for the third year in a row the multibillion-dollar YouTube beauty
industry is in an uproar in the last week Shane Dawson has been called out by
Jayden and Jada Smith had his books removed from Target and morphe has
pulled his palette now Shane Dawson and Jeffree star are both under fire as
Tati Westbrook released a video stating they orchestrated the events of 2019
with James Charles in 2018 we experienced the first drama gedan
involving Laura Lee's infamous apology the following year drama Ganon was
taught by Tati Westbrook making her video by sister which accused James
Charles of being a bad friend as well as someone who preys on straight boys this
resulted in Tati Westbrook gaining millions of subscribers while James
Charles lost millions when James finally responded he had
documentation that many of the allegations against him were false or
taken out of context after James's returned the community
split we had people claiming that they still didn't fully believe James and
others were glad to see him redeem himself looking back on the situation
how could the people involved as well as the community acted better this
situation may not have blown up the way it did had it not been for rushes to
judgment inherent human biases and a lack of critical thinking
now it's 2020 and Totti Westbrook has come out with a new video that has
amassed nearly 8 million views in just two days in this new video she claims
that Jeffree star and Shane Dawson manipulated her into making that video
about James by gas lighting her and feeding her lies much like in 2019
there's been an instant reaction from the community and it's largely because
people aren't critically thinking once again in this video we're going to focus
on critical thinking skills and how they could be applied to this situation
because critical thinking is what helps us get closer to the truth
and why is this so important well because it has real-life applications
this isn't just about drama within the YouTube community it's about practicing
critical thinking and skepticism in order to better our own lives we are
often slaves to our emotions which makes us make decisions that we eventually
regret a true mark of an emotionally intelligent person is someone who can
pause and approach situations with skepticism while applying various
critical thinking skills to each situation critical thinking helps us
better judge the situations we see like what's happening in the YouTube
community as well as what we see in the news each day it also helps us better
navigate situations with friends family and co-workers as we practice better
emotional regulation in fact evidence-based therapies such as
cognitive behavioral therapy apply critical thinking to the different
cognitive distortions we each struggle with CBT involves asking ourselves where
the evidence is for the troubling thoughts that we experience today we're
going to assess the current situation with talk to westbrook and shane dawson
by focusing on two primary critical thinking skills understanding how memory
works and hindsight bias by having a better understanding of memory and
hindsight bias we can assess this situation as well as other situations in
our life with a bit more objectivity before we get started if you're new to
the rewired soul make sure you subscribe and turn notifications on I try to make
videos at least once a week to dive deep into topics and see what we can learn
from them to improve our own mental and emotional well-being
the Innocence Project is an organization with a team of lawyers dedicated to
exonerating people in prison who are wrongly convicted when watching the new
docu-series on Netflix I became fascinated with memory there were
multiple convictions based on eyewitness testimony which were later discovered as
being incorrect memories one story was of Thomas Ainsworth a man who spent 27
years in prison after a woman claimed he assaulted her decades later through DNA
evidence it was found that hansworth was innocent today hansworth and the
victim give talks together to raise awareness about wrongful convictions as
well as the flaws in our memory after hearing about this I wanted to learn
more about how our memory works and how it can play tricks on us the scariest
part about our memories is how confident we are in them one year after Tottie's
videos about James Charles she's pulling from memory what happened a common
saying in these days is that someone like Tati is quote-unquote speaking her
truth we may never know how accurate her memory is but based on research we
shouldn't base our opinions on the confidence of someone's memories one of
the most famous studies on memory came from cognitive psychologists or
recognizer after the Challenger explosion in 1992 a
106 students were interviewed right after the Challenger explosion asking
them where they were and what they remembered two and a half years later 44
of these students were requestion and they scored the students on their
accuracy as well as the confidence of their memory two and a half years isn't
that long the time and this was a significant event for most of the world
so what were the results 25% of the students scored zero out of seven when
it came to accuracy of details half scored two or less out of seven this
