Nursing Leadership.

Nursing Leadership.

1.  Define your predominant leadership style (authoritarian, democratic, or laissez-faire). Ask those who work with you if in their honest opinion this is indeed the leadership style that you use most often. What style of leadership do you work best under? What leadership style best describes your present or former managers?

2.  Emotions and Decision-Making Think back on a recent decision you made that was more emotionally laden than usual. Were you self-aware about what emotions were influencing your thinking and how your emotions might have influenced the course(s) of action you chose? Were you able to objectively identify the emotions that others were experiencing and how these emotions may have influenced their actions?

3.  Access one of the following references (leave the course and type address into browser, if unable to open via link), read the Mission Critical file and post a critique of the one websites below and the Mission Critical  to the discussion board. In some cases you may need to copy and paste the links below:

1. Judgment and Decision Making:  sjdm.org

2. Problem solving tools: http://www.problem-solving-techniques.com/Problem-Solving-Tools.html

3. Management and Leadership Skills: https://www.leadershipdirections.com.au/

4. View Mission Critical file- teaches basic concepts on decision-making

Attached is the mission critical file if needed.

Non-Rational Persuasion

1. Fallacious Appeals

2. Ad Hominem Attacks

3. Fallacious Generalizations

4. Post Hoc Reasoning

5. Straw Man Fallacy

6. Shifting the Burden of Proof

7. Circular Reasoning

8. Loaded Questions

9. False Dilemma

10. Unfair Fallacies

1. Introduction to Fallacious Appeals

We often make legitimate appeals in support of arguments. For example, to support a statement about the relationship between energy and mass, Danielle might appeal to Albert Einstein’s theories as an authoritative source. To support a claim dealing with guns and gun control, Janelle might appeal to the Bill of Rights. And to support an argument on immigration, Claudelle might appeal to the humanity or generosity of her audience. As long as Einstein is an authority on Danielle’s topic, as long as the Bill of Rights deals with Janelle’s topic, and as long as the generosity of her audience is directly related to Claudelle’s topic, each of these appeals would be perfectly acceptable.

However, what if Danielle had appealed to Einstein as an authority on rap music, or if Janelle had used the Bill of Rights to support a claim about which store has the best prices, or if Claudelle had appealed to the generosity of the judges in evaluating her performance in gymnastics? We would probably have a puzzled reaction, since these appeals would seem to have little or nothing to do with the claims they were used to support.

The problem is that fallacious appeals are not always as obvious as these last three, and it necessary for the critical thinker to determine, in each case, whether an appeal is appropriate or not. Generally speaking, fallacious appeals can be divided into two groups: misdirected appeals and emotional appeals.

In a misdirected appeal, an otherwise legitimate appeal is misapplied by being used to support an unrelated claim. Danielle’s use of Einstein, who was an authority but not on rap music, and Janelle’s use of the Bill of Rights, which guarantees some things but not which store has the best prices, are examples of misdirected appeals.

By itself, an emotional appeal is never a legitimate strategy in an argument, because it is based on emotions rather than verifiable or evaluative support. Claudelle’s appeal to the generosity of her audience in an argument about immigration, for example, would be appropriate as long as she was discussing that generosity as a value related to the subject. However, an appeal to the generosity of the judges at a gymnastic meet is merely a play on their emotions (probably an appeal to their pity); anyway, the value of generosity has nothing to do with the evaluations the judges would render. Thus, Claudelle’s appeal to the judges’ generosity would be a fallacious emotional appeal.

The following are some of the most common fallacious appeals. Popular variations on the names are also listed.

Misdirected Appeals

A. Appeal to Authority , or Appeal to Questionable Authority

· Appeal to Information

B. Appeal to Common Belief , or Appeal to Belief, Appeal to Popular Belief

C. Appeal to Common Practice , or Appeal to Tradition

· Two Wrongs Make a Right

D. Appeal to Indirect Consequences , or Slippery Slope, Domino Theory

· Appeal to Wishful Thinking

Emotional Appeals

E. Appeal to Fear , or Scare Tactics, Appeal to Force

F. Appeal to Loyalty , or Peer Pressure, Bandwagon, Ad Populum

G. Appeal to Pity , or Sob Story

H. Appeal to Prejudice , or Appeal to Stereotypes

I. Appeal to Spite , or Appeal to Hatred, Appeal to Indignation

J. Appeal to Vanity , or Apple Polishing

Misdirected Appeals

A. Appeal to Authority. Ideally, we reach our decisions by reviewing information and arguments, and coming to our own conclusions. But because knowledge is very specialized, none of us has the time and ability necessary to understand fully all the fields in which we need to make informed decisions. As a result, we often rely on the opinions of experts–people who have the knowledge necessary to evaluate very specialized information. In accepting or rejecting expert opinion, we usually forgo some or all of the usual analysis of evidence and claims, relying on the expert’s explanations or evaluations of the material for us. Obviously, then, we need to be confident of the expertise of the individual on whom we are relying.

As the name suggests, a misdirected appeal to authority usually cites some person or thing (a book, for example) as a source to be trusted on a subject, when in fact that person or thing is not authoritative on that specific subject. As a result, this fallacy is also known as an appeal to questionable authority. One common way to make such an illegitimate appeal more persuasive is to appeal to a recognized authority on a matter outside the area of that authority’s expertise.

