[APG Public List] forms of bias to think about

[hhsh at earthlink.net]

For a reflective time: I just ran across three principal biases identified in 
1974 and recounted by Jerome Groopman in 2009 in the context of medical 
diagnosis. They seem relevant to genealogical diagnosis as well!

[quote]

	"anchoring," where a person overvalues the first data he encounters and so is 
skewed in his thinking;

	"availability," where recent or dramatic cases quickly come to mind and color 
judgment about the situation at hand; and

	"attribution," where stereotypes can prejudice thinking so conclusions arise 
not from data but from such preconceptions.

[end quote]

New York Review of Books 56(17):26, 5 November 2009, citing Amos Tversky and 
Daniel Kahneman, "Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases: Bias in 
Judgments Reveals Some Heuristics of Thinking Under Uncertainty," Science 
I185(4157), 1974.

Harold

Harold Henderson
Research and Writing from Northwest Indiana
hhsh at earthlink.net
home office 219/324-2620
http://www.midwestroots.net
http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com