study has actually been duplicated in multiple times and one was a study after
9/11 what's fascinating about these studies is how confident the
participants were in their memory recall because the
memories were so vivid think about that for a second people were 100% confident
in their memory while scoring zero out of seven so when you think about it you
could technically hook some of these people up to a lie-detector test and
they pass with flying colors because like talk to Westbrook they're telling
their truth while we currently don't know for certain if what Totti is
claiming is accurate we now have scientific evidence as to why we should
be somewhat skeptical of her accounts of the events now some of you might be
saying but those studies took place two years after the event and Totti is
recalling something that happened a year ago well studies also show that our
short-term memory isn't all that great either
in 2011 the Journal of consumer research did a fascinating study on short-term
memory they took 100 undergrads and students were randomly assigned to
different conditions one group was the high imagery group in which they were
shown a very vivid descriptive video about a fake brand of popcorn the smell
the taste the feel and more were described to the students but they never
actually ate the popcorn one week later the students were interviewed to see
what they remembered about the experiment neuro bonkers calm does a
great job explaining the results and what happened while students who saw the
low imagery ad were extremely unlikely to report having tried the popcorn those
who watched the slick commercial were just as likely to have said they tried
the popcorn as those who actually did furthermore their ratings of the product
were as favorable as those who sampled the salty buttery treat most troubling
perhaps is that these subjects were extremely confident in these made-up
memories the delusion felt true they didn't like the popcorn because they had
seen a good ad they liked the popcorn because it was delicious
what's a point to understand is that although these studies and what happened
to Thomas hansworth make us more skeptical about memories we
must also remember that there are malicious people out there looking to
exploit this brain flaw and talkie westbrook's video she mentions gas line
a few times when describing what Shane Dawson and Geoffrey star did there gas
lighting is a real manipulation tactic and it's common for narcissists to abuse
memory manipulation in their relationships gas lighting is making
someone question their own sanity as they were call advanced although our
memories can be flawed and manipulated we must avoid being gas lit personally I
have no clue how accurate caught these memories of events are but based on the
screenshots James Charles shared we have evidence that Tati isn't always accurate
with how she tells stories remember critical thinking is about getting as
close to the truth as possible before making our judgments and that's why we
need to take all the evidence and the science into consideration when
assessing this story next we're going to discuss something that we all fall
victim to which is hindsight bias and how it can skew our perception of events
even more
you
something I realized about being skeptical is that it's in our nature to
think we're right and others are wrong when learning about biases and flaws in
our thinking were quick to point them out in others but to be a good critical
thinker you need to know how to analyze your own ways of thinking so as we dive
into the concept of hindsight bias it's important to do some self-reflection and
see how your own hindsight bias shapes your thoughts memories and behaviors we
all see the world through clouded lenses and the smudges on our perception come
from our biases that were often unaware of when looking at the new video from
talk to Westbrook about Shane Dawson and Geoffrey star we need to ask ourselves a
few questions when she accused James Charles what
information did she have and how confident was she in it a year later
when accusing Shane and Geoffrey what information does she have and how
confident is she in that most importantly we must ask ourselves this
important question had the events with James Charles turned out differently and
in her favor would she still have her current opinion this is the essence of
what we're trying to figure out when analyzing hindsight bias so what is
hindsight bias hindsight bias is a type of bias that allows people to convince
themselves post hoc or after the fact that they knew something the entire time
our ego protects us from simply saying I didn't know that at the time so we use
hindsight bias as we recall events for example have you ever broken up with
someone and then thought of all the red flags you should have seen or maybe you
have a friend who is a know-it-all and they're constantly using hindsight bias
to say they quote-unquote knew it all along even though there's no way they
could have had the data to accurately predict outcomes at that time again when
reflecting on hindsight bias while trying to critically assess the
situation with Totti westbrook and shane dawson what information did Totti have
