ass and he got defensive about it and accused one of the writers one of those biases, which leads me to believe he throws it around whenever he’s criticized:

    don’t be defensive about accurate constructive criticism about a typo. just GO BACK, FIX IT, REPOST IT. it teaches students about correcting problems rather than defending a tiny fixable flaw. if you want students and all people to correct their biases, don’t give them distractions and ammunition against your credibility. you stuck your neck out, did something creative, and did well. now JUST FIX THE TYPO, DAMMIT. see, it’s more than a typo, it’s grammatical blindness that shows up in the typo.

    • Anonymous

      Hi, this is guy is my AP Psych teacher, he was just trying to teach us how to use the bias in the correct way,not trying to teach us proper grammar. What you did was take what was a small issue and miss the big picture, anchoring bias (which i learned while watching this video). And he doesn’t use this to get back at someone like you, he did because in the process of trying to teach someone about this, you helped proved one of his points. So my suggestion to you is to get a life, instead trying to find little mistakes to bash on people. People make mistakes, we’re human, get over it.

  • Chava

    Apparently, AP teachers don’t know how to use your/you’re correctly.

  • Gutierrez

    A for effort. The spreading of the definitions definitely makes it interesting.

  • Anonymous

    I’m sceptical of this song because he is in the category: Psychology – but that’s probably my Representativeness Bias acting up.

  • Anonymous

    If I can sing along to it then it’s my scientific revolution!

  • Allegra

    Now that the notion of cognitive bias is going roguememe, I guess it’s time to get that tshirt made up:

    Everyone has
    cognitive biases;
    mine are smaller, cuter
    and rarer than yours.