In the first part of this article, we focused on 5 traps that hinder our ability to think rationally. As a quick recap, we discussed:
- The Anchoring Trap: Over-Relying on First Thoughts
- The Status Quo Trap: Keeping on Keeping On
- The Sunk Cost Trap: Protecting Earlier Choices
- The Confirmation Trap: Seeing What You Want to See
- The Incomplete Information Trap: Review Your Assumptions
Now it’s time to complete the list and expose the remaining 5 dangerous traps to be avoided. Let’s dive right in.
6. The Conformity Trap: Everybody Else Is Doing It
In a series of experiments, researchers asked students in a classroom a series of very simple questions and, sure enough, most of them got the answers right. In another group, they asked the same questions but this time there were actors posing as students, purposefully pushing wrong answers. This time around, many more students provided wrong answers based on the leads from the researchers’ assistants.
This “herd instinct” exists — to different degrees — in all of us. Even if we hate to admit it, other people’s actions do heavily influence ours. We fear looking dumb: failing along with many people is frequently not considered a big deal, but when we fail alone we must take all the heat ourselves. There’s always peer pressure to adopt the behaviors of the groups we’re in.
This tendency to conform is notoriously exploited in advertising. Businesses often sell us products not based on their features, but by showing how popular they are: since others are buying it in droves, why would we not join them?
Conformity is also one of the main reasons why once a book makes into a well-known best-sellers list, it tends to “lock in” and continue there for a long time. People like to consume what “everybody else” is consuming.
What can you do about it?
- Discount the influence of others. When analyzing information, shield yourself from others’ opinions — at least at first. This is the best way to decide without being subconsciously swayed by popular opinions.
- Beware “social proof”. Always raise a flag when someone tries to convince you arguing primarily on the popularity of a choice, instead of on its merit.
- Be courageous. Be willing to overcome obstacles and defend your viewpoints, despite their unpopularity. Don’t be afraid to point out that the Emperor wears no clothes.
7. The Illusion of Control Trap: Shooting in the Dark
Have you noticed that the vast majority of lotto players pick their own numbers instead of using the sometimes available ‘auto-pick’ option (where the point of sales terminal chooses the numbers for you)? We all know that however the numbers are chosen doesn’t change the chance of winning, so why the strong preference for picking our own numbers?
Curiously, even in situations we clearly can’t control, we still tend to irrationally believe that we can somehow influence results. We just love to feel in control.
Of course, it’s always easier to illustrate this trap with chance games, but the tendency to overestimate our personal control of events influences every aspect of our daily lives.
Unfortunately, contrary to the lottery example above, the outcomes of our decisions are usually complex and interconnected. It’s hard to assess to what extent we’re responsible for the results we get. While some of the outcomes can be traced back to our own choices, a part of them will surely remain just as well out of our direct control.
What can you do about it?
- Understand that randomness is part and parcel of life. Although it may be hard to fathom or even admit it, some things are just random — in the sense that they don’t depend on your effort at all. Accept responsibility for the things you can influence, but know that for many others there is not much you can do. Better than assuming or expecting that every event is under your control is to consciously choose how you respond to them.
- Beware of superstitions. Consider how much of your decisions are based on things you cannot really explain. Make those unknowns explicit and put them under scrutiny — instead of pretending you can control them.
8. The Coincidence Trap: We Suck at Probabilities
John Riley is a legend. He won a one-in-a-million-chance lottery… twice! That makes it a 1-in-a-trillion event — which means that the lottery is rigged or maybe John must have been singled out by Lady Luck, right?
Well, not really. Let’s try a little math: If, throughout the years, 1000 lottery winners keep playing at least 100 times attempting the “miracle” of winning it once more, that adds up to a non-negligible chance of 10% that someone will make it.
This means that the “miracle” is not only possible but — given enough attempts — its likelihood increases to a point of becoming almost inevitable.
Another classic example: it takes a group of just 23 people to make it more likely than not that two of them share the same birthday (day and month).
That’s how unintuitive probabilities are.
What can you do about it?
