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Mindware

Most professions these days require more than general intelligence. They require in addition the ability to collect, analyze and think about data. Personal life is enriched when these same skills are applied to problems in everyday life involving judgment and choice. This course presents basic concepts from statistics, probability, scientific methodology, cognitive psychology and cost-benefit theory and shows how they can be applied to everything from picking one product over another to critiquing media accounts of scientific research. Concepts are defined briefly and breezily and then applied to many examples drawn from business, the media and everyday life. What kinds of things will you learn? Why it’s usually a mistake to interview people for a job. Why it’s highly unlikely that, if your first meal in a new restaurant is excellent, you will find the next meal to be as good. Why economists regularly walk out of movies and leave restaurant food uneaten. Why getting your picture on the cover of Sports Illustrated usually means your next season is going to be a disappointment. Why you might not have a disease even though you’ve tested positive for it. Why you’re never going to know how coffee affects you unless you conduct an experiment in which you flip a coin to determine whether you will have coffee on a given day. Why it might be a mistake to use an office in a building you own as opposed to having your office in someone else’s building. Why you should never keep a stock that’s going down in hopes that it will go back up and prevent you from losing any of your initial investment. Why it is that a great deal of health information presented in the media is misinformation.

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Rating 4.8★ based on 110 ratings
Length 5 weeks
Effort 4 weeks of study; 3-4 hours/week
Starts Jul 3 (42 weeks ago)
Cost $49
From University of Michigan via Coursera
Instructor Richard E. Nisbett
Download Videos On all desktop and mobile devices
Language English
Subjects Social Sciences Science
Tags Social Sciences Life Sciences Personal Development Psychology

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What people are saying

dr. nisbett

Thanks Dr. Nisbett.

Learning and applying the thinking skills and analytical tools outlined by Dr. Nisbett have a tremendous positive effect on how I look at things in both a business and personal situations.

Dr. Nisbett will quote many cases and examples to help you better understand many interesting concepts and phenomenons.

Thank you Dr. Nisbett and Coursera for providing this course.

Excellent course, the explanations by Dr. Nisbett were very clear and engaging.

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critical thinking

The pace of the course provides a comprehensive refresher of the fundamentals of critical thinking, logic, and reasoning.

It presents the matter of critical thinking in a pretty abstract away allowing to cover a lot of subjects while also presenting the most important aspects.

Critical Thinking.

Everyone should know the basics of the critical thinking especially in today's world when most of our decisions are influenced by news and social media.

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very helpful

Crisp and fun Well structured course and very helpful.

The course was very helpful to deal with the huge amount of unfiltered information in an appropriately critical way.

This course is very helpful for everyone all across the board.

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cognitive biases

The course helped me to think more clearly and avoid cognitive biases.

Explains basics of correlation, causation, std deviation, 5-6 cognitive biases and logical reasoning/thinking.

Being able to (begin to) see cognitive biases and errors daily--and realizing that everyone makes many--is enlightening and humbling.

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making decisions

It has changed my thinking and I hope to be able to use it in making decisions both at home as well as at work.

I'd recommend it to everyone as a basis to start evaluating your own ways of thinking, finding the flaws and creating new ways and healthier habits when making decisions.It's fully worth the time.

I recommend it to anyone who wants to be able to reason better and have more capabilities in making decisions.

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recommend it

I definitely recommend it to anyone!

I would recommend it to anyone who needs an intro to logical reasoning.

every day

It is a comprehensive review for those of us working with data every day.

I observed changes in my way of analyzing information in every day life.

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daily life

I think it's very helpful in daily life.

The professor is likable, the content is engaging and accessible, and the lessons are applicable to everyone's daily life in both personal and professional situations.

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well as

Certainly as many other individuals, I aspire to become wiser in order to make better decisions, both in my personal life as well as in my workplace.

The knowledge gained through this course can be applied to academic as well as personal life which is very impressive about this course.

my first

It's my first course I've completed so far, and I admit I just scratched the surface.

This was my first Coursera course, and I am happy that I came across it when I was planning on reading the book "Mindware" anyway.

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Careers

An overview of related careers and their average salaries in the US. Bars indicate income percentile.

General Helper $35k

Artificial Intelligence $55k

Military Intelligence $57k

General Engineer/ Scientific and Technical Intelligence Liaison Officer $69k

General $72k

Marketing Intelligence $73k

Intelligence Advisor $75k

Data Intelligence $86k

Intelligence Analyst 6 $94k

Intelligence/Investigator $96k

Intelligence Analyst 5 $99k

Intelligence Analyst 1 2 3 $116k

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Rating 4.8★ based on 110 ratings
Length 5 weeks
Effort 4 weeks of study; 3-4 hours/week
Starts Jul 3 (42 weeks ago)
Cost $49
From University of Michigan via Coursera
Instructor Richard E. Nisbett
Download Videos On all desktop and mobile devices
Language English
Subjects Social Sciences Science
Tags Social Sciences Life Sciences Personal Development Psychology

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