Bookshelf

🎨 Impressions

Does it take a masochistic person to buy a book with a title like this one? It might, but that’s because of a fallacy I’ve come across a few years ago. About 65% of people think they are more intelligent than the average person. This is super funny because it shows how so many people lie to themselves and chances are, you and I do it too. Learning about that study I started to internalize the notion that there’s a good chance I’m not as smart as the average human. And the more you learn about how human brains work, the more you realize all the wrong assumptions and shortcuts they make to make their own lives easier. Knowing about the ways our brains trick us should give us an advantage and maybe the ability to circumnavigate these situations in order to make better decisions in life.

This is not in the book but there are simple examples like smoking cigarettes. The chemicals in the nicotine trick our brains into thinking we need the stuff, even though we don’t and even though it’s super bad for us and has zero advantages. Still, around 1.18 billion people worldwide smoke regularly and will tell you that they smoke because it feels good – or because of some variation of that. They’ll end that sentence with a big cough. Their brains are tricked, they lie to themselves and fall for it. It’s possible to break the circle though, and I hope books like these help.

Some other examples are more complex, and this book presents them all in an entertaining way. I think the source of it was a blog that the author ran for some years and in which he went over one way of us deluding our brains per post, until he got the book deal to put them all in a row. It’s lovely to read because you can go through one chapter per day, for example, and try to internalize it. It really changed my thinking.

And yes, it can be a downer at points, because you see yourself in so many of the examples. We make so many bad judgment calls everyday and say so much stupid stuff without being aware of it. But I think the bottom line is definitely a good one. Knowing about the problem is the first step to attacking it. Since reading the book I have found myself in lots of situations saying things without thinking and afterwards going “this is probably not true what I just said” or hearing others give an answer to a question I asked and thinking the same of their answer.

I have highlighted many passages to give you an example of all the different ways and maybe that’ll help you to see it. The book is an easy recommendation because it concerns all of us – not a single human is exempt from all the fallacies.

📔 Highlights

Introduction You

From the greatest scientist to the most humble artisan, every brain within every body is infested with preconceived notions and patterns of thought that lead it astray without the brain knowing it.

Cognitive biases are predicable patterns of thought and behavior that lead you to draw incorrect conclusions. You and everyone else come into the world preloaded with these pesky and completely wrong ways of seeing things, and you rarely notice them.

1 Priming

you often invent narratives to explain your feelings and decisions and musings because you aren’t aware of the advice you’ve been given by the mind behind the curtain in your head.

2 Confabulation

You are a story you tell yourself. You engage in introspection, and with great confidence you see the history of your life with all the characters and settings—and you at the center as protagonist in the tale of who you are. This is all a great, beautiful confabulation without which you could not function.

How do you separate fantasy from reality? How can you be sure the story of your life both from long ago and minute to minute is true? There is a pleasant vindication to be found when you accept that you can’t. No one can, yet we persist and thrive.

3 Confirmation Bias

Confirmation bias is seeing the world through a filter, thinking selectively. The real trouble begins when confirmation bias distorts your active pursuit of facts.

Over time, by never seeking the antithetical, through accumulating subscriptions to magazines, stacks of books, and hours of television, you can become so confident in your worldview that no one can dissuade you.

4 Hindsight Bias

When he asked them to evaluate the phrase “Love is stronger than fear,” they agreed with it. When he presented them the opposite, “Fear is stronger than love,” they agreed with that too. He was trying to show how what you think is just common sense usually isn’t.

If you see lots of shark attacks in the news, you think, “Gosh, sharks are out of control.” What you should think is “Gosh, the news loves to cover shark attacks.”

5 The Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy

To admit the messy slog of chaos, disorder, and random chance rules your life, rules the universe itself, is a painful conceit.

6 Procrastination

This is sometimes called present bias—being unable to grasp that what you want will change over time, and what you want now isn’t the same thing you will want later.

You are really bad at predicting your future mental states. In addition, you are terrible at choosing between now and later.

The tendency to get more rational when you are forced to wait is called hyperbolic discounting, because your dismissal of the better payoff later diminishes over time and makes a nice slope on a graph.

Capable psychonauts who think about thinking, about states of mind, about set and setting, can get things done not because they have more willpower or drive, but because they know productivity is a game played against a childish primal human predilection for pleasure and novelty that can never be excised from the soul.

8 Introspection

Before Wilson’s work, the general consensus was to see careful deliberation as good, but he showed how the act of introspection can sometimes lead you to make decisions that look good on virtual paper but leave you emotionally lacking. Wilson knew previous research at Kent State had shown that ruminations about your own depression tend to make you more depressed, but distraction leads to an improved mood. Sometimes, introspection is simply counterproductive.

When you ask people why they do or do not like things, they must then translate something from a deep, emotional, primal part of their psyche into the language of the higher, logical, rational world of words and sentences and paragraphs.

Time after time, experiments show introspection is not the act of tapping into your innermost mental constructs but is instead a fabrication. You look at what you did, or how you felt, and you make up some sort of explanation that you can reasonably believe.