- Don’t over-rely on gut estimates. While useful many times, gut estimates will sometimes be way off the mark. Make sure you properly discount their importance or that you understand the ramifications of trusting them.
- Beware of “after the fact” probabilities. One thing is the probability of someone having won the lottery twice — looking at it in retrospect. Another completely different thing is that a particular person — chosen before the outcome — wins it: that would indeed qualify as a one-in-a-trillion event — and would make anyone seriously doubt the legitimacy of that lottery.
9. The Recall Trap: Not All Memories Are Created Equal
What’s your best guess for the probability of a randomly selected flight ending in a fatal crash? While many people grossly overestimate it, MIT studies show that in reality these fatal accidents happen at a rate of only 1 in 10,000,000.
The fact that people suck at estimating probabilities explains only partially this tendency to mis-estimate: if you ask the same question right after a major airplane accident, be prepared for even more biased assessments.
What happens is we analyze information based on experience, on what we can remember from it. Because of that, we’re overly influenced by events that stand out from others, such as those with highly dramatic impact or very recent ones. The more “special” an event is, the greater the potential to distort our thinking. Of course, no one ever bothers about the other 9,999,999 planes that arrive safely at their destinations — so there’s nothing more natural than forgetting about them.
What can you do about it?
- Get hard data. As usual, don’t rely on your memory if you don’t have to. Use it, of course, but always endeavor to find data that confirms or discounts your recollection as soon as possible.
- Be aware of your emotions. When analyzing information, try to emotionally isolate yourself from it, at least temporarily. If you’re analyzing an event, pretend it happened a long time ago or that it happened to someone else unrelated to you. Likewise, if asking for opinions, find people who are not emotionally involved with them or their consequences.
- Beware the media. The media is notorious for exaggerating the importance of certain events while conveniently neglecting others. Always evaluate information on its relevance and accuracy, and not on how much exposure it gets.
10. The Superiority Trap: The Average is Above Average
A study surveyed drivers asking them to compare their driving skills to other people in the experiment. Almost all the participants (93%!) rated themselves as ‘above average’.
With few exceptions, people have much inflated views of themselves. They overestimate their skills and capabilities, leading to many errors in judgment.
And this is the reason I decided to close this article with this particular thinking trap. After making ourselves aware of these many thinking traps, we may now become susceptible to falling into a new one: the belief that we’re now immune to them.
Of course, the first step to avoid thinking traps is awareness and constant vigilance, but beware: it’s much, much easier to notice others falling into these traps than us.
What can you do about it?
- Be humble. Always remember that everyone has blind spots (yes, that includes me and you)!
- Surround yourself with honest people. If we all have blind spots, nothing better than having honest people around us to point them out to us.
- Don’t go overboard. These ‘thinking traps’ are inherent parts of us: they make us human. Applying rigor and rational thinking to our decisions is important, but that doesn’t mean that intuition has completely lost its place. Don’t get me wrong: I still think that knowing about our own thinking traps is very useful — just don’t get too worked up about them.
Further Resources
These ten thinking traps barely scratch the surface when it comes to how our thinking can be biased. Wikipedia’s list of cognitive biases has more than 100 of these traps, making it a hard-to-beat starting point for further learning.
The references for the studies that back up the data in this article can be found on the respective articles on Wikipedia, as well as on the book Smart Choices. That’s a marvelous book about decision making, and one which I highly recommend. Another great book to check out is Thomas Gilovich’s How We Know What Isn’t So.
I hope you enjoyed the article. And just in case you missed it, here’s part 1, where you can find the first 5 thinking traps we started with.
Nice work! Good to see the second part of what has been an interesting series.
Cheers!
Stephen
Hi Luciano, just wanted to commend you for your excellent work on this well thought out series. I really appreciate your efforts here.
Yay! Part 2! I’m so happy to see the rest of the post. Great stuff here. I particularly like what you wrote about memories and how they’re not all created equal. That’s so true and it’s such an interesting way of thinking about how we distort our thoughts.
Yes, I find that particular trap one of the most interesting (and prevalent). For many times I thought about writing an entire article about it…
Well, maybe I will write such an article.
