Writing Assignments Batch 3

NAME: Pham Le Khanh Thi

ID : 1912280171

#: Mercier Chapters 1 & 8 WA1

Let’s define ‘gullability’ as being easily persuaded of something. In one paragraph relate
one personal story about when you exhibited gullability OR when you took advantage of
someone else’s gullability. Now describe what caused the person in your paragraph,
whether you or someone else, to be gullable.

When I was in secondary school, most kids believed in most of the stuffs that are written in
newspaper, so was I. I was a big fan of a Korean Boy Band back then. I gathered all their merch
to support my idol. It was completely normal for a fan. But as a teen with emotions issues, it’s
hard to suppress anxiety and anger from tabloid. There is a famous tabloid in Viet Nam called
“kenh 14”. My boy band career was flourishing back then, therefore tabloid about them is not
rare. Everyday Kenh 14 post news about my boy band and as a teen, I have plenty of time to read
those electronic newspaper. One day Kenh 14 told that my favorite member of the boy band had
a girlfriend. I was so mad that I refused to eat for a few days and cried myself to sleep. Seeing
my terrible condition, a cousin of mine told me the truth about tabloid. “Tabloid magazine full of
gossip and made-up stories, usually written by bums who can't get a job at a normal magazine
industry’-she said. Then I realized how naïve I was to believe such unconfirmed stories. Exactly
as she told, a few days later I was confirmed that my favorite member did not have a girlfriend.
That was the time when I exhibited gullability.
 Mercier Chapters 1 & 8 WA2
This question is about the Wason Selection Task and the two different versions we
presented in lecture.

Did you answer these questions correctly or incorrectly?

What conclusion do you draw about human reason from results of studies about the Wason
Selection Task?

I answer these questions incorrectly.

Participants predominantly inspect cards which they end up selecting.
We don't agree with the syntactic arguments advanced by proponents of natural logic and formal
rule systems. On the contrary, we would be more aligned with theoretical proposals that defend
not only the importance of content, but also other semantic, contextual, and pragmatic aspects in
human reasoning. As a result, we expect to see a large increase in interactive effectiveness. As a
result, we expect to see strong interactions between the content and other variables.
 Mercier Chapters 9 & 13 WA1
ANSWER ONLY 1 or 2 BUT NOT BOTH

1 Mercier argues that Cambridge Analytica had influence that was either low or nil, but his
focus was strictly on whether Cambridge Analytica directly changed voting behavior. In a
few sentences, explain how Cambridge Analytica have influenced the U.S. presidential
election without directly changing voting behaviors?

2 Mercier argues that influence of media on political voting behavior is overall quite low.
He notes that when Republicans spend money on campaigns it does not appear to lead to
big changes in voting behavior. But in democracies, multiple parties are spending money
on candidates that are in competition, just like in the corporate world multiple firms are
spending money on products that are in competition. How should the competitive aspect of
these markets influence our appraisal of Mercier’s ‘no-influence’ arguments?

1. Data on early voters was obtained from local counties and states, and the information was
linked to individual Facebook profiles. This allowed Cambridge Analytica to detect
whether they had been exposed to certain political commercials and whether they had
cast early voting ballots, allowing them to forecast the election's outcome. When a
German audience member inquired if this was legal, Schweickert said, "It's a very
different sort of data privacy culture." Given European privacy standards that would
"probably" make the behavior unlawful in Germany, Schweickert said, "It's a very
different sort of data privacy culture."
She stated, "All of the data we work with is currently publicly available."
In my opinion this violate the privacy of social media users and take advantage of them.
It’s quite illegal.
 Trivers Chapter 1 WA1
1 sentence clearly describe a time when you were deceived.
A guy told me he loved me but the next day I saw him hang out with another girl.

1 Sentence describe an occasion in which you deceived Another.

I tell my sister to go to sleep or Santa Claus won’t give her present.

1 sentence describe your most frequent self-deception.

I am on a diet so I lie to myself that I don’t need food.
 Trivers Chapter 2 WA1
When discussing the “coevolutionary struggle between the deceiver and the deceived,”
Trivers states that the results/effects of the struggle are “frequency dependent.” Briefly
define frequency dependence and provide an example. (30)

The term "frequency dependent" refers to a condition in which deceit performs well when it is
rare and badly when it is common, and detection of deception performs well when it is common
but not when it is rare. Similarly, in a vocal species like ours, we will be cautioned of new tricks
more frequently by others as the tricks grow more common.
Natural selection may favor non-toxic butterflies with the same color pattern as poisonous
butterflies, as an example of frequency dependent selection. Batesian mimicry is the name given
to this system. Birds will avoid mimics when they are scarce because they have already
experienced a dangerous butterfly with a similar look. But when the non-poisonous type is
common, the previous encounters of birds with butterflies of their appearance are more likely to
have been rewarding; the birds will not avoid eating them, and their fitness will be lower. The
fitness of the mimics is negatively frequency-dependent.
 Trivers Chapter 2 WA2
On p. 33 (and also on p. 35) Trivers explains why the Reed Warbler is a special bird, as
pertains to the arms race between deceivers and deceived. In one paragraph, explain why
the Reed Warbler is special?

