10 Ways Your Brain Is Smacking You Around
Sometimes it seems like your brain just isn't on your side.
11/12/12 by David DiSalvo in Psychology Today
Extract:
“We'd be nowhere without the marvel of evolution in our skulls, but sometimes our brains act in ways not in our best interests, and that's when we have to remember that not every message coming from the control center is accurate or beneficial. Here are 10 examples:
1. Telling you that you have more impulse control than you really do.
2. Producing more automatic thoughts than you can possibly manage.
3. Pulling you into rumination about your worst fears.
4. Directing you toward distractions to take the pressure off.
5. Making you think you’re a mind-reader and a fortune-teller.
6. Sending mixed messages about which rewards to pursue.
7. Looking for patterns, here, there and everywhere.
8. Pushing you into extending trust whether or not it’s reciprocated.
9. Making things seem urgent that really aren’t.
10. Tripping your guilt wire every time something goes wrong.”
The 12 cognitive biases that prevent you from being rational
By George Dvorsk, On iO9
Extract:
“The human brain is capable of 1016 processes per second, which makes it far more powerful than any computer currently in existence. But that doesn't mean our brains don't have major limitations. The lowly calculator can do math thousands of times better than we can, and our memories are often less than useless — plus, we're subject to cognitive biases, those annoying glitches in our thinking that cause us to make questionable decisions and reach erroneous conclusions. Here are a dozen of the most common and pernicious cognitive biases that you need to know about.
1. Confirmation Bias
We love to agree with people who agree with us.
2. Ingroup Bias
It causes us to overestimate the abilities and value of our immediate group at the expense of people we don't really know.
3. Gambler's Fallacy
We tend to put a tremendous amount of weight on previous events, believing that they'll somehow influence future outcomes.
4. Post-Purchase Rationalization
Also known as Buyer's Stockholm Syndrome, it's a way of subconsciously justifying our purchases — especially expensive ones. Social psychologists say it stems from the principle of commitment, our psychological desire to stay consistent and avoid a state of cognitive dissonance.
5. Neglecting Probability
It’s our inability to grasp a proper sense of peril and risk — which often leads us to overstate the risks of relatively harmless activities, while forcing us to overrate more dangerous ones.
6. Observational Selection Bias
This is that effect of suddenly noticing things we didn't notice that much before — but we wrongly assume that the frequency has increased.
7. Status-Quo Bias
We humans tend to be apprehensive of change, which often leads us to make choices that guarantee that things remain the same, or change as little as possible.
8. Negativity Bias
People tend to pay more attention to bad news. (...) Evolutionarily, heeding bad news may be more adaptive than ignoring good news.
9. Bandwagon Effect
Though we're often unconscious of it, we love to go with the flow of the crowd.
Much of this bias has to do with our built-in desire to fit in and conform, as famously demonstrated by the Asch Conformity Experiments.
10. Projection Bias
We tend to believe that people not only think like us, but that they also agree with us. It's a bias where we overestimate how typical and normal we are, and assume that a consensus exists on matters when there may be none.
11. The Current Moment Bias
We humans have a really hard time imagining ourselves in the future and altering our behaviors and expectations accordingly. Most of us would rather experience pleasure in the current moment, while leaving the pain for later.
12. Anchoring Effect
Also known as the relativity trap, this is the tendency we have to compare and contrast only a limited set of items. The classic example is an item at the store that's on sale; we tend to see (and value) the difference in price, but not the overall price itself."
Sometimes it seems like your brain just isn't on your side.
11/12/12 by David DiSalvo in Psychology Today
Extract:
“We'd be nowhere without the marvel of evolution in our skulls, but sometimes our brains act in ways not in our best interests, and that's when we have to remember that not every message coming from the control center is accurate or beneficial. Here are 10 examples:
1. Telling you that you have more impulse control than you really do.
2. Producing more automatic thoughts than you can possibly manage.
3. Pulling you into rumination about your worst fears.
4. Directing you toward distractions to take the pressure off.
5. Making you think you’re a mind-reader and a fortune-teller.
6. Sending mixed messages about which rewards to pursue.
7. Looking for patterns, here, there and everywhere.
8. Pushing you into extending trust whether or not it’s reciprocated.
9. Making things seem urgent that really aren’t.
10. Tripping your guilt wire every time something goes wrong.”
The 12 cognitive biases that prevent you from being rational
By George Dvorsk, On iO9
Extract:
“The human brain is capable of 1016 processes per second, which makes it far more powerful than any computer currently in existence. But that doesn't mean our brains don't have major limitations. The lowly calculator can do math thousands of times better than we can, and our memories are often less than useless — plus, we're subject to cognitive biases, those annoying glitches in our thinking that cause us to make questionable decisions and reach erroneous conclusions. Here are a dozen of the most common and pernicious cognitive biases that you need to know about.
1. Confirmation Bias
We love to agree with people who agree with us.
2. Ingroup Bias
It causes us to overestimate the abilities and value of our immediate group at the expense of people we don't really know.
3. Gambler's Fallacy
We tend to put a tremendous amount of weight on previous events, believing that they'll somehow influence future outcomes.
4. Post-Purchase Rationalization
Also known as Buyer's Stockholm Syndrome, it's a way of subconsciously justifying our purchases — especially expensive ones. Social psychologists say it stems from the principle of commitment, our psychological desire to stay consistent and avoid a state of cognitive dissonance.
5. Neglecting Probability
It’s our inability to grasp a proper sense of peril and risk — which often leads us to overstate the risks of relatively harmless activities, while forcing us to overrate more dangerous ones.
6. Observational Selection Bias
This is that effect of suddenly noticing things we didn't notice that much before — but we wrongly assume that the frequency has increased.
7. Status-Quo Bias
We humans tend to be apprehensive of change, which often leads us to make choices that guarantee that things remain the same, or change as little as possible.
8. Negativity Bias
People tend to pay more attention to bad news. (...) Evolutionarily, heeding bad news may be more adaptive than ignoring good news.
9. Bandwagon Effect
Though we're often unconscious of it, we love to go with the flow of the crowd.
Much of this bias has to do with our built-in desire to fit in and conform, as famously demonstrated by the Asch Conformity Experiments.
10. Projection Bias
We tend to believe that people not only think like us, but that they also agree with us. It's a bias where we overestimate how typical and normal we are, and assume that a consensus exists on matters when there may be none.
11. The Current Moment Bias
We humans have a really hard time imagining ourselves in the future and altering our behaviors and expectations accordingly. Most of us would rather experience pleasure in the current moment, while leaving the pain for later.
12. Anchoring Effect
Also known as the relativity trap, this is the tendency we have to compare and contrast only a limited set of items. The classic example is an item at the store that's on sale; we tend to see (and value) the difference in price, but not the overall price itself."
