- Stems from repeated frustration and failure when trying to achieve a goal or remove oneself from a bad situation. Eventually after continued failure, the individual will simply give up and refuse to continue trying - even after new chances come along.
- We can overcome learned helplessness and naivete by ensuring that initial decisions do not shut off creative thinking.
- When designing testing strategies we look for ways to /confirm/ our beliefs about how the software functions rather than /refute/ our beliefs about it. In example, trying to make software crash by deliberately doing things we would orinarily say "Why would the user ever do that?"
- We can overcome confirmation traps by seeing inputs from diverse populations and forcing ourselves to try to refute assumptions
- The inability to see uses for something beyond the commonly presented use for it. Examples include using a hammer for an offensive weapon or a counterweight, a quarter as a screwdriver or a projectile, etc.
- We can overcome functional fixation by looking for alternative uses for our tools as well as alternative paths to achieve our goals.