Avoiding Mentalistic Explanations

This badge signifies completion of the course Getting Past Hypothetical Constructs, Explanatory Fictions, and Circular Reasoning for Behavior.

What happens when behavior is explained away by statements such as donkeys are stubborn, owls are dumb, it’s the “honeymoon period”, or the animal just entered their “terrible twos” …. well, not much. In other words behavior resolution often comes to a stand still when we use these mentalistic approaches to interpret behavior. Our livestream took a deep dive into hypothetical constructs, explanatory fiction, circular reasoning and how they often are used together and interfere with our ability to see behavior clearly.  We also looked at some suggestions to help us get past these obstacles and be more data oriented.  We learned It’s more about what we observe than what we presume to be true.

This course takes about 1 hour to complete.