Everything You Know Is Wrong | Part 1

Delegates will be able to:

• Examine assumptions that can lead to errors of reasoning.
• Learn techniques for recognizing and resisting these assumptions.
• Examine their own prejudices and prejudices that others might have about them.
• Learn how errors of attention and memory can impair reasoning.

Step 1: In Today's Meet, list every group to which you feel you belong. 

Examples: “junior,” “soccer player,” “Angeleno,” “Republican,” “Buddhist.” 

Step 2: Discussion | We will choose three groups many identified with and discuss characteristics of people in that group. 

• How do the group’s characteristics as described by a group member differ from the characteristics described by outsiders?
• Will every member of that group have these characteristics?
• What are the potential benefits of making these assumptions about what group members would be like? What are the potential pitfalls?

Step 3: Us vs. Them |  Come up with examples for each of these phenomena. Think both inside and outside of your own experience and your own identity groups. For instance, even you have never experienced prejudice, you seen it on TV or in a movie. Type the best examples in the boxes

Step 4: Errors of Attention |  Discuss the following questions:

• Why do so many convicted killers have the middle name Wayne?
• Does the middle name cause violent behavior, or is there another cause or both?
• When you next see a news report about a murderer, are you likely to take notice if his middle name is Wayne?
• When you next meet a person with the middle name Wayne, are you likely to wonder whether he has violent tendencies?

Step 5:  Chart of homicide rates from the Bureau of Justice| Discuss the following questions:

• What is the approximate total number of homicides between 1996 and 2005? (The easiest way to do this is to figure out the approximate average and multiply it by the number of years.)
• How many people are on News of the Weird’s list of Waynes?
• What is the likelihood that a convicted killer had the “classic middle name”?

Step 6: Disagree on Iraq? Your'e not just wrong, You're Evil! | Read and discuss.

*Adapted from the Annenberg Classroom