Bias 4: Doubt-Avoidance Tendency How it can harmful

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25 Cognitive Biases that Ruin Your Life

In prehistoric days when we had to avoid getting devoured by lions, these fast heuristics worked pretty well. Now that life is more complex, the decisions you need to make are more complex, and your cognitive biases trick you into making bad decisions. By learning these biases, you’ll guard yourself against people trying to exploit you. Even better, you’ll guard against your worst enemy: your own

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Man is a “’social animal,’ greatly and automatically influenced by behavior he observed in men around him. I also knew that man lived, like barnyard animals and monkeys, in limited size dominance hierarchies, wherein he tended to respect authority and to like and cooperate with his own hierarchy distrusting others.

David Heath

“Extreme success of the ants also fascinated me— how a few behavioral algorithms caused such extreme evolutionary success grounded in extremes of cooperation within the breeding colony and, almost always, extremes of lethal hostility toward ants outside the breeding colony, even ants of the same species.”

David Heath

“In the ant’s case, the behavioral algorithms are few in number and almost entirely genetic in origin. The ant learns a little behavior from experiences, but mostly it merely responds to ten or so stimuli with a few simple responses programmed into its nervous system by its genes.”

David Heath

It seems obvious, to me at least, that the human brain must often operate counterproductively just like the ant’s, from unavoidable oversimplicity in its mental process.”

David Heath

“Man is easily fooled, either by the cleverly thought out manipulation of man, by circumstances occurring by accident, or by very effective manipulation practices that man has stumbled into during “practice evolution” and kept in place because they work so well.”

David Heath

Put one hand in hot water, one in cold water, then put both in the same temperature warm water. “Now one hand feels as if it has just been put in cold water and the other hand feels as if it has just been placed in hot water. When one thus sees perception so easily fooled by mere contrast,

David Heath

Being aware of biases is not a perfect defense. Charlie loves checklists.

David Heath

Bias 1: Reward and Punishment Superresponse Tendency Incentive-caused bias Self-interest and rewards drive behavior Behaviors are conditioned by prompt rewards given after an action. Once a behavior is conditioned, random distribution of rewards keeps the reflexive behavior most established.

David Heath

Poorly designed incentives will cause bad behaviors. In pursuit of his own self-interest, man will rationalize bad behavior. excised normal gallbladders. Did this surgeon think, ‘I can get some easy cash by fraudulently excising gallbladders?’ No, “he thought the gallbladder was the source of all evil.

David Heath

Bad behaviors become intensely habit-forming when they are rewarded

David Heath

Antidotes Don’t reward behaviors you don’t want. Don’t design terrible incentive structures. Fear professional advice, especially when it is good for the advisor. Learn and use the basic elements of your advisor’s trade as you deal with your advisor. Double check,

David Heath

“If you would persuade, appeal to interest and not to reason.” – Ben Franklin

David Heath

Bias 2: Liking/Loving Tendency Association fallacy Humans tend to like and love things and people, especially mothers, much like goslings attach to whatever is there at birth. People like and love being liked and loved. You ignore fault of and comply with wishes of the object of your affection.

David Heath

Bias 2: Liking/Loving Tendency Why it evolved Attachment to parents promotes learning and safety for child Reciprocal liking between people allows social cohesion

David Heath

Liking/Loving tendency How it can be harmful You can ignore the real faults of the object of your affection. In extreme cases, affection can be so strong you self-harm to attain what is loved. Because you like being loved, you pursue paths that make other people admire you, rather than the optimal choice for yourself.

David Heath

Liking/Loving tendency Antidotes Put good admirable people in situations where people are prone to like/love, like teaching. Explicitly recognize your desire to be liked/loved, and control for that in decision making.Invert,always invert – what do you dislike most about an object of your affection? How can it go wrong

David Heath

Bias 3: Disliking/Hating Tendency What it is:

David Heath

Liking/Loving tendency Examples Like making popular but wrong decisions as a manager, or pursuing a respectable but dull career path. Advertising associating products with popular figures Warren and Charlie both liked Warren’s uncle, Fred Buffett, the grocery store owner,

David Heath

Bias 3: Disliking/Hating Tendency Antidote Invert, always invert – what can you find to like about an object of your hatred? How can you come to accept this object? What does the best case scenario look like? Respect your adversaries as people who are highly competent with many virtues, whom we will respect.