Readers: Would find specific articles on any of these traps valuable? Or should I focus on another topic?
Suggestions are always welcome!
Being aware of my emotions and knowing how to deal with them has been the biggest increase in my happiness. I don’t let outside influences decide my mood. Well most of the time.
When we know the traps the mind creates we can stop letting them drag us down. This takes time and practice like you said, but it’s worth every moment.
I’ve found these articles Part 1 and Part 2 fascinating and so informative. They are like life skills we all need to know. Good stuff.
Have to say, this is an awesome pair of articles. I ’stumbled’ upon this site and gotta say, I likes it a lot!
Good stuff!
Hi, Luciano!
This is my first time to your site, and I am SO impressed! Fascinating subject, carefully crafted posts, and thought provoking ideas.
I keep thinking about your “after the fact” probabilities… I can’t tell you how many times I’ve fallen in that trap!
I’m about to go look around your archives, just wanted to let you know this article (series) was fantastic!
Thanks!
Thanks for the compliments! Glad you enjoy the site!
There are many, many traps that exploit our inability to handle probabilities and statistics well!
I put that particular one here because I’ve also fallen in it many times, and one that I see happening all the time!
If readers find it valuable, I can write an entire article focusing solely on the many ways probabilities and statistics are abused. Would readers be interested in that?
Hey Luciano this is great read, compact and easily digestible. Sharing it right now!
I highly recommend reading (if you haven’t already) Sway: The irresistible pull of irrational behavior , it’s a quick read and mostly covers some other biases that influence our thinking when making decisions.
Other books on the subject are Predictably Irrational and Nudge which go a little bit deeper.
Thanks for the recommendation, Jorge!
I already read Dan Ariely’s Predictably Irrational and loved it — I will check out your other suggestions for sure!
Amazing post! Thanks very much. Inspires a lot of thinking (without traps hopefully)
Nice read…found it while stumbling. Some of these I remember from psychology class, but you’re right…identifying the traps is really only half the battle. Identifying them before falling into them is the real challenge.
“Be wary of social proof” – very, very true.
Wow great tips,
I really enjoyed both parts.
and between you and me : I didn’t read other comment before I say my opinion, cus I don’t wanna fall in (6- The Conformity Trap: Everybody Else Is Doing It)
Lol, I will now read them now.
thank you.
Haha, great approach!
Good work Luciano,
liked the closure of the article very much… I have many times got into a trap of collecting too much information about things around me affecting my life… At times that leads to unnatural behavior, and also steals away fun of living and beauty of exploring things the organic way…
Regards…
Hey Luciano,
This is a good post. You include lots of evidence for your opinions and incorporate it into your writing. Glad that you exposed the truth to many people about what they think.
I think one of the most important things a person can do is to question their own behaviors and beliefs. These posts are a wonderful lesson in logical thinking and I’m definitely going to read more posts in the “Featured Posts” section.
Thank you for these amazing series. Hope to see more. I sometimes wonder why decision making in not a subject in high school…
Mostly excellent. Number 10, though, is *itself* an example of common sense thinking gone awry.
It’s entirely reasonable to guess that the respondents were basing their estimate on the *mean* driving skill. In this case, it’s not only possible, but *likely* that a large majority is above the mean, because a readily observable fraction of drivers is truly atrocious, and very few are *that* much better, particularly if you limit your consideration to daily driving rather than racing.
In any population where most people are “adequate”, very few are “stellar”, and many are “extremely poor”, most people will consider themselves “above average”, and rightly so.
Great comment! Unless I missed something, you’re absolutely right!
Your comment sparked another thought about the driving skill example:
The overestimation is also probably contaminated by the Recall Trap (#9): when people meet really atrocious drivers in the streets, the experience is much more memorable than meeting a great driver (which usually goes by unnoticed). By using the vivid memories of helpless drivers — while ignoring the memories of great drivers — people naturally tend to see themselves as above average. Correct?
Yes, that is consistent with what I was thinking. This is particularly true because one of the defining characteristics of “good” driving is not doing anything that draws attention to yourself.
