Key Concepts 2

Question 1

Aphorisms

Answer 1

Short sayings that impart a piece of common sense wisdom

Question 2

Anecdotal Observations

Answer 2

A method of data collection where we rely on what we have personally observed in our day-to-day lives.

Question 3

Common Sense

Answer 3

The collection of rules of behavior, practices, customs, and ways of thinking that we expect any reasonable person to understand.

Question 4

Confirmation Bias

Answer 4

The bias to accept uncritically anything that confirms our worldview and to be overly critical of anything that challenges or disproves our worldview. Simply put, we are all biased to favor information that confirms what we already believed.

Question 5

Mental Models

Answer 5

The way we conceptualize something in our mind’s eye.

Question 6

Representative Individuals

Answer 6

The inaccurate belief that a complex network of people can be understood as if it were a single person.

Question 7

Sampling Bias

Answer 7

When the way participants are recruited leads researchers to draw a sample that is unrepresentative of the population and thus the conclusions researchers draw from their unrepresentative data may be inaccurate.

Question 8

The Paradox of Common Sense

Answer 8

“The paradox of common sense… is that even as it helps us make sense of the world, it can actively undermine our ability to understand it.” (Watts 2011:xiv).

Question 9

The Special-Person Hypothesis

Answer 9

The inaccurate belief that a complex network can be understood by the actions of a single important individual within the network.