Reed Warbler parents learn how their own eggs look and reject those that differ by a particular
degree. It makes evolutionary sense for them to reject alien eggs if their nests are parasitized
approximately 30% of the time, but if they are parasitized less frequently, the penalty of
destroying their own eggs is too high. Sure enough, reed warblers are parasitized only 6 percent
of the time in the UK and do not reject new eggs – unless a cuckoo is seen near the nest at about
the right time (perhaps pushing probability above 30 percent). In one population, a drop in
parasitism rate from 20 percent to 4 percent was matched by a one-third reduction in rejection
rate, an effect too rapid to be genetic, so reed warblers probably often adjust their degree of
discrimination to evidence of ongoing blood parasitism.
 Trivers Chapter 7 WA1

I gave you a long example about the case of a Verizon executive and a consulting company
he hired. The consulting company rules to give the executive a 50% pay raise. It is now
your turn to give me an example of a case of multi-layered deception and self-deception in a
very different, but nonetheless corporate, social environment.

The movie “The talented Mr.Ripley”

It is 1950s New York City and Tom Ripley is a young man struggling to make a living, relying on his
talents to get by. While at a recital where he plays the piano, Tom is approached by wealthy ship builder
Herbert Greenleaf, who mistakenly thinks he went to Princeton, due to the borrowed Princeton blazer
Tom is wearing. Greenleaf recruits Ripley to go to Italy to persuade his rebellious son Dickie to return
home to the United States. In return for this he will pay Ripley one thousand dollars. Despite never
having met Dickie and never having attended Princeton, Ripley accepts.

Upon arriving in Europe, Ripley meets Meredith Logue, a young, wealthy heiress to a textile empire.
During their brief conversation Ripley impulsively introduces himself as Dickie. Shortly thereafter he
fakes a chance encounter with the real Dickie and his fiancé Marge Sherwood, attempting to convince
Dickie that they met at Princeton. Subsequently he visits Dickie and Marge and discloses that Dickie's
father paid him to persuade Dickie to come home. Dickie is furious and suggests Ripley return to
America to inform his father he has no intention of going home. Rather than doing this, Ripley insinuates
himself into Dickie's life, citing a mutual love of jazz. The two devise a scheme to con additional money
from Mr. Greenleaf by mailing regular letters stating that Dickie is vacillating and can likely be persuaded
to return if Ripley remains in Italy and continues to apply pressure on him.

While on an excursion to Rome, Ripley meets Freddie Miles, a friend of Dickie's who barely conceals his
contempt for Ripley. A local Italian girl whom Dickie had gotten pregnant drowns herself after he refuses
to support her financially. This precipitates a downward spiral for Dickie and leads him to resent Ripley's
constant presence, which he finds suffocating. Ripley is becoming sexually obsessed with Dickie and also
growing attached to the high-flying lifestyle his friendship with Dickie affords him. Before Ripley returns
to America Dickie invites Ripley on a sailing trip to San Remo where he is house hunting. While they are
at sea Ripley suggests that he should come back to Italy the following year and become Dickie's
housemate. Dickie informs Ripley he is going to marry his fiancé Marge, which enrages Ripley so much
he lashes out at him and hits him repeatedly with an oar, killing him. Panicking, Ripley tries to conceal
the murder by scuttling the boat with Dickie's body on board then swims to shore himself.

When the hotel concierge mistakes him for Dickie, Ripley realizes that he can assume Dickie's identity.
He forges his signature, alters his passport and begins funding his lifestyle using Dickie's trust fund. He
writes to Marge using Dickie's typewriter and convinces her he has left her. He creates an elaborate
charade that maintains both his own and Dickie's identities, checking into two separate hotels under their
respective names, and passing messages between hotel staff members to make it appear that Dickie is still
living. The situation becomes all the more complicated when Meredith Logue re-emerges, still under the
false impression that he is Dickie.
Ripley rents a large apartment and spends Christmas alone having gifted himself many expensive
presents. Meanwhile Freddie tracks Ripley down, fully expecting to find Dickie. Upon arrival, he is
suspicious that the apartment is not furnished in Dickie's style. Ripley has adopted Dickie's hairstyle and
mannerisms. As Freddie is leaving the apartment, he meets the building's landlady, who says that she
loves to hear piano music coming from the apartment where Dickie is supposed to live. Freddie knows
that Dickie does not play piano and returns to the apartment to confront Ripley. Ripley attacks Freddie
and kills him by hitting him over the head with a heavy statue. He carries the body to Freddie's car and
drives out to the woods where he leaves Freddie's body on the ground and abandons the car.

Freddie's corpse is quickly discovered, and Ripley's life becomes a cat-and-mouse game. He must now
avoid both the police and Dickie's friends. He escapes capture and clears his name by faking a suicide
note allegedly from Dickie and addressed to him. He moves to Venice and rents an apartment in his own
name. Although Dickie's father still trusts Ripley, he hires a private detective called Alvin McCarron to
investigate his son's death. Marge, having always suspected that Ripley was involved in Dickie's death,
confronts him after finding Dickie's rings in Ripley's bathroom. Ripley seems to be close to murdering
Marge, but is interrupted by their mutual friend Peter Smith-Kingsley who enters the apartment using the
key Ripley gave him. McCarron, after unearthing some unsavory details about Dickie's past, tells Ripley
that he is dropping the investigation. McCarron will not be sharing his findings with the police and asks
Ripley to do the same. In return Greenleaf intends to transfer a significant portion of Dickie's trust fund
into Ripley's name. Marge is angry about this and accuses Ripley of involvement in Dickie's death before
she is forcibly removed by Greenleaf and McCarron.

Ripley and Peter, now in a romantic relationship, go on a cruise together only to discover that Meredith
Logue is also on board. Ripley realizes that he will not be able to prevent them from communicating and
also realizes that Meredith will tell Peter he has been pretending to be Dickie. He cannot murder
Meredith, as she is with her family so he strangles Peter to death, sobbing whilst he does so. He returns to
his cabin where he sits alone.

This movie content is a great example of multi-layer deception.

 Trivers Chapter 7 WA2

The cholesterol case is interesting bc of Trivers’ overall theory that self-deception has
evolved to benefit us by enabling efficient deception of others. But the finding that people
deceive themselves about their cholesterol level appear to reduce the probability of his
hypothesis.

1 Implicit Premises: What is the problem here exactly? Say something about the implicit
premises in what I wrote above.

2 Principle of Charity: What would Trivers say about this conundrum? How might an
evolutionary perspective make sense out of this?

1. Deception is an important part of natural communication, both between and within

organisms. It has progressed to the point where one can get an advantage over another.
Animals employ deceit to help them survive, from alarm calls to mimicry. Those who are
better at detecting deception have a better chance of surviving. As a result, self-deception
evolved to better disguise dishonesty from those who can detect it, or, as Trivers puts it,
"hiding the truth from oneself in order to hide it more deeply from others." Humans often
exhibit tell-tale indications of deception, such as flaring nostrils, clammy skin, quality
and tone of voice, eye movement, or excessive blinking, when they are conscious that
they are acting falsely. As a result, if self-deception allows an individual to believe its
own distortions, the individual will not show indicators of deception and will appear to be
expressing the truth. In my opinion, cholesterol level is about one’s health. And lying
about health does not benefits us.
2. Self-deception lowers cognitive cost; that is to say, if one has convinced oneself that that
very thing is indeed true, it is less complicated for one to behave or think as that thing
was untrue; the mind not thinking constantly of the true thing and then the false thing, but
simply being convinced that the false thing is true.
 Trivers Chapter 10 WA1

1 Is there any pattern you observe in countries with pervasive false narratives, and those
without? Explain.

2 Are some cultural features more likely to result in wide propagation of a false historical
narrative than others? See p 217 and explain.

1. MUMBAI, May 26 (Reuters) - Indian doctors on Wednesday decried the free distribution
of an unproven remedy to COVID-19 patients by the state of Haryana as the maker of the
herbal medicine faced a backlash over comments in which he said modern medicine had
caused deaths. This remedy is not scientifically confirmed yet, however lots of Indian
people believe it can cure Covid-19. Therefore, it is a pervasive false narrative. Some
Indian people also believe that bathing together in a ‘holly’ river and cover cow shit on
their bodies can cure Covid-19.
2. - Cleopatra was not an Egyptian.
Cleopatra was a member of the Ptolemaic dynasty, which governed Egypt following
Alexander the Great. Her family was adamant about not speaking Egyptian, thus she was
the first to learn it. The public perception of her nationality may have stemmed from her
public persona as the reincarnation of Isis, an Egyptian deity.
- Vikings didn't wear horned-helmets.
There is no evidence of horned helmets in archeological findings. According to The
History Channel, most Viking warriors went bare-headed or wore leather headgear when
they died.
This classic, if fictional, picture of muscular soldiers walking into battle with horns
appears to date from the 1800s, when Swedish artist Gustav Malmströmstems featured it
in one of his paintings.
 Trivers Chapter 10 WA2

Applying the lessons from the previous slide, pause to write a paragraph about your own
personal experience of these steps by answering briefly these questions:

1. Select some beliefs that you have been taught but that, you now know, invert reality
2. Discuss what you believe now to be myths about that topic that were taught to you
when in childhood
3. Are you aware of restrictions of information pertaining to that topic?
4. Was the content of what you were taught about this topic content using
in-group/out-group psychology?

1. Milk is very rich in calories, rich in protein, has a bunch of vitamins and minerals in
it. But research hasn’t, at least yet, indicated that milk has any mystical powers
beyond being a pretty nutritious and inexpensive food. That’s partly because the
research is extremely basic and often obviously flawed; some studies I read don’t
bother controlling for parental height, the single biggest variable in deciding a child’s
height, which is…insane. Indeed, in Vietnam it has been believed for many years that
milk can improve one’s height. I once held a belief in that theory too. While I was
growing up my parents bought me a lot of milk so I can drink it and got myself taller.
In fact I was quite a tall kid back then. Literally every kid in Vietnam believed that
drinking milk makes you tall. However when I was 16 I read an article about how
milk doesn’t make you taller. According to specialists, the lack of clear evidence
stems from the simple fact that determining the impact of milk on a child's growth is
a challenging task. It would take a big sample size and decades of research to adjust
for nearly a million variables, including genetics, socioeconomic position, activity
levels, and the rest of a person's diet. Because it's been expected that drinking milk
will make you grow, there have been few well-controlled studies that account for the
fact that you're only getting calories, lipids, or protein when you drink milk.
2. 3.No, milk does not make you grow taller, as far as current science can tell, because,
well, nothing can make you grow taller. Milk, on the other hand, can be an effective
aid in assisting children in reaching their full height potential. Not necessary if you
supply enough calories and vitamins to compensate for a non-lack drinker's of milk
consumption. However, it is beneficial.
4 . No this content does not use ingroup/outgroup psychology.
 Cross-Cultural Critical Thinking WA1

Using your memory or google, write down two Vietnamese sayings or proverbs. For each
one, add one sentence of description for each one to comment on whether it best represents
analytical cognition or holistic cognition.

We define analytic/holistic thinking as two modes of thought that reflect cultural variations in
perceptual and cognitive processes. Analytic thinking is characterized by a tendency to focus
primarily on objects and their attributes.
Vietnamese has one saying Bầu ơi thương lấy bí cùng/ Tuy rằng khác giống nhưng chung một
giàn” is translated “Oh gourd, love the pumpkin. Though of different species, you share the same
trellis”. This means people should empathize with each other and help each other.
“Kiếm củi ba năm, thiêu một giờ
Mua danh ba vạn, bán danh ba đồng” is translated “Fetch firewood 3 years to burn for an hour,
buying title is 3 million dollars but selling for only 3 cents”. This means working and gathering
fortune is hard but using up all those things are easy so we should appreciate our hard work.
These two saying are all represent analytical cognition.
 Cross-Cultural Critical Thinking WA2

You have read many articles and books written by Western thinkers and by Vietnamese
thinkers. For this WA, pause to compose a paragraph in which you reflect on what you
find to be major or minor differences in cognitive style across the two groups of thinkers.

- West (Pursue your dreams, otherwise you haven’t really lived!) vs. Vietnamese (Succeed
academically, otherwise, you’re dead!):
Vietnamese kids are pushed very very hard to succeed academically. A lot of my western friends
and their parents thought we were crazy. We were always terrified of doing poorly in school and
we’re generally terrified of embarrassing our parents if we are not as academically strong as our
peers – i.e. other Asian kids. If you don’t go to University (and a good one), you’re a loser.
For Western kids, their parents were not so cruel when it came to school. It was ok not to like or
do well in school. Academic motivation for western kids came from within. That’s why… from
my perspective, more Asian kids went to University, but I personally found the brightest and
most ambition were the Western kids who were not forced to excel in school – they did it for
themselves. Also, I found the pressure to perform for Asian kids was so great that a lot of them
lied or cheated in school.
- West (Learn through criticism) vs. Vietnamese (Learn through obeying):
It was normal to hear western kids openly question and even criticise their parents and teachers.
My western friends used to openly debate points with their parents and often in an “assertive
tone”. Their parents would often welcome the debate. In a Vietnamese family, you try to speak
to your parents in an openly confrontational tone, you’re in trouble!
- West (Values spontaneity) vs. Vietnamese (Value discipline):
Westerners love spontaneity and creativity. Every western young kid had dreams of being and
actor or famous musician. Vietnamese kids dreamed of being doctors, engineers, dentists and
pharmacists.