at that time what did she believe at that time if this all blows up in her
face how will she perceive this situation a year from now by being aware
of this form of bias we can analyze the situation of
bit more objectively the most important question to ask right now is what
information did Shane and Jeffrey have at the time they were talking to Tati
before proceeding I want to make it clear that I'm no fan of Jeffrey star in
fact he even has me blocked on Twitter but in order to become better critical
thinkers we can't pick and choose when we're going to allow our biases to
manipulate our judgments so what was happening last year leading up to
Tottie's video when talk to Westbrook accused James Charles of manipulating
straight boys two young men came forward and made allegations a young man by the
name of Gabe and a young man by the name of Sam both accused James of trying to
manipulate them into a relationship by abusing his power
Totti even claimed that she witnessed James do this to Sam at her birthday
dinner in Seattle based on our hindsight bias we can say that we now know that
Gabe and Sam fabricated a decent amount of their stories but we didn't have that
information at the time but what about Jeffrey star and Shane Dawson for a
moment imagine you're Shane or Jeffrey and these accusations are coming out
against James along with these accusations more people are sharing
stories online during this time there are also rumors that one of the Dolan
twins may have had these same issues with James in a recent video Blair white
claims to have heard a recording Jeffrey shared with her from an alleged victim
Blair stated that Jeffrey is holding on to this information as blackmail against
James taki Westbrook also says that she's heard this recording although taki
Westbrook now believes James is innocent Blair White believes these allegations
against James are true so which stance do you take now back to Shane and
Jeffrey what stance do they take it's easy to say that they should believe
James is innocent because they were friends but is it that
simple for a moment I want you to imagine an alleged victim going to shane
dawson for Jeffrey star and telling them that James Charles assaulted them what
would happen if Shane and Jeffrey called the victim a liar even worse what would
happen if the public found out that Shane and
Jeffrey called a victim a liar currently we don't know whether or not these
allegations are true or false but what we do know is that it's never a good
look to accuse an abuse survivor of lying these are all important factors to
take into consideration as we watch as news unfolds with updates around the
situation between taki Westbrook Shane Dawson
Jeffrey star and James Charles
although this may seem like petty internet drama lives are being affected
there are serious criminal accusations floating around again which may lead to
legal actions not only that but these are real people James Charles and
tocking Westbrook have both mentioned thoughts of taking their own lives and
Jeffrey star has a history of self-harm more importantly critically thinking and
asking these types of questions helps us out with our own relationships now that
you know more about memory is that person in your life maliciously lying or
are they just miss remembering when you hear a rumor about a friend or family
member are you acting out of emotion or are you skeptical of the information
you're given personally critical thinking is a major aspect of my own
mental health as I learn more about the way my mind plays tricks on me I can
manage my depression and anxiety a lot better when we practice these critical
thinking skills we start to realize that all of our thoughts aren't facts and
they can be spewed by various biases or flaws in our thinking therapies like
rational emotive behavioral therapy or rebt and CBT both apply critically
thinking and they have great success rates over time when you experience
thoughts emotions and situations you can pause and ask yourself how do I know
this thought is true and what evidence is there for this thought a great way to
practice critical thinking is by applying it to all of the situations in
your daily life and you'll start to see improvements to your own emotional
intelligence alright everybody thank you so much for making it to the end of this
video and if you're interested in learning more about critical thinking
I've linked some books down below one of them is actually a course I just took
but yeah there's a lot of cool books out there that helped me out just looking at
situations like not just what we're watching on the news but like I
mentioned in the video things that we're experiencing in our day to day lives and
if you're interested in trying out some of the therapies I mentioned like our
EBT or CBT I personally use better health online there
so if you would like to check that out it's affordable its online that way you
can social distance while improving your mental health and I have an affiliate
link for better help online therapy down below basically what that means is that
you get affordable online therapy and a little bit comes back tell us support
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