full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Alex Gendler: Can you outsmart this logical fallacy?

Unscramble the Blue Letters

So why do statements with more conditions sometimes seem more believable? This is a pnneoemhon known as the conjunction fallacy. When we’re asked to make quick decisions, we tend to look for shortcuts. In this case, we look for what seems plausible rather than what is statistically most probable. On its own, Lucy being an artist doesn’t mtach the expectations formed by the preceding information. The additional detail about her playing poker gives us a narrative that resonates with our intuitions— it makes it seem more plausible. And we choose the option that seems more representative of the overall picture, regardless of its actual probability. This effect has been observed across multiple seituds, inuidlncg ones with participants who understood statistics well– from sdtetnus betting on sequences of dice rllos, to foreign pocily experts pdcriteing the likelihood of a diplomatic crisis.

Open Cloze

So why do statements with more conditions sometimes seem more believable? This is a __________ known as the conjunction fallacy. When we’re asked to make quick decisions, we tend to look for shortcuts. In this case, we look for what seems plausible rather than what is statistically most probable. On its own, Lucy being an artist doesn’t _____ the expectations formed by the preceding information. The additional detail about her playing poker gives us a narrative that resonates with our intuitions— it makes it seem more plausible. And we choose the option that seems more representative of the overall picture, regardless of its actual probability. This effect has been observed across multiple _______, _________ ones with participants who understood statistics well– from ________ betting on sequences of dice _____, to foreign ______ experts __________ the likelihood of a diplomatic crisis.

Solution

  1. policy
  2. phenomenon
  3. predicting
  4. studies
  5. rolls
  6. students
  7. match
  8. including

Original Text

So why do statements with more conditions sometimes seem more believable? This is a phenomenon known as the conjunction fallacy. When we’re asked to make quick decisions, we tend to look for shortcuts. In this case, we look for what seems plausible rather than what is statistically most probable. On its own, Lucy being an artist doesn’t match the expectations formed by the preceding information. The additional detail about her playing poker gives us a narrative that resonates with our intuitions— it makes it seem more plausible. And we choose the option that seems more representative of the overall picture, regardless of its actual probability. This effect has been observed across multiple studies, including ones with participants who understood statistics well– from students betting on sequences of dice rolls, to foreign policy experts predicting the likelihood of a diplomatic crisis.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
portrait artist 3
conjunction fallacy 3
playing poker 2
portrait artists 2

Important Words

  1. actual
  2. additional
  3. artist
  4. asked
  5. believable
  6. betting
  7. case
  8. choose
  9. conditions
  10. conjunction
  11. crisis
  12. decisions
  13. detail
  14. dice
  15. diplomatic
  16. effect
  17. expectations
  18. experts
  19. fallacy
  20. foreign
  21. formed
  22. including
  23. information
  24. likelihood
  25. lucy
  26. match
  27. multiple
  28. narrative
  29. observed
  30. option
  31. participants
  32. phenomenon
  33. picture
  34. plausible
  35. playing
  36. poker
  37. policy
  38. preceding
  39. predicting
  40. probability
  41. probable
  42. quick
  43. representative
  44. resonates
  45. rolls
  46. sequences
  47. shortcuts
  48. statements
  49. statistically
  50. statistics
  51. students
  52. studies
  53. tend
  54. understood