From the course: The Non-Technical Skills of Effective Data Scientists

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Cognitive empathy

Cognitive empathy

From the course: The Non-Technical Skills of Effective Data Scientists

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Cognitive empathy

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- From time to time you'll read that cognitive science and psychology are complementary fields to data science. And it's true. There are often times when you as a data scientist will have to get inside someone's head, figure out the way they think. That's often called cognitive empathy. This is a bit different from feeling someone's pain. With cognitive empathy, we're trying to understand their thought process that led to a decision. Sometimes in data science we're predicting things that seem mechanical in nature, but really, it's almost always related to human behavior. Delayed airline luggage, warranty claims, traffic accidents all have a very strong human behavior component. Obviously, online retail behavior or employee satisfaction are driven almost entirely by the quirks of human wants and needs. So you will have to become a student of your fellow humans if you are going to be an effective data scientist. Some years ago I was in a meeting with a half dozen analysts and IT…

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