After seeing a friend of yours being uncharacteristically quiet, you decide that your friend must be depressed. You later find out that your friend is not depressed but sleepy from staying up all night working on a term paper. You made this error because you failed to distinguish between observation and inference.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

You observed your friend being quiet and inferred that they were depressed without considering other explanations, which is a failure to distinguish between observation (what you directly noticed) and inference (the conclusion you drew from that observation).

After Seeing a Friend of Yours Being Uncharacteristically Quiet, You