7 Ways Our Brains Fool Us
Another Day In My MBA
Another Saturday in class. Who'd have thunk it?
Here are my frantically typed ruminations from today’s excellent “Leadership and Organization” lecture.
Chew on these while I grab a richly deserved pint. Or three.
Unconscious Bias
From what age do we let bias (conscious or otherwise) seep into our psyche?
We are intuition-driven information processors, constantly scanning the world around us, interpreting information and colouring narratives with our unique worldview.
We allow intuition to lead us and then use our rationality to come up with evidence to support our beliefs — the absolute arse-backwards way it should be.
Revisionist thinking
We are terrible at collecting evidence that challenges our own beliefs, we are great at finding evidence that challenges others’ beliefs.
Our reasoning seeks justification, not the truth.
Exactly like a popularity contest for votes as opposed to a quest for the truth.
System 1 — The brain’s cache
Stereotyping is the brain’s cache.
It allows for fast, uninterrupted, relatively low-effort, memory retrieval and is evolutionarily very beneficial as a survival strategy.
Even though finding food, water, shelter, companionship and evading the sabre-tooth tiger is exponentially easier today than in the days of our hirsute ancestors, our brain-caching has persisted.
And that means we continue to jump to conclusions about what we perceive.
Changing opinions equals hypocrisy
People seldom change their minds even in face of overwhelming evidence.
Not so much because they are obstinate, dogged individuals. But because backtracking in public is potentially catastrophic to our reputation.
People generally cling to their perspective. Graphs and data will not change their minds.
But persuasion is an art that’s enhanced by vivid communication. By bringing a person’s biases to life, you can get them to trip over the truth.
Where reason fails, persuasion works.
Advocating solutions sounds like a sales pitch and is met with scepticism. But vivid imagery and persuasion will force people to at least give an alternative opinion some airtime.
Perfection is the enemy of the good
Decisiveness is sexy, IMO.
Why do some of us chase perfection above all else? Maybe innate attention to detail is genetically selected for survival?
Either way, as an honorary graduate from the school of “shoot first, ask questions later”, I do find it challenging when dealing with indecisive folk.
But perhaps I overvalue my own decisiveness…more on this in the next blurb.
Overvalued and underappreciated
We overvalue our own creations.
The Ikea effect is real: studies show that people who DIY their Ikea furniture tend to value it higher than it’s worth.
Because we price our own labour costs (time and effort) into the finished product.
This is why pricey interior design renovations don’t increase the market value of your house. It’s also maybe why we think our kids are supremely gifted.
We produced them.
Courage is contagious
Majoritarianism bends the truth, suppresses diversity, and nullifies perspectives.
Our instinct is to give in to the dominant, majoritarian voice. Even when we know better.
But apparently even just witnessing acts of courage emboldens us to defy the majority and take up a contrary viewpoint.
Standing up against the majority opinion is difficult, at best. But if you succeed in doing so, it empowers the people witnessing it to also stand up with you.
That’s a helluva leadership trait.
So there you have it — your quick read for the day.
As usual, wish me luck and follow along for updates, reflections, and some #content. Nothing ventured, nothing gained!
