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- joebus, on 10/10/2007, -4/+518. Post a website on digg that can't support its traffic.
- TheBigBentley, on 10/10/2007, -3/+42The brain isn’t a flawless piece of machinery. Although it is powerful and comes in an easy to carry container, it has it’s weaknesses. A field in psychology which studies these errors, known as biases. Although you can’t upgrade your mental hardware, noticing these biases can clue you into possible mistakes.
How Bias Hurts You
If you were in a canoe, you’d probably want to know about any holes in the boat before you start paddling. Biases can be holes in your reasoning abilities and they can impair your decision making.
Simply noticing these holes isn’t enough; a canoe will fill with water whether you are aware of a hole or not. But by being aware of the holes you can devise methods to patch them up. The entire domain of the scientific method has largely been an effort to overcome the natural inclination towards bias in reasoning.
Biases hurt you in a number of areas:
* Decision making. A number of biases can distort decision making. The confirmation bias can lead you to discount information that opposes existing theories. Anchoring can throw off negotiations by forcing you to sit around an arbitrary value.
* Problem solving. Biases can impede your creativity when solving problems. A framing bias can cause you to look at a problem too narrowly. And the illusion of control can cause you to overestimate the amount your actions influence results.
* Learning. Thinking errors also impact how you learn. The Von Restorff effect can cause you to overemphasize some information compared to the whole. Clustering illusions can also trick you into thinking you’ve learned more than you actually have.
Here are some common thinking errors:
1) Confirmation Bias
The confirmation bias is a tendency to seek information to prove, rather than disprove our theories. The problem arises because often, one piece of false evidence can completely invalidate the otherwise supporting factors.
Consider a study conducted by Peter Cathcart Wason. In the study, Wason showed participants a triplet of numbers (2, 4, 6) and asked them to guess the rule for which the pattern followed. From that, participants could offer test triplets to see if their rule held.
From this starting point, most participants picked specific rules such as “goes up by 2“ or “1x, 2x, 3x.” By only guessing triplets that fit their rule, they didn’t realize the actual rule was “any three ascending numbers.” A simple test triplet of “3, 15, 317“ would have invalidated their theories.
2) Hindsight Bias
Known more commonly under “hindsight is 20/20“ this bias causes people to see past results as appearing more probable than they did initially. This was demonstrated in a study by Paul Lazarsfeld in which he gave participants statements that seemed like common sense. In reality, the opposite of the statements was true.
3) Clustering Illusion
This is the tendency to see patterns where none actually exist. A study conducted by Thomas Gilovich, showed people were easily misled to think patterns existed in random sequences. Although this may be a necessary by product of our ability to detect patterns, it can create problems.
The clustering illusion can result in superstitions and falling for pseudoscience when patterns seem to emerge from entirely random events.
4) Recency Effect
The recency effect is the tendency to give more weight to recent data. Studies have shown participants can more easily remember information at the end of a list than from the middle. The existence of this bias makes it important to gather enough long-term data, so daily up’s and down’s don’t lead to bad decisions.
5) Anchoring Bias
Anchoring is a well-known problem with negotiations. The first person to state a number will usually force the other person to give a new number based on the first. Anchoring happens even when the number is completely random. In one study, participants spun a wheel that either pointed to 15 or 65. They were then asked the number of countries in Africa that belonged to the UN. Even though the number was arbitrary, answers tended to cluster around either 15 or 65.
6) Overconfidence Effect
And you were worried about having too little confidence? Studies have shown that people tend to grossly overestimate their abilities and characteristics from where they should. More than 80% of drivers place themselves in the top 30%.
One study asked participants to answer a difficult question with a range of values to which they were 95% certain the actual answer lay. Despite the fact there was no penalty for extreme uncertainty, less than half of the answers lay within the original margin.
7) Fundamental Attribution Error
Mistaking personality and character traits for differences caused by situations. A classic study demonstrating this had participants rate speakers who were speaking for or against Fidel Castro. Even if the participants were told the position of the speaker was determined by a coin toss, they rated the attitudes of the speaker as being closer to the side they were forced to speak on.
Studies have shown that it is difficult to out-think these cognitive biases. Even when participants in different studies were warned about bias beforehand, this had little impact on their ability to see past them.