Unexpected or unusual driving behaviors that draw attention and are memorable are actual predictors of low skill in the environment of daily driving.
There’s an element of the “Confirmation Trap” involved here too, as you tend to take evidence of bad driving as confirming your “I’m a good driver” hypothesis, but evidence of “good” driving (assuming it has evidence
isn’t considered as strongly.
It’s really nice to see how these traps are all interwoven, isn’t it?
Thanks for stopping by again!
Love it. Great article, well written and very well observed. Thanks.
Like many others this is the first time I have come across your blog. I loved the two articles on thinking traps and just added your site to my reader.
Also I recently took the LSAT and find a lot of the issues you deal with very applicable.
Interesting stuff!
Hello! I must say this is a fantastic article.
I have a question that isn’t really too relevant to this article but….
With all your presentation of mindmapping, have you ever tried photoreading? I was curious because the Photoreading Whole Mind System uses mindmapping, and I wondered if you knew about it.
I tried the search engine, and I can’t find any article or suggestion of photoreading, yet this is a website about helping our mind progress. I thought it was kind of contradicting, since photoreading is about using your whole mind. But anyways, thank you for your time.
Hi Tyler,
Although I’ve already heard about PhotoReading, I never tried it — so I can’t vouch for it.
Thanks for letting me know: I had no idea the method involves mind mapping. Now that I know, I am certainly more willing to give it a try.
This is such an irresistible post, “What can you do about it?” part of every point makes it so complete.
#10 beats mathematics and the fact that “Every barber and taxi driver in my town knows how to run the country?”
Nice post that helps to find out what is coming in the way of crytal clear thinking! I would like to add further to it that Meditation, especially the ones practised in the buddhist tradition such as Vipassana (Insight Meditation) is very effective in getting hang of the reality as it is – free of distractions, mental bias and illusion.
Enjoyed this alot. very well thought out. take this to heart people, if everyone did we’d b much better off. Props Luciano
Ha ha … its funny when you learn certain aspects of how human mind works.
Thanks
Thought provoking – nice work. Thinking of posting it but definitely sending to my leadership team to make sure we can guard against the traps.
This is excellent. Especially number six. Individuality, after all is our strongest suit, as people. I always make it a point, when commenting on blogs,not to read the comments before the one I am posting. I have something to say, and I don’t want my original inclination to be swayed by what has been said by others. There is an excellent website on persuasion that I love called http://www.changingminds.com , and its companion site http://www.creatingminds.com . I wrote a post myself: http://booksaboutpeace-digging.....-cord.html
Of course, if other folks fail to read the previous posts like I do, then this point is mute, but, What the hell.
Thanks for this incredibly interesting post. I eat this stuff up! And I’m always hungry, so I’ll be back
Interesting trick to boost my mind. I love the previous part too.
Using the scientific method in daily life seems to cut through a lot of BS for me. Whenever I’m evaluating an idea I think:
What body of information (data) does my idea describe?
Is the idea falsifiable?
Are there any counterexamples?
Is the idea predictive?
Asking these questions, especially looking for counterexamples, saves me SO much time. The ability to quickly evaluate the ideas of others is so useful, especially in areas where science can be iffy.
Very quickly things come into focus:
Religion: all description, no prediction, unfalsifiable.
College Literature courses: pretty much the same as religion.
Psychiatry: Very little data on the human brain to work with so science is pretty weak. Almost impossible to make replicable measurements (This is why you can go to several shrinks and get different diagnosis from each). DSM manual is all description and very little prediction.
And don’t get me started with
Kids Karate Classes, Aikido, Oprah, Political Systems, Yoga, and Singing lessons.
I cannot believe the number of people who take singing lessons without testing the assumption that the teacher can, in fact sing. Would you take chess lessons from someone who had never completed a game? Crazy.
Hi Tom,
Thanks for your comment — glad you mention the scientific method. It’s a tremendously useful tool that, indeed, up to this day, very few people apply.
I plan writing an article in the blog about the scientific method and how we can apply it in our everyday lives.
Excellent post Luciano. Looks like most often than not management is a journey from one trap to another.