Celebrity endorsements of commercial products or political positions are often used as fallacious appeals to authority. Just because a person is successful or knowledgeable in one area–say, acting, music, or sports–is no reason to accord his or her claims or opinions added weight in an unrelated area–such as health care, diet, or investments. There is nothing wrong with using a celebrity to attract attention to a cause or product, but the decision about whether the product or cause is indeed worthwhile should be made without regard to the celebrity endorsement.

Appeal to Information. This fallacy is related to the appeal to questionable authority , and may be best remembered as an appeal to questionable information. The fallacy functions by getting you to assume the information presented is creditable, when that may be in question. You have already read about some forms of an appeal to questionable authority, in the section on statistics.

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B. Appeal to Common Belief. As explained in the section on Statements , claims made in argumentation can be divided into those of verification, evaluation, and advocacy. Surveys of common beliefs and popular opinions are a legitimate way to support some evaluative statements, but they can never be used to argue the accuracy of most statements of verification. Such fallacies are also called appeals to opinion, to belief, and to popular belief. Consider the following claims:

1. Spitting on the sidewalk is illegal.

2. Spitting on the sidewalk is disgusting.

Now consider two ways of substantiating each of these claims: looking in a book, and taking a public opinion poll. In the case of legality, which is a claim of verification, we can readily imagine finding conclusive support in the form of a statute in a law book. But even if 100% of the people responding to a poll said spitting was illegal, it might not be, because legality is determined by laws enacted, not people’s opinions. In the other case, however, it seems there can be no definitive answer. Whether we look in a book or do a survey, something is disgusting only if you think it so; and if enough people agree with you, then that opinion is generally accepted in your culture or society.

The point is that using popular opinions to support a claim that must be verified in another manner is a fallacious appeal to common belief. Supporting an evaluative statement with factual evidence would be just as fallacious, but much less common. We might call that an appeal to plausible facts.

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C. Appeal to Common Practice. Your mother has probably said it to you more times than you can remember: “If everyone else jumped off a bridge, would you jump off the bridge, too?” Well, mothers can be great critical thinkers, and this is one of the best replies to a fallacious appeal to common practice, in which an action is justified because “everyone is doing it.” In a sound argument, the action must be justified on its own merits, and what others are doing, and the conclusions they may have reached, are of little or no consequence. Just because “everyone is doing it” (a claim that is often unsupported, exaggerated, or vague in the first place), doesn’t make it right to do. Consider the following examples of fallacious appeals to common practice:

· It’s ok to copy someone else’s homework. Everyone does it once in a while.

· You can pretty well ignore the speed limit in California. Everyone else does.

· Why can’t I have my tongue pierced? All the other kids in school are doing it?

· It’s ok to cheat on your taxes. I saw a survey that showed more than half of all taxpayers lie about something on their returns.

Appeal to Tradition. Another form of “common practice” is a fallacious appeal to tradition. Instead of using the justification, “Everyone is doing it,” in appeal to tradition, the rationalization is, “We’ve always done it that way.” So, for example, everything from two-hour lunches to discrimination on the basis of race or gender can be explained away because “we’ve always done it that way.” Traditions can be very important to us, but it’s hard to imagine a harmful action that could be justified solely by the fact that it is traditional.

Two wrongs make a right is a fallacy closely related to appeal to common practice. In this case, the argument is it’s acceptable to do something, not because other people are doing it, but because they are doing other things just as bad. Notice that “two wrongs” carries the implicit assumption that the action is wrong, but its commission is acceptable in the circumstances, while in “common practice” the suggestion is that a questionable action is made right by the frequency of its commission. Notice also that claim of the other’s “bad” action is often unsupported, exaggerated, or theoretical–not that its verification would make a second wrong right. In addition, there is often an element of retribution in “two wrongs”–it’s not just that other people are doing something wrong, but that they are doing it to you, that seems to excuse what, in another situation, you would likely recognize as unacceptable. Here are a few examples:

· I’m not telling the checker that she forgot to charge me for those oranges–this store has been gouging me for years.

· Sure, I’m going to keep those tools I borrowed from Harold. Hell, he’d do the same thing in my position.

· I’m going to cut the jerk ahead of me off, the same way he just cut me off!

· Sure, this prison is cruel and unusual punishment. These guys are criminals, after all.

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D. Appeal to Indirect Consequences. In the fallacy of an appeal to indirect consequences, also known as a slippery slope or domino theory, remotely possible but usually very negative effects are presented as the automatic consequences of a course of action or belief, with the idea that the sheer negativity of those possible effects will be sufficiently persuasive to ensure the rejection of that course of action or belief. In other words, if I can make it seem that your decision, however justified in itself, will produce certain and unavoidably negative outcomes, you will probably change that decision. The issue in a fallacious appeal to indirect consequences, therefore, is how certain and unavoidably negative these effects are. Let’s consider some examples of arguments about smoking.

· Jay says that Maya should quit smoking because it leaves an unpleasant odor on her breath, hair, and clothes.

· Kay says that Maya should quit smoking because it has been associated with serious illness and death.

· Ray says that Maya should quit smoking because the inability to overcome an addiction is indicative of a personality unable to meet the stresses and responsibili

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