What an understanding of biases can do is allow you to design decision making methods and procedures so that biases can be circumvented. Researchers use double-blind studies to prevent bias from contaminating results. Making adjustments to your decision making, problem solving and learning patterns you can try to reduce their effects. - JueYan, on 10/10/2007, -0/+36Better list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases
- shadydentist, on 10/10/2007, -1/+28Its a good article. I want to add something about #6, the overconfidence effect though. While almost everyone overestimates their abilities in easy tasks (driving, speaking a language, etc.) people tend to *underestimate* their abilities in things that are uncommon or difficult (flying an airplane, solving a rubik's cube, etc)
- Tetragrammaton, on 10/10/2007, -0/+27I thought that one was really dumb. I *never* have a problem with overconfidence!
Seriously, I almost feel insulted. My thinking is *way* better than that. Maybe the article is written for all the lesser thinkers, but I'm skilled enough at controlling my thoughts to avoid any so-called "overconfidence effect". Bah! - goldfyngor, on 10/10/2007, -1/+28Like the Iraq such as?
- willtrx, on 10/10/2007, -25/+50FYI Chuck Norris makes none of these errors
- smurfsahoy, on 10/10/2007, -3/+28Wow, no. This article is IMO more dangerous than any one of the biases it talks about. They are NOT errors. There is a reason we psychologists specifically call them "biases," and that reason is not to avoid hurting any feelings. Every single bias listed here is beneficial for you and your brain more often than it is hurtful. Most of the reason for this is due to our need to be able to work out the causal world around us as quickly as possible in order to survive (now just as much as in our past). To keep my reply short, I will give examples for just two of the biases:
Example #1) Recency effect - If something happens, is it more likely, on average, that it was the long-dormant result of some long, complicated, drawn-out chain of events? Or that the cause occurred recently? Effects tend to come rapidly after their causes for most of the things we perceive. Thus, by paying more attention to recent potential causes, our brains save us untold wasting of resources.
Example #2) Confirmation bias - Theories are a helluva lot more useful than non-theories. You can't get anywhere in life as a pure skeptic. This bias encourages the construction of working theories and patterns in our minds that allow us to predict the world around us more often than not. Combined with mechanisms that tend to give us pretty good initial theories most of the time, this helps us. Even in science, confirmation bias helps create progress.
I am not saying it isn't important to realize such biases exist, but only if you understand them correctly. To view them solely as errors is worse than to not know about them at all, because they are almost always beneficial to us. - D3koy, on 10/10/2007, -2/+26With this new information I will become infallible....
- crushfan, on 10/10/2007, -1/+25Some people don't have maps. :(
- Sifl, on 10/10/2007, -2/+19This is a really lame article. They just glance the subject and don't go into any detail. Was this copied from a college textbook?
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -9/+259. Thinking it's a fart but bubbling liquid ***** comes out instead
- bitcloud, on 10/10/2007, -1/+17and you're underconfident in anyones ability to get a joke...
- drafhk, on 10/10/2007, -3/+19Sounds like Soviet Russia to me.
- ravan46, on 10/10/2007, -1/+15you mean in Rand McNally
- SurlyDuff, on 10/10/2007, -0/+14And it's hats on their feet
- innocentsinner, on 10/10/2007, -0/+13Shoes on their feet?? Madness!
- bitcloud, on 10/10/2007, -1/+14I think it's retro.... in internet years
- LordofShadows, on 10/10/2007, -0/+12I hate the term meme and I hate you for spreading it.
- mhweaver, on 10/10/2007, -1/+121. I define a unicorn as an existent, magical horse with a horn.
2. If they didn't exist, they wouldn't fit the definition and wouldn't be unicorns.
3. Therefore, unicorns exist because, by definition, they do. - inactive, on 10/10/2007, -0/+10Wow. Way to ***** it up TWICE. Don't quote anything anymore, ever.
- Ocelot13, on 10/10/2007, -1/+11there are 7 items in that list. 23 is 2 + 3. 3 * 7 = 21, 21 + 2 = 23.
23 people. 23.
(is that part of clustering..seeing patterns where they dont exist?) - ravan46, on 10/10/2007, -0/+10Or Lisa, being sarcastic...
- Puppetfunk, on 10/10/2007, -2/+12you forgot the ???????? Step.
