Video Primarily Uses Attorney Arguments

¶ … video primarily uses attorney arguments in a case of alleged sexual harassment and wrongful termination as means of outlining the decision making process. Decisions are often influenced by prior experience and stereotypes rather than by probabilities and the direct facts of a given decision. There are also systematic ways of making decisions -- deliberation -- or through simple cues.

In a test for example, the "central route" to persuasion is based on facts and/or knowledge, while "simple cues" can also be used as a form of deductive reasoning to make decisions based on facts external to the actual problem/decision at hand.

Another scholar also suggests that both praise and negative feedback have the tendency of bringing performance/decision-making in line with the mean; positive feedback for good performance will reduce the quality of a repeated performance, while negative feedback for poor performance will increase the quality of performance. Video 13: 5:46-13:06 There are three major heuristics of judgment identified here.

Representational information is based on perceptions -- the example of the President walking to his helicopter needing to "look like a leader" making people believe they are good at their job -- is provided. "Availability" refers to how easily information can be retrieved in the brain; facts that are immediately present affect judgment inordinately compared to realities of probability; "anchoring" is a similar process in which information recently processed leads to unrelated conclusions in other circumstances.

Decisions are also made with "affective forecasting," or beliefs about which options will make individuals happier. Risks of failure and benefits of success are often exaggerated in people's minds. Preconceived judgments also tend to become strengthened rather than weakened when they are challenged. Intuition and perception also play a large part in much thinking and the decision making process. Video 13: 13:07-19:08 Language is considered by many to be evidence of thinking and thought because it is the only definite way in which thoughts can be examined.

Though there are "different" languages, they all have certain commonalities -- certain parameters that are set, and that can be "switched" in different ways to produce different languages, according to Noam Chomsky. Language acquisition is rendered somewhat less astounding in this perspective, as it is "hard-wired" into the brain. Children begin language acquisition by making vocal noises that eventually become words of the "target language" -- this works the same way with hand gestures for signing language.

First words usually occur between 9 and 14 months, with the "word explosion" occurring around 18 months for most infants. B.F. Skinner saw language acquisition as "operant behavior" with reinforcement necessary; Chomsky argues that language is more automatic for humans, requiring less exposure and reinforcement than in Skinner's schema. Video 13: 19:09-27:13 The case of Genie, who had been deprived of language (as well as other elements of development) until her early teens, shows how vital the.