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58 Cognitive Biases That Screw Up Everything We Do
mouser:
So what would it be like to live with no irrational cognitive biases? Boring? Enlightened? Insane? I really wonder...
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I think the real answer to this is important and gets to the whole point of why humans naturally and automatically acquire biases.
Without biases you would be a terribly ineffecient computational device -- slow to react and learn.
mikiem:
Cute... I wind up wondering if the authors left their own biases in - rather than editing them out - for illustration?
This stuff can get scary when you realize that it's so often used to manipulate people in marketing & politics, but realizing that can also help when/if you're tempted to question your kids' sanity. :)
Whatever... Google "see the world through our own perceptions" without quotes -- or something similar -- & you'll see enough discussion & info on the topic to believe it's inevitable. Behavioral science is less favored when it puts us in a less flattering light, comparing hard-wired characteristics with our primate ancestors, but it can be interesting if you can get past that common bias of human superiority.
I do like what you wrote, mouser:
Without biases you would be a terribly ineffecient computational device -- slow to react and learn.
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At the heart of the matter is the very real fact that people do what works for them, whether some disapprove or not, whether science has bothered to figure out a theory of why it works or not.
wraith808:
So what would it be like to live with no irrational cognitive biases? Boring? Enlightened? Insane? I really wonder...
-Edvard (June 20, 2014, 09:18 PM)
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Inhuman. 8)
-40hz (June 20, 2014, 10:08 PM)
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Truth. I don't think that biases are a bad thing- I think that unrecognized bias or denial that they exist is the bad part of it. You have to know your audience, and you have to conversely know who is speaking to you. Then you can add context around the bias that is transparent. But when we deny bias, we deny that context. Which leads to inefficiency in communication.
40hz:
So what would it be like to live with no irrational cognitive biases? Boring? Enlightened? Insane? I really wonder...
-Edvard (June 20, 2014, 09:18 PM)
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Inhuman. 8)
-40hz (June 20, 2014, 10:08 PM)
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Truth. I don't think that biases are a bad thing- I think that unrecognized bias or denial that they exist is the bad part of it. You have to know your audience, and you have to conversely know who is speaking to you. Then you can add context around the bias that is transparent. But when we deny bias, we deny that context. Which leads to inefficiency in communication.
-wraith808 (October 26, 2014, 12:21 PM)
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+1! We, of necessity, work with the tools we have - and play the cards we're dealt.
I think that's called adaptability - which some have argued is the human species best (or possibly only) real skill.
sword:
Simone Weil had it right about our thinking, "Imagination and fiction make up more than three quarters of our real life."
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