09 Oct 6 Ways You’re Thinking Wrong–and What You Can Do About Them
There’s no doubt external variables can impact on our happiness. What’s going on in the world, around us, is undoubtedly important.
But so too is what’s going on INSIDE us; and most notably, of all the internal variables, our thoughts play a significant role in determining how we feel and, therefore, how happy we are …
via Inc.com by WOO-KYOUNG AHN
WHEN I WAS a graduate student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, doing research in cognitive psychology, our lab group went out every now and then for nachos and beers. It was a great opportunity for us to ask our adviser about things that wouldn’t likely come up in our more formal meetings. At one of those gatherings, I summoned up the courage to ask him a question that had been on my mind for some time: “Do you think cognitive psychology can make the world a better place?” I had asked a simple yes-or-no question, so he chose a simple answer: “Yes.”
Over the course of the next 30 years, I’ve tried to answer that question myself by working on problems that I hope have real-world applications. In my research at Yale University, where I’ve been a professor of psychology since 2003, I’ve examined some of the biases that can lead us astray–and developed strategies to correct them in ways that are directly applicable to situations people encounter in their daily lives.
I also saw how “thinking problems” cause troubles that go far beyond our individual concerns. These errors and biases contribute to a wide range of societal issues, including political polarization, complicity in climate change, and ethnic profiling. They can also come into play for people who run businesses–how they hire staff, interact with their colleagues, set strategies.
I introduced a course called “Thinking” to show students how psychology can help them recognize and tackle some of these real-world problems and make better decisions. Now I’ve written a book, Thinking 101, to make these lessons more widely available. And here I’m presenting a sample of the kind of material you’ll find in it.
My book is not about what is wrong with people. Thinking problems happen because we are wired in very particular ways. Reasoning errors are mostly byproducts of our highly evolved cognition, which has allowed us to survive and thrive as a species. As a result, de-biasing is notoriously challenging.
To avoid these errors in running a business, merely learning what they are and making a mental note not to commit them isn’t enough. Fortunately, there are actionable strategies you can adopt to change your thinking and help your team work better. These strategies can also help us figure out which things we can’t control, and show us how solutions that might seem promising can ultimately backfire.
1. Don’t Be Throttled by Things That Have Always Worked
From antiquity into the late 19th century, Western healers believed that if you drew out a patient’s “bad” blood when they were ill, their ailments would get better. George Washington presumably died from this treatment when his doctor drew 1.7 liters of blood to treat a throat infection. By the time Washington was born, we had already figured out that the earth is round, and Sir Isaac Newton had formulated the three physical laws of motion, but our intelligent ancestors still thought draining blood was the bomb.
Still, if we were in their situation, we might not have been much different. Picture yourself in the year 1850, with excruciating back pain. You’ve heard that in 1820, King George IV was bled 150 ounces and went on to live for another 10 years. You’ve heard that your neighbor’s insomnia was cured by bloodletting. And you’ve heard that about three quarters of people who got sick and had blood drawn got better (I am making up these numbers). So, you try bloodletting and you actually do feel better.
But here’s the catch. Suppose there are 100 people who got sick but did not have their blood drawn, and 75 of these people also got better. Now you can see that three-quarters of sick people get better whether their blood is drawn or not. But people neglected to check what happens to those who don’t follow this practice. They focused only on the confirming evidence.
Confirmation bias can easily lead us to an exaggerated and invalid view of ourselves. Once we start believing that we are depressed, we may act like a depressed person, making deeply pessimistic predictions about the future and avoiding any fun–which would make anybody feel depressed. And once you start doubting your competency, you may avoid risks that could have led to greater career opportunities, and then, no surprise, your career will end up looking like you lack competency.
These vicious cycles can work at the societal level. Traditionally, almost all scientists were men. Most people who were allowed to continue in the field did a good job. Thus, we developed the notion that men are good at science. Women were hardly given a chance to prove that they could be good scientists, too. So we had little evidence that could disconfirm the belief that only men are good at science. And society continues to operate based on that assumption.
It’s not difficult to see that any stereotype based on race, age, sexual orientation, or socioeconomic background can work the same way. According to a 2020 report from Citibank, had our society invested equally in the education, housing, wages, and businesses of both White and Black Americans over the past 20 years, America would have been $16 trillion richer. If that number is too large to grasp, the gross domestic product of the United States was $21.43 trillion in 2019…
… keep reading the full & original article HERE