Psych In Your World: Thinking Errors and Psychology Skills
By Karla Lassonde
The “Psych In Your World” video series features short lectures by psychology professors at Minnesota State University, Mankato on a range of topics connected to psychology. These videos were created as resources for teachers of psychology at all levels. We also provide discussion questions for each video for you to use with your students.
A core topic in psychology is understanding how we think about our world. In this video, cognitive psychologist Dr. Karla Lassonde describes some common thinking errors.
As you watch the video, think about the following questions:
What are some examples of intuition, anecdotes, or authority that you have used in your life to make a decision? What are some of the advantages and disadvantages of using these to guide our decisions?
How do emotions influence decisions?
How can you use psychology to spot false information?
If you find these resources useful, please let us know! You can use the contact form on this site to share your and /or your students’ responses.
Additional Resources
APA's "Speaking of Psychology" Episode: How Memories can be Manipulated
Listen as renowned memory expert, Dr. Elizabeth Loftus discusses how unreliable memory is an how it is common for even our most vivid memories to change. “Speaking of Psychology” is an audio podcast created by the American Psychological Association highlighting new and relevant psychological research.
Lesson plan for this video: This document has additional discussion questions and other ideas for assignments related to the topics discussed here.