Critical Thinking for Insider Threat Analysts - Vocabulary Flashcards

Vocabulary flashcards covering key concepts from the Critical Thinking for Insider Threat Analysts course notes.

Critical Thinking

Active, skillful analysis and evaluation of information to form judgments and decisions.

Analytic Thinking

Systematic examination of information to identify key facts, relationships, and draw informed conclusions.

Eight Elements of Thought

Purpose, problem or question, information, interpretation/inference, concepts, assumptions, point of view, and implications or consequences.

Nine Intellectual Standards

Clarity, accuracy, precision, relevance, depth, breadth, logic, significance, fairness.

ICD 203

Intelligence Community Directive establishing official analytic standards and privacy considerations for PII in analytic products.

Analytic Standards

Five standards guiding analytic products: objectivity, independence of political consideration, timeliness, based on all available sources, and analytic tradecraft.

Objectivity

Unbiased assessment; evaluation without personal bias or favoritism.

Independent of Political Consideration

Assessments not distorted by policy agendas or stakeholder politics.

Timeliness

Dissemination of analysis in time to be actionable for decision-makers.

Based on All Available Sources

Use information from all relevant sources to inform analysis.

Analytic Tradecraft

Best practices, techniques, and standards used in analytic production.

Source Quality/Credibility

Factors affecting source trustworthiness: accuracy, bias, currency, motivation, access, expertise.

Source Descriptors / Source Summary

Narrative explanations of source strengths/weaknesses and their relevance to judgments.

Uncertainty

Indicate likelihood and confidence; explain how uncertainties affect conclusions.

Assumptions

Explicitly state assumptions and explain implications if they prove incorrect.

Problem Restatement

Restating a problem to view it from different perspectives and clarify questions.

Divergent Thinking

Generating a wide range of ideas without judgment to explore possibilities.

Convergent Thinking

Narrowing ideas to select the best solution or judgment.

Chronologies/Timelines

Orderly listing of events/dates to understand context and causality.

Causal Flow Diagram

Diagram showing how factors interact and cause effects within a system.

The Matrix

Grid tool to list relationships and test connections between elements or hypotheses.

Scenario/Decision Tree

Graphic map of choices and outcomes across different sequences of events.

Weighted Ranking

Ranking options by criteria using weights and scores.

Hypothesis Testing

Systematically test competing hypotheses against evidence to determine the most likely explanation.

Devil's Advocacy

Challenging the main view by arguing the opposite to test robustness.

Probability Tree

Assign probabilities to events and compute likelihoods for outcomes.

Utility Tree/Matrix

Quantify utilities and probabilities to compare options and rank them.

Insider Threat Analyst

Professional who gathers data, analyzes information, and produces analytic products to deter, detect, and mitigate insider risk.

All-Source Research

Comprehensive data collection from diverse sources to inform analysis.

Misthinking

Faulty reasoning patterns that can lead to incorrect conclusions; costly if unchecked.

Evidence

Facts or data used to support conclusions.

Analytic Mistakes

Common errors such as starting with a conclusion or overreliance on intuition without testing.