Inaccurate Observation

Midterm I

Chapter 1: Question 1- 20 points

Inaccurate Observation:

After reading through the section of Inaccurate Observation, I came to the understanding

that Inaccurate Observations is when someone makes a mistake about what they see. The book

gave an example about what your teacher was wearing on the first day of class. An example I

would use to defend my knowledge of the term would be when you're at a stop light in the left

lane and the light to continue to go straight turns green. At a stop light you may not be looking

exactly at the lights waiting to turn green, but you look at other cars or even begin to zone out

when the light to continue to go straight turns green, you lift your foot off the gas because all you

see is the lights flash, and automatically you assume that the left turn light turned green, but in

reality the light is still red, so you quickly put your foot back on the break. This is an inaccurate

observation that happens all the time, I tend to do all the time, and I have even seen people do it

as well.

Overgeneralization:

Overgeneralization is when you get information from only a handful of people out of a

group of thousands, and you interview them, and get back the same answer, you then assume that

because you have received a handful of the same answers that the rest of the thousands of people

are going to have the same answer. In the book on page 20 it gives an example of a reporter who

is under a time crunch to interview and type up a report about an animal rights demonstration.

Due to the fact that the reporter is on such a time crunch the reporter asks the first three

demonstrators they see and receives the same answer for why they are there, the reporter then

assumes that the other 3,000 people that are there are there for the same reason. Being human

this happens a lot in the real world. I will even admit it that I have overgeneralized as well.

Especially when someone is put under a lot of pressure, and has a time crunch all you can

possibly think about is getting your work done before your deadline is up. The fastest way

possible is to just assume that everyone is going to have the same answer because they are all at

the same event, so taking the easy way out by only interviewing a couple people is the best

solution. Of course because this is known as overgeneralization, doing so wouldn't be the best

idea, because when your article or work is published it's going to be critiqued by the public.

Selective Observation

Selective Observation comes after overgeneralization, which is one of the dangers that

comes with overgeneralization. Selective observation is a pattern that exists when we have

developed a general understanding of why the pattern began. There is more of a focus on the

issues that follow the pattern and a less of a focus with issues that don't follow the pattern. To

me selective observation is what you want to see, or what your use to seeing. If you're not use to

it or have never heard of it why start especially in selective observation.

Illogical Reasoning

In the book Babbie gives an example of Illogical Reasoning in day to day life with

gambler's fallacy, which he stated that "we often assume that a consistent run of either good or

bad luck at poker may kindle the belief that a winning hand is just around the corner. Many a

poker player has stated in a game much too long because of that mistaken belief." page 21. With

Illogical Reasoning you assume that your bad luck streak with eventually run out and a win will

come real soon, but in reality it's not but because you think that it will you stay in the game

because you feel that you will win, eventually. Clearly Illogical Reasoning doesn't just happen

only in gambling. After reading the chapter and fully understanding Illogical Reasoning I

realized that I have been in the same situation. In high school I would never study for exams, and

I would always get a good grade on the first two exams, and then I would just assume that

because I was able to manage without studying for the first two exams that I wouldn't have to

study for the rest of the exams and that my luck with exams would keep up. Due to this being

Illogical Reasoning that wasn't the case, and I received the grades I was given due to the lack of

studying.

Mystification:

From my understanding of mystification it means that we cannot understand everything

that we are told. It doesn't matter how intelligent or diligent we may be there is always going to

be a time when we don't understand something. An example I found was that "We many never

fully understand the origin of the universe." After reading that I became more clear about

Mystification, we just have to face it that we may never understand why a certain thing is the

way