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How To Get Your Own Way
About This Site
"How To Get Your Own Way" covers five themes:- Cognitive Biases, Fallacies, and Effects. Improve your understanding of how our minds take shortcuts to reach conclusions. Then, form strategies to get your own way or to defend yourself against those trying to get one over on you.
- Statistics. Develop a critical eye so you can spot when statistics are being manipulated by peddlers, politicians, or the press.
- Body Language. People's body movements can contradict or confirm what they are saying. Becoming more aware of what is going on around you will help you read people better and give you an edge in dealing with them.
- Business Writing. No one cares what you’ve got to say unless it affects or entertains them. Learn how to write for maximum effect.
Critical Thinking Test
Are you good at spotting the biases, fallacies, and other cognitive effects? Can you spot when statistics have been manipulated? Can you read body language? Well, let's see!Gold
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- This test has questions.
- A correct answer is worth 5 points.
- You can get up to 5 bonus points for a speedy answer.
- Some questions demand more than one answer. You must get every part right.
- Beware! Wrong answers score 0 points.
- 🏆 If you beat one of the top 3 scores, you will be invited to apply for the Hall of Fame.
Scoring System
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Sergeant (+)
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Factors Affecting Heuristics
Heuristics are the brain's frameworks for making decisions. Our heuristics are personalized by our experiences. More specifically, the way we make decisions is affected by:- Personal biases (assigning importance to the ideas in arguments).
- Cognitive fallacies (making process errors when considering arguments)
- Cognitive effects (following tendencies when processing arguments)
Below is a list of common biases, fallacies, and cognitive effects. (All the examples on this site come from How To Get Your Own Way, a book that covers effective writing, Critical Thinking, body language, statistics, and marketing.)
List of Cognitive Biases
- Anchoring
- Attentional Bias
- Availability Bias (with COVID example)
- Better Than Average Bias
- Choice Supportive Bias
- Confirmation Bias (with COVID example)
- Contrast Bias
- Distinction Bias
- Good Looking People Bias
- Groupthink
- Hindsight Bias
- Impact Bias
- Mirror Imaging
- Moral Credential Bias
- Negativity Bias
- News Media Bias
- Omissions Bias
- Reactance Bias
- Self Serving Bias
- Status Quo Bias
List of Cognitive Effects
- Barnum Effect
- Broken Biscuit Effect
- Compromise Effect
- Dunning Kruger Effect
- Endowment Effect
- Halo Effect
- Hyperbolic Discounting Effect
- Isolation Effect
- Ostrich Effect
- Rhyme As Reason Effect
List of Cognitive Fallacies
- Ad Hominem Argument
- Appeal to Authority Fallacy
- Appeal to Flattery Fallacy
- Base Rate Fallacy (with COVID example)
- Gamblers' Fallacy
- Obfuscation Fallacy
- Do you disagree with something on this page?
- Did you spot a typo?
- Do you know a bias or fallacy that we've missed?