Scientists have explained why even smart people do stupid things so often.
Nature has endowed man with intelligence, our brain is the most perfect intellectual instrument. No computer can compare with our gray matter in terms of information processing speed. An attempt to model the full-scale functioning of a brain with 100 trillion synapses, which was recently undertaken by specialists from the Cognitive Computing division of the IBM Research laboratory, ended in failure. Sequoia is one of the most productive supercomputers in the world, able to operate in human brain mode at a speed of 1500 times slower. At the same time, Sequoia covers an area of 300 m2 and consumes about 8 MW of energy. Recall that the volume of the human brain does not exceed 2 liters, and it consumes about as much energy as a 20-watt light bulb. But the question arises: if we are so smart,then why are we all, without exception, so regularly do stupid things? Why are we so easily manipulated by charlatans, demagogues and crooks of all stripes? Psychologists argue that cognitive biases are to blame for systemic errors in thinking. Let's try to explain how four common traps of our own consciousness work.
Survivor bias
What is the essence:This psychological phenomenon has an interesting history of discovery. During World War II, the Americans lost many bombers. To reduce losses, they decided to cover the most vulnerable spots with armor. Hungarian mathematician Abraham Wald was tasked with determining which parts of the bombers most needed protection. Wald studied how the holes from enemy fire were distributed on the knocked out bombers that managed to reach the base. Most of the marks were on the fuselage and wings. And least of all in the area of the fuel tank and engine. It would seem logical to defend those places where people shoot more often. But the mathematician thought differently, he realized that planes with a punctured engine and a gas tank simply do not return home and therefore do not get into statistics. In psychology, a “survivor's mistake” is a situationwhen people make a conclusion based on incomplete data, we know information about the group of "survivors", but we miss the "dead".
Who Benefits: A large army of business coaches and personal growth trainers, led by the famous Tony Robinson, the spiritual heir of Chumak and Kashpirovsky, makes millions of dollars on this cognitive error.
How it works: These ugly people gather stadiums of people to share the secret of how to become happy, rich and famous. The problem is that the success stories they rub in on gullible listeners teach little. These are typical survivor stories. On their basis, a lot of myths are born, a vivid example is the cult of the “great two men”. Edison was expelled from school for lack of ability, Einstein was given poor grades for arguing with teachers. But if you do badly, you are unlikely to become Edison or Einstein. It is impossible to copy someone else's success, because its nature is unique. It is much more useful to study the experience of the "lost" and understand what they did wrong.
Audience at Tony Robbins' speech.
Promotional video:
Barnum effect
What is the essence: The effect was named after the famous American showman and hoaxer Phineas Barnum, who is credited with the expression: "Every second a simpleton is born on Earth and I have something to offer to any of them." I must admit that Barnum offered simple things to simpletons. During his circus performances, he married midgets and giants, demonstrated Siamese twins and a man with a "dog's face" - in this capacity, the American worked for a native of St. Petersburg Fedor Evtikhiev (he suffered from a rare disease - hypertrichosis, and his entire face and body were covered hair). But the most respectable audience was sure that they were witnessing unique phenomena. The Barnum effect is that a person tends to guess himself in the most general, banal and trivial descriptions of personality traits.
Who Benefits: This technique provides sustenance for astrologers, fortune tellers, palmists, and mystifiers of all stripes.
How it works:Psychologist Bertram Forer conducted tests with 39 students, and then, allegedly based on this questionnaire, created a description of the personality of each student. He gave the characteristics to each participant and asked them to rate how accurate they were. The students rated the conclusions highly - on average 4.3 points on a 5-point scale. Then the scientist asked the guys to show these sheets to each other. It turned out that the same text was written on them, taken from an astrological journal. Here is a fragment of it: “You really need other people to love and admire you. You are pretty self-critical. You have many hidden opportunities that you never used to your advantage. Disciplined and confident in appearance, in fact, you tend to worry and feel insecure. At times, you have serious doubtswhether you made the right decision or did the right thing. You think independently; you do not take someone else's statements on faith without sufficient evidence. You have learned that being too frank with other people is not too wise …”Admit it, and you might recognize yourself in this description. The trick is that people love to listen to compliments and easily accept positive characteristics, especially if they come from the mouth of an authoritative person. And swindlers always know how to catch up with respectability.that people love to listen to compliments and easily accept positive characteristics, especially if they come from the mouth of an authoritative person. And swindlers always know how to catch up with respectability.that people love to listen to compliments and easily accept positive characteristics, especially if they come from the mouth of an authoritative person. And swindlers always know how to catch up with respectability.
The Barnum effect is that a person tends to guess himself in the most general, banal and trivial descriptions of personality traits.
Dunning-Kruger effect
What is the essence: The starting point for the research of Justin Kruger and David Dunning were two circumstances - the aphorism of the great naturalist Charles Darwin, who argued: "Confidence is more often generated by ignorance than by knowledge." And the story of the criminal MacArthur Wheeler, who robbed two banks without any disguise and was extremely surprised that he was caught: he was sure that if you smear his face with lemon juice, it becomes invisible to video cameras (do not rush to laugh, remember: did you hang up the CD -disk on the windshield of the car to disable the police radar). After conducting a series of experiments, psychologists came to the conclusion: ignorant people tend to overestimate themselves and at the same time are not even able to realize the full depth of their stupidity. And competent people are used to doubting themselves and their abilities.
Who Benefits: Amateurs, Sofa Analysts, Uneducated, Incompetent People.
How it works: Tests by Dunning and Kruger showed that approximately 42% of engineers ranked themselves in the Top 5% of the best talent. And 88 percent of motorists are confident that their driving skills are above average … As a result, commanding heights in society are often captured by aggressive ignoramuses. It is enough to watch any talk show on television, and you will see how a narcissistic self-taught demagogue can easily shut the mouth of an intelligent, erudite, but reflective interlocutor.
Selective perception
What is the point: Psychologists Albert Hastorf and Hadley Cantril came up with an interesting experiment: they gave students at Princeton University and Dartmouth College a recording of a fierce football match between Princeton and Dartmouth. At the same time, the students had to calculate how many times the players of both teams violated the rules. Princeton fans "saw" that the Dartmouth flayers were twice as rude as their home team players. Opponents responded to the "beasts" from Princeton in a similar vein. And one of the Dartmouth fans did not find a single violation in the actions of his team at all. Scientists have come to the conclusion: a person with a pronounced position is able to perceive only those facts that coincide with his expectations.
Who benefits: conspiracy theorists, political extremists, fanatics.
How it works: Suppose you are a staunch opponent of GMOs. Or an ardent supporter of the idea that the Americans never landed on the moon. And although science has provided concrete arguments for the safety of GMOs and overwhelming evidence for NASA astronauts on the moon, you are unlikely to change your mind. On the contrary, the more you read materials on this topic, the more you will be convinced that you are right. The fact is that people subconsciously seek out arguments in the information flow that convince them that they are right. And messages that do not fit into a convenient picture of the world are ignored as insignificant. This is how the mechanism of sincere self-deception works.
YAROSLAV KOROBATOV