- ch33sehead, on 10/10/2007, -0/+9Still not as good as the original (FULL) list. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -0/+88: Denial.
- DrMonkeyLove, on 10/10/2007, -0/+8Is it just me, or did this bother anyone else?
"Consider a study conducted by Peter Cathcart Wason. In the study, Wason showed participants a triplet of numbers (2, 4, 6) and asked them to guess the rule for which the pattern followed. From that, participants could offer test triplets to see if their rule held.
From this starting point, most participants picked specific rules such as “goes up by 2“ or “1x, 2x, 3x.” By only guessing triplets that fit their rule, they didn’t realize the actual rule was “any three ascending numbers.” A simple test triplet of “3, 15, 317“ would have invalidated their theories."
They were told there was a rule. They had an example pattern in 2, 4, 6. I wouldn't exactly call any random set of monotonically increasing numbers a "pattern". Seriously though, given such a limited set (i.e. 1) of elements in the set that demonstrate the rule, the correct answer is, "not enough information". There's probably a million rules you can come up with for which 2, 4, 6 would be in the set. Guessing THE rule is impossible. - whatthefu, on 10/10/2007, -1/+9If the brain's so weak how do we know we're right in saying it's weak? My head hurts.
- Koldkompress, on 10/10/2007, -0/+8Quoting privileges: REVOKED.
- smurfsahoy, on 10/10/2007, -0/+8People who do this for a living are called "salesmen," "politicians," "conmen," and/or "advertisers." Not exactly a new concept, nor a crowd that most people would aspire to be a part of.
- bitcloud, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7#9: Expecting that your comments will still be relevant after the site goes back up...
- Rocketbird, on 10/10/2007, -7/+14Too soon to bring that back.
- JustADude, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7I see you've played knifey-spoony before!
- AndrewDB, on 01/10/2008, -1/+8#8: Expecting a website to work after it's made it to the Digg Front Page.
- N256, on 10/10/2007, -0/+78. Thinking these biases apply to everyone but you.
This should be a self-improvement reference, but many people attempt to use it as a debating tool. - dnields, on 10/10/2007, -0/+6Yeah, just like the internets
- quisph, on 10/10/2007, -2/+8#9: Believing that the world is (are?) plural.
- Leomarth, on 10/10/2007, -0/+6Advice: Thinking is a skill you must develop. It is not automatic. The internal monologue in your head is not thinking. You should not consider it as such.
- Lobstertacular, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5Hey! This hamburger just took a bite out of me!
- vhold, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5These kinds of things are what make the concept of "Devil's Advocate" so important. Somebody needs to make an argument sheerly for the sake of argument so that people truly understand the logic behind what they are thinking. You can argue with yourself. Heck, if you can't imagine how to do that, try playing chess against yourself, putting full effort into both sides.
Knee jerk burying of everything you disagree with, without putting up a fight is seriously detrimental to logic overall. - D3koy, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5it says /probably/ make.....Many of us don't make that mistake...
- MeruFM, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5pogfreak
It took a while to process that in my head... which is pretty embarrassing.
Flaw: The definition of God is, itself, defined by the human mind, therefore it does not exist in reality in the first place. - vcleniuk, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5Interesting article... but according to the article, I can't be sure.
- 1337Einstein, on 10/10/2007, -2/+7THIS IS SPA...Oh god... what the hell am I doing? I just came so close to contributing to the plague that is that stupid meme.
- kohno214, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4Top 20 logical fallacies.
http://www.theskepticsguide.org/logicalfallacies.asp
They also do a great podcast. - RyanMcCall, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4This one is quite insidious: 7) Fundamental Attribution Error
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4"Uncharacteristically? This is about par for the course. How long have you been on digg, exactly?
- sabach, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4Agreed, “goes up by 2“ is a simple application of Occams Razor, given the limited information that is the simplest and most-likely answer.
- bitcloud, on 10/10/2007, -2/+6OK,
1. "God" is, by definition, something which exists beyond the physical world.
2. "Exists" is by definition, something which is measurable and able to be experienced within the physical world.
3. "God Exists" is the single most unintelligible statement anyone could ever make... - inactive, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4"Seven reasons why most conversations involving critical thinking are *****."
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