Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal Recognizing Bias in Reasoning 5 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A nutrition study funded by a sugar company concludes that sugar consumption has no link to obesity. A critical thinker should first question:
- The qualifications of the researchers
- Whether the funding source creates a conflict of interest (Correct answer)
- Whether the study was peer-reviewed
- The length of the study period
Correct answer: Whether the funding source creates a conflict of interest
Funding bias can systematically skew research design, analysis, and conclusions in favor of the sponsor's interests.
Question 2: An argument states: 'Dr. Peterson, a renowned cardiologist, says this new diet is the best for weight loss.' Which reasoning flaw is present?
- Hasty generalization
- Appeal to authority outside the relevant domain (Correct answer)
- Ad hominem attack
- Circular reasoning
Correct answer: Appeal to authority outside the relevant domain
A cardiologist's expertise is in heart disease, not necessarily weight loss nutrition, making this an inappropriate appeal to authority.
Question 3: A manager reviews only five-star customer reviews before concluding that the product has no flaws. This reasoning error is called:
- Selective perception bias (Correct answer)
- Attribution error
- Dunning-Kruger effect
- Negativity bias
Correct answer: Selective perception bias
Selective perception bias occurs when someone focuses only on information that confirms a desired conclusion while ignoring contradictory evidence.
Question 4: A columnist writes: 'Anyone who supports stricter gun regulations clearly wants to abolish all gun ownership.' This misrepresentation is known as:
- Ad hominem fallacy
- Slippery slope fallacy
- Straw man fallacy (Correct answer)
- Begging the question
Correct answer: Straw man fallacy
The straw man fallacy distorts an opponent's position into an extreme version that is easier to attack.
Question 5: A study shows that countries with higher chocolate consumption have more Nobel Prize winners. A biased conclusion from this data would be:
- Chocolate consumption correlates with Nobel Prize rates in the dataset
- Eating chocolate causes higher intelligence and Nobel Prize wins (Correct answer)
- Further research is needed to understand this relationship
- This correlation may be explained by a third variable like national wealth
Correct answer: Eating chocolate causes higher intelligence and Nobel Prize wins
Concluding causation from correlation is a common bias; correlation alone cannot establish that chocolate consumption causes Nobel Prize wins.
Question 6: A debate participant says: 'My opponent has been divorced twice, so his views on family policy cannot be trusted.' This is an example of:
- Genetic fallacy
- Ad hominem fallacy (Correct answer)
- Appeal to emotion
- Red herring
Correct answer: Ad hominem fallacy
Ad hominem attacks discredit a person's character rather than addressing the actual merits of their argument.
Question 7: A company reports: 'Employee satisfaction increased by 50% this quarter.' Without knowing the baseline, a critical thinker would recognize this statistic as potentially:
- Definitively positive and reliable
- Misleading due to lack of baseline context (Correct answer)
- Proof of successful management
- An example of anchoring bias
Correct answer: Misleading due to lack of baseline context
A percentage increase is meaningless without knowing the starting value; satisfaction rising from 2% to 3% is technically a 50% increase but still very low.
Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal Recognizing Bias in Reasoning 5
A nutrition study funded by a sugar company concludes that sugar consumption has no link to obesity.
A critical thinker should first question: