Question

What are some of the problem solving obstacles? What strategies can be used to get past them? An example

Answer 1

Note: This response is in UK English, please paste the response to MS Word and you should be able to spot discrepancies easily. You may elaborate the answer based on personal views or your classwork if necessary.

(Answer) The obstacles to problem-solving are:

1. Confirmation Bias – When a person tends to seek and lean towards information and sources that are in agreement with their own opinions.
2. Hindsight Bias – After learning an outcome, when a person believes that they could have predicted it is known as hindsight bias.
3. Fixation – The lack of ability to be vicarious and see an issue from a different perspective.
4. Mental set – When a particular solution has been successful in the past, a person might use the same solution all the time. This is known as a mental set.
5. Functional fixedness – When an individual views an object in terms of its function and only that function, it is known as functional fixedness.
6. Representativeness Heuristics – When a person tends to judge a situation, idea or person based on things that represent them, it is known as representativeness heuristic.
7. Availability Heuristics – This is when a person judges a situation based only on the memories that are available to them.
8. Overconfidence – When a person exhibits more confidence than is healthy.
9. Framing – The framing of information and its presentation is likely to affect the judgments about that issue. This is known as framing.
10. Belief perseverance – This is when a person still clings to their bias even after their opinions have been discredited.
11. The Barnum effect – This is when people accept general and vague characterisations of themselves to be exceptionally accurate.

All of these obstacles are some or the other form of clinging to one’s ignorance and prejudice. Generally, these obstacles might be faced by unyielding individuals. These are the kind of individuals who might not deal with a disagreement or a change in a graceful manner. Let us assume that a person named John Doe, has faced all of these issues at some time in his life. However, John has a catharsis at some point in his life. John has learned to be vicarious and has realised that when he lets go of his preconceived notions, assumptions and opinions, he is able to entertain the unpredictable elements that life might send his way. Since John does not stick to his biased opinions, he is able to accommodate the possibility of failure. This has made him a lot less overconfident and even open towards people with different opinions than him. In other words, John is able to entertain an opposite opinion without having to accept it all the time.