9 The Availability Heuristic

If someone you know gets sick from taking a flu shot, you will be less likely to get one even if it is statistically safe. In fact, if you see a story on the news about someone dying from the flu shot, that one isolated case could be enough to keep you away from the vaccine forever.

Over the last few million years, much of our time was spent with fewer than 150 people, and what we knew about the world was based on examples from our daily lives. Mass media, statistical data, scientific findings—these things are not digested as easily as something you’ve seen with your own eyes. The old adage “I’ll believe it when I see it” is the availability heuristic at work.

10 The Bystander Effect

pluralistic ignorance—a situation where everyone is thinking the same thing but believes he or she is the only person who thinks it.

So the takeaway here is to remember you are not so smart when it comes to helping people. In a crowded room, or a public street, you can expect people to freeze up and look around at one another. Knowing that, you should always be the first person to break away from the pack and offer help—or attempt escape—because you can be certain no one else will.

11 The Dunning-Kruger Effect

Bertrand Russell once said, “In the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.”

The less you know about a subject, the less you believe there is to know in total.

Charles Darwin said it best: “Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.” Whether it’s playing guitar or writing short stories or telling jokes or taking photos—whatever—amateurs are far more likely to think they are experts than actual experts are.

12 Apophenia

Apophenia is refusing to believe in clutter and noise, in coincidence and chance. Apophenia most often appears in your life when you experience synchronicity. Small moments of synchronicity seem meaningful even when you know they can’t be.

you can see apophenia isn’t always a bad thing. You need a sense of meaning to get out of bed, to push forward against the grain. Just remember that meaning comes only from within.

He said the average person is alert for about eight hours every day, and something happens to the average person about once a second. At this rate, you will experience 1 million events every thirty-five days. This means when you say the chances of something happening are one in a million, it also means about once a month. The monthly miracle is called Littlewood’s Law.

13 Brand Loyalty

Fanboys defend their favorite stuff and ridicule the competition, ignoring facts if they contradict their emotional connection. So what creates this emotional connection to stuff and the companies who make doodads? Choice.

To combat post-decisional dissonance, the feeling you have committed to one option when the other option may have been better, you make yourself feel justified in what you selected to lower the anxiety brought on by questioning yourself.

17 The Ad Hominem Fallacy

If a smoker tells you he or she thinks it should be legal to smoke in restaurants, you can’t wave your hand in the air and dismiss that opinion just because the person offering it has a personal stake in the matter. Maybe the smoker has a point, maybe not, but the fact that he or she is a smoker shouldn’t confuse your thinking.

18 The Just-World Fallacy

When you hear about a situation you hope never happens to you, you tend to blame the victim, not because you are a terrible person but because you want to believe you are smart enough to avoid the same fate.

After all, not taking action guarantees not getting results. In a just world, this would be the only rule, no matter what the initial conditions of your struggle were. The real world is more complicated. People can and do escape, but this doesn’t mean those who haven’t aren’t trying their damnedest to claw out of bad situations.

19 The Public Goods Game

The tragedy of taking from a common good is over time the common good will be depleted out of just a tiny amount of greed. One misguided exploiter can crash the system. Greed is contagious.

If everyone else is still being a good citizen of the game, everyone will still win. The old emotional brain kicks in, however, when you see cheating. It’s an innate response that served your ancestors well. You know deep down that cheaters must be punished because it takes only one cheater to make the economy sputter out. You would rather lose the game than help someone who isn’t helping you.

Purely logical creatures could be trusted to figure out life isn’t a zero-sum game, but you are not a purely logical creature. You will cheat if you think the system is cheating you.

23 Groupthink

True groupthink depends on three conditions—a group of people who like one another, isolation, and a deadline for a crucial decision.

25 The Affect Heuristic

The tendency to make poor decisions and ignore odds in favor of your gut feelings is called the affect heuristic. It is always getting between you and your best interests, and it starts when you make a snap judgment about something new.

Decisions about risk and reward begin with the unconscious you. Unconscious-you notices things are either bad or good, dangerous or safe, before conscious-you can put those feelings into words.

The feeling you get in your gut telling you yes or no, good or bad is greatly influenced by the affect heuristic. Keep this in mind when you notice fearful language and imagery coming from any source with an agenda.

27 Selling Out

Think about an archetypal punk rocker with chains and spikes, gaudy pants and a leather jacket. Yeah, he bought all of those clothes. Someone is making money off of his revolt. That’s the paradox of consumer rebellion—everything is part of the system.

Having a dissenting opinion on movies, music, or clothes, or owning clever or obscure possessions, is the way middle-class people fight one another for status. They can’t out-consume one another because they can’t afford it, but they can out-taste one another.

28 Self-Serving Bias

Day to day, you think you are awesome, or at least far more awesome than you are. This is good. Self-esteem is mostly self-delusion, but it serves a purpose. You are biologically driven to think highly of yourself in order to avoid stagnation.

According to research conducted by Anne Wilson and Michael Ross in 2001, you see the person you used to be as a foolish bumbler with poor taste but your current self as a legend who is worthy of at least three times the praise.