David Heath

Bias 3: Disliking/Hating Tendency Why it evolved

David Heath

Bias 3: Disliking/Hating Tendency How it can be harmful Ignoring virtues can further intensify dislike, causing feedback loops Rifts can progressively widen until there is no common ground, and agreements are harder to achieve. Judgments can be made without consideration of full facts

David Heath

Bias 3: Disliking/Hating Tendency Examples Negative political advertising, and treatment of opposing political candidates. When World Trade Center was destroyed, many Pakistanis concluded the Hindus did it, many Muslims concluded the Jews did it.Really, pick anything you strongly dislike, and see

David Heath

Bias 4: Doubt-Avoidance Tendency What it is:

David Heath

Bias 4: Doubt-Avoidance Tendency why it evolved:

David Heath

Bias 4: Doubt-Avoidance Tendency Example

David Heath

Bias 4: Doubt-Avoidance Tendency Antidotes:

David Heath

Bias 5: Inconsistency-Avoidance Tendency What is it?

David Heath

Bias 5: Inconsistency-Avoidance Tendency Why it evolved?

David Heath

Bias 5: Inconsistency-Avoidance Tendency How it can be harmful:

David Heath

Bias 5: Inconsistency-Avoidance Tendency Examples:

David Heath

Bias 5: Inconsistency-Avoidance Tendency Atidotes

David Heath

Harmony with land is like harmony with a friend; you cannot cherish his right hand and chop off his left.

Aldo Leopold

Real fathers are solution providers and not a part of the problem to be solved.

Fela Durotoyev

The English alphabet is pure insanity , It can hardly spell any word in the language with any degree of certainty.

Mark Twain

I want to compete in the next Olympics. If I go to Rio, it will be my third time, which is a rare feat for an Indian athlete. For me, Olympics is important because it's the biggest event on earth for a sports person. I hope this time around I come back with a medal.

Vijender Singh

I had an interest in Scandinavian countries because I'd never seen snow.

Hannah Kent

If I spent my time worrying about what other people would think of my work, I would be too self-conscious to write.

Christopher Paolini

The essence of being human is that in the brief moment we exist on this spinning planet we can love some persons and some things in spite of the fact that time and death will ultimately claim us all.

Rollo May

I think reality TV for dancers has changed for the better. There are more opportunities and the platforms that we are being given are better. We have more job security and TV is allowing different levels of dance to come through to the forefront. People can now take their abilities and turn them into brands and make these top dollars.

Laurieann Gibson

I probably use my chef's knives more than any other tool in the kitchen. I'm not married to a particular brand, because they all work, they all have sharp blades.

Bobby Flay

If something doesn't work in my house - TV, phone, stereo, anything - I just call my dad, and he knows the answer.

Kimberley Nixon

When I was 14, I played in a summer league. One night the chief umpire asked me if I would like to try umpiring. There was a Little League tournament coming up and he needed more umpires than he had.

Jim Evans

Before the Internet, all most people cared about was Office. And Office was really the only reason anyone wanted Windows machines instead of Macs.

Michael Arrington

The Chancellor also in effect asks us to bargain away whatever obligation or interest we have as regards the neutrality of Belgium. We could not entertain that bargain either.

Edward Grey

Under the right circumstances, a tiny spark can grow into an inferno that can overcome an entire city. So can an idea.

Richard Paul Evans

I mean, as an athlete, as a competitor, you have to have that belief in yourself.

Tiger Woods

I think that magic, at its root, is a very abstract notion. There's no real, approved definition. And, in that sense, it's like love; you can only see magic by the effect it has on people.

Drummond Money-Coutts

Team members need to feel trusted and valued, and micromanaging communicates the opposite. Founders who are prone to manage every detail of their businesses will ultimately kill themselves as well as lose the support of team members. Learn to delegate key tasks and give credit.

Martin Zwilling