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

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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 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 How it can harmful

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

Few sensible authors are happy discussing the creative process--it is, after all, black magic.

Edward Albee

I should prefer to die laughing, and, on more than one occasion, thought I might.

Joseph Epstein

It's good sportsmanship to not pick up lost golf balls while they are still rolling.

Mark Twain

Natural selection is not an inflammatory phrase; evolution is.

Peter Agre

Everything happens every night for this audience, and it's a very special occasion to come to the theatre.

Roger Rees

People are always backing up when I'm just going to shake their hands.

James Caan

When I do short films, I try to do something completely out of my comfort zone, out of my element.

Brett Ratner

Successful candidates follow a simple fundamental rule: Define yourself before your opponent can define you.

Nina Easton

You know, I was a nerdy kid going through high school, and then I got to college and that all vanished. I mean, a lot of my good friends - when we were in high school, we would never have been able to hang out together because we were in such different cliques or whatever. Now, who cares?

Brandon Sanderson

I wasn't getting the responses I hoped for. You can't protect yourself from other judgments.

Charlotte Gainsbourg

A free America... means just this: individual freedom for all, rich or poor, or else this system of government we call democracy is only an expedient to enslave man to the machine and make him like it.

Frank Lloyd Wright

I know that I will never find my father in any other man who comes into my life, because it is a void in my life that can only be filled by him.

Halle Berry

A pessimist is a man who thinks all women are bad. An optimist is a man who hopes they are.

Chauncey Mitchell Depew

Class never tries to build itself up by tearing others down. Class is already up and need not strive to look better by making others look worse.

Ann Landers

It's sort of a mystery where ideas come from.

Theresa Rebeck

French fries kill more people than guns and sharks, yet nobody's afraid of French fries.

Robert Kiyosaki

Remember to always be yourself. Unless you suck.

Joss Whedon