29 The Spotlight Effect

Research shows people believe others see their contributions to conversation as being memorable, but they aren’t. You think everyone noticed when you stumbled in your speech, but they didn’t. Well, unless you drew attention to it by over-apologizing. The next time you get a pimple on your forehead, or buy a new pair of shoes, or Tweet about how boring your day is, don’t expect anyone to notice. You are not so smart or special.

30 The Third Person Effect

For every outlet of information, there are some who see it as dangerous not because it affects them, but because it might affect the thoughts and opinions of an imaginary third party. This sense of alarm about the impact of speech not on yourself but on others is called the third person effect.

The third person effect is a version of the self-serving bias. You excuse your failures and see yourself as more successful, more intelligent, and more skilled than you are.

31 Catharsis

Venting feels great. The problem is, it accomplishes little else. Actually, it makes matters worse and primes your future behavior by fogging your mind.

When you vent, you stay angry and are more likely to keep doing aggressive things so you can keep venting. It’s druglike, because there are brain chemicals and other behavioral reinforcements at work. If you get accustomed to blowing off steam, you become dependent on it. The more effective approach is to just stop.

32 The Misinformation Effect

Memory is imperfect, but also constantly changing. Not only do you filter your past through your present, but your memory is easily infected by social contagion. You incorporate the memories of others into your own head all the time. Studies suggest your memory is permeable, malleable, and evolving.

34 Extinction Burst

Skinner became convinced conditioning was the root of all behavior, and he didn’t believe rational thinking had anything to do with your personal life. He considered introspection to be a “collateral product” of conditioning. Some psychologists and philosophers still hold to the idea you are nothing but a sophisticated automaton, like a spider or a fish. You have no freedom, no free will.

Set goals, and when you achieve them, shower yourself with garlands of your choosing. Don’t freak out when it turns out to be difficult. Habits form because you are not so smart, and they cease under the same conditions.

36 The Illusion of Transparency

You become certain your skin must be glowing red and everyone in the room is holding back laughter. Except, they aren’t. They are just bored.

Studies in the 1980s showed you are confident in your ability to see through liars, yet you are actually terrible at it. On the other side, you think your own lies will be easy to detect.

Just because that person can’t see inside your mind doesn’t mean he or she is not so smart. You don’t suddenly become telepathic when you are angry, anxious, or alarmed. Keep calm and carry on.

37 Learned Helplessness

If, over the course of your life, you have experienced crushing defeat or pummeling abuse or loss of control, you convince yourself over time that there is no escape, and if escape is offered, you will not act—you become a nihilist who trusts futility above optimism.

42 Self-Fulfilling Prophecies

The future is the result of actions, and actions are the result of behavior, and behavior is the result of prediction. This is called the Thomas Theorem.

Psychologists call it the stereotype threat. When you fear you will confirm a negative stereotype, it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy not because the stereotype is true, but because you can’t stop worrying that you could become an example proving it.

If you want a better job, a better marriage, a better teacher, a better friend—you have to act as if the thing you want out of the other person is already headed your way. It doesn’t guarantee you’ll see a change, but it’s better than nothing.

43 The Moment

To be happy now and content later, you can’t be focused only on reaching goals, because once you reach them, the experience ends. To truly be happy, you must satisfy both of your selves. Go get the ice cream, but do so in a meaningful way that creates a long-term memory. Grind away to have money for later, but do so in a way that generates happiness as you work.

44 Consistency Bias

But people naturally change over time. Consistency bias is the failure to admit it.

45 The Representativeness Heuristic

Is it more likely Linda is a bank teller or that she is a bank teller and is active in the feminist movement? Most people who read the above description pick the second answer, although it is statistically more likely she is a bank teller. There are more bank tellers in the world than bank tellers who are feminists, no matter what sort of background they may have.

When you expect people to be a certain way because they seem to represent your notions of the sort of people in that category, you are not so smart.

47 The Illusion of Control

The researchers concluded most people engage in magical thinking to some degree, assuming their thoughts can influence things outside of their control.

Power breeds certainty, and certainty has no clout against the unpredictable, whether you are playing poker or running a country.

Psychologists point out these findings do not suggest you should throw up your hands and give up. Those who are not grounded in reality, oddly enough, often achieve a lot in life simply because they believe they can and try harder than others.

If you focus too long on your lack of power, you can slip into a state of learned helplessness that will whirl you into a negative feedback loop of depression.

48 The Fundamental Attribution Error

Instead of saying, “Jack is uncomfortable around people he doesn’t know, thus when I see him in public places he tends to avoid crowds,” you say, “Jack is shy.” It’s a shortcut, an easier way to navigate the social world. Your brain loves to take shortcuts.

You commit the fundamental attribution error by believing other people’s actions burgeon from the sort of people they are and have nothing to do with the setting. When a man believes the stripper really likes him, or when the boss thinks all his employees love to hear his stories about fishing in Costa Rica, that’s the fundamental attribution error.

People are not good at heart, Zimbardo says, but because their environment encourages it. Anyone, he believes, is capable of becoming a monster if given the power and opportunity.