Common Thinking Errors Part 2

we may like to believe that we're rational and logical but in reality we continually fall into mind traps cognitive biases that distort our thinking and influence the judgments and decisions we make every day in this video we'll look at seven common mind traps and ways to avoid them Google effect Google effect also known as digital Amnesia is the tendency to forget information that's readily available online suppose you want to know the height of Mount Everest why would you bother learning this fact when you can just Google it digital Amnesia isn't a failure of memory storage

but a failure of encoding information that we can easily access online instead of remembering the facts we're more likely to remember where we can find the facts our brains have learned to treat computers and the internet as an external hard drive for our memories is the reason why we use sat nav to guide us to places we visit regularly or can't remember telephone numbers stored in our phone's memory whilst there are undoubtedly advantages to having an unlimited external hard drive we need to be careful to check that the information we're accessing is accurate sunk cost

fallacy Frank is 30 minutes into a two-hour movie The film's not what he expected and he's starting to feel quite bored he looks over and sees that his date has fallen asleep he begins to wonder whether they should leave but suddenly recalls just how much he paid for two tickets as well as the effort of getting across town to the cinema so Frank decides to stay put even though he's unlikely to enjoy the rest of the film this is an example of the sunk cost fallacy where we continue with something because of the time money

or effort we've invested even though sunk costs cannot be recovered Frank can't get his time and money back so why continue watching a film if he's not enjoying it but it's not just individuals who are susceptible to the sunk cost fallacy in 1976 the supersonic airplane Concord began commercial flights French and British governments invested hundreds of millions of dollars but even when it became clear that Concord wouldn't be profitable they continued to pour money into it partly because they'd already sunk significant time and money into the project in the end only 20 planes were built

and 2.8 billion dollars was spent money could have been saved had the project been canceled much earlier the rational decision would have been to consider only possible future gains and losses rather than the effort money or time already invested and unrecoverable we're making decisions it's important to detach your emotions about sunk costs it's gone and you can't get it back assess the situation rationally and if needed be ready to cut your losses and head for the exit framing effect Frank wants to buy a low-fat yogurt but when he gets to the chilled section he's faced

with a choice should he buy the 80 fat free yogurt or the 20 fat alternative the products are the same price and contain the same amount of fat but Frank opts for the 80 fat free option research suggests that most people would do the same one of the alternative contained 19 fat Frank would likely make the same Choice even though the alternative contains less fat but why Frank's decision was informed by a cognitive bias called the framing effect in which an individual's Choice from a set of options is influenced more by the way information is

presented or framed than by the information itself the same information can appear more or less attractive depending on whether the positive or negative aspects are emphasized the 80 fat free yogurt highlighted how much fat had been removed a positive attribute as opposed to the alternative which highlighted how much fat it contained a negative attribute to avoid the framing effect always think through why you've selected an option or relied on certain information as this can help you realize if you've been too influenced by the way something was presented egocentric bias Jane and Frank have been working

together on a team project when asked how much they each contributed to the work they both estimate 60 percent adding to an impossible total of a hundred and twenty percent why do they both believe they did the most work the answer may be due to egocentric bias which refers to people's tendency to over emphasize their perspective when considering events and beliefs this makes us more aware of our own work and less aware of the contribution of others even when we do understand the work of others we're more likely to remember what we did due to

biased memory the result is that we often see ourselves as the key player even if we only played a minor role to combat egocentric bias at work try to see things from someone else's perspective try to notice things completed without your input and encourage others to talk about what they did it can also help to keep an accurate record of who's completed what So to avoid relying on faulty memory just World hypothesis the just World hypothesis refers to the cognitive bias that the world is fair and people get what they deserve it causes us to

believe that positive behaviors will be rewarded and negative behaviors will be punished for example Frank comes home from an evening out and finds that his house has been broken into and many of his valuable possessions have been stolen Frank's friends are sympathetic but can't help wondering whether he left his door unlocked and his valuables in plain sight after all Frank is quite absent-minded and this probably happened for a reason psychologists believe that people prefer to view the world as a manageable predictable and fair place as this helps us to stay focused on long-term goals and

protects us from helplessness the just World bias can be avoided by stepping back to look at the full picture and considering all the available information before making a judgment illusion of control [Music] in a study from 1971 researchers told participants they were doing an experiment on the effects of different noise levels on simple tasks like proofreading some participants were given a button they could push if they wanted the noise to stop nobody with a button actually pressed it but just knowing they could stop the noise resulted in overall lower levels of stress during the experiment

it turns out that believing we're in control of what happens to us even if that's not always true can have a huge impact on our mental health the illusion of control makes us think we have far more influence over events than we actually do it's the reason why Frank believes his lucky t-shirt influences the performance of his favorite football team group think the CEO wants to take the company in a New Direction he's a charismatic and persuasive leader and everyone on the board seems to agree so it must be a good idea individually however no

one on the board thinks it's the right direction groupthink is a psychological phenomenon in which group members stay quiet and set aside their own beliefs in favor of maintaining group cohesion and reaching a consensus unfortunately group think can cause groups to ignore important information and ultimately leads to poor decisions groupthink can be reduced by breaking groups into smaller groups and increasing diversity among group members if you enjoyed this video please check out mind traps part 1 which explores more cognitive biases including confirmation bias anchoring bias halo effect attribution bias and many others [Music]