Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal Recognizing Bias in Reasoning 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A financial advisor warns a client about investing in stocks by describing only the worst market crashes in recent memory. Which bias is most influencing this advice?
- Anchoring bias
- Availability heuristic (Correct answer)
- Selection bias
- Attribution bias
Correct answer: Availability heuristic
The availability heuristic leads people to judge likelihood based on how easily vivid or recent examples come to mind, rather than base rates.
Question 2: A study concludes that people who exercise regularly are more successful in their careers, based on a survey of 40 professional athletes. Which flaw most weakens this conclusion?
- Anchoring bias
- Hindsight bias
- Selection bias (Correct answer)
- Framing effect
Correct answer: Selection bias
Surveying only professional athletes is a non-representative sample; the group is not comparable to the general working population.
Question 3: An argument states: 'Our company has operated this way for 50 years, so it must be the correct approach.' Which reasoning error does this reflect?
- Appeal to tradition (Correct answer)
- Straw man
- Ad hominem
- Begging the question
Correct answer: Appeal to tradition
An appeal to tradition assumes that a practice is correct or good solely because it has been done for a long time, without evaluating its actual merits.
Question 4: A reviewer dismisses a policy proposal by saying, 'We cannot trust this plan because its author was once convicted of fraud.' Without further evidence, this argument commits which error?
- Straw man
- Red herring
- Ad hominem (Correct answer)
- False dichotomy
Correct answer: Ad hominem
Ad hominem attacks the person making an argument rather than addressing the argument itself, which is a logical fallacy.
Question 5: Surveys about organ donation show dramatically different consent rates depending on whether the default option is 'opt in' or 'opt out.' This difference in outcomes is best explained by which bias?
- Confirmation bias
- Anchoring bias
- Framing effect (Correct answer)
- Attribution bias
Correct answer: Framing effect
The framing effect shows that how a choice is presented can significantly influence decisions, independent of the actual options available.
Question 6: When assessing whether an argument is biased, which question is MOST analytically useful to ask?
- Does the argument use technical vocabulary?
- Does the argument rely on a non-representative or one-sided set of evidence? (Correct answer)
- Is the argument structured in bullet points?
- Does the argument cite at least three sources?
Correct answer: Does the argument rely on a non-representative or one-sided set of evidence?
Checking whether evidence is one-sided or comes from an unrepresentative sample is central to identifying bias in reasoning.
Question 7: After a major stock market crash, a financial commentator states, 'The warning signs were obvious all along — anyone paying attention could have predicted this.' Which bias does this statement best illustrate?
- Hindsight bias (Correct answer)
- Anchoring bias
- Confirmation bias
- Gambler's fallacy
Correct answer: Hindsight bias
Hindsight bias is the tendency to perceive past events as having been predictable after the outcome is already known.
Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal Recognizing Bias in Reasoning 2
A financial advisor warns a client about investing in stocks by describing only the worst market crashes in recent memory.
Which bias is most influencing this advice?