Common antidotes to psychological biases

Psychological biases can be working in any situation. This text is about common antidotes to all of them. Each of them also has some specialized antidotes which I will not go through today. Most people think they are more invulnerable against the tricks of persuasion professionals than average. Most people think they can be rational in any situation. This is not true. When the moments come that you think you are the best way prepared to ward off all manipulations, you have the highest odds to be vulnerable. This applies even to people who know about the ways they are manipulated. It can be the worst position to suffer from persuasion. It is the position that can have the largest possible bad effects on the decisions you make. Confidence in your abilities is the worst foundation for these moments. Be suspicious about your abilities.

Even though I mentioned that confidence is bad for you, you have to first recognize these situations in which you are vulnerable. And this can make you feel you can resist anything. It is better if you do it before you have to deal with them. Avoiding them is the best solution. One of the most common situations, when you cannot avoid the effects of persuasion professionals, is when your willpower is low. This happens when you are tired, stressed, have external influences like other people to lead you the way, etc. One of the best signs of these situations is your overreaction to stimuli, whatever it is.

Bitter pills can work. When you voluntarily expose yourself to less harmful persuasion professionals, you can recognize your vulnerability to them. This makes you less confident about your abilities to resist them. When professionals have deceived you with small things, you can have better odds in avoiding persuasion attempts in bigger things. For example, book salesmen are not as harmful as car salesmen. Analyze your reactions to salesmen, their tricks, and how they deceive you or try to do it. Plan in advance. Do not expose yourself to a situation that can cost too much. You can also see these professionals at work, but with other customers, if you do not trust yourself enough to be a customer. Go to a cafe that has direct access to a shop or two. Have a coffee and watch it. You do not even have to hear what they say and you can still learn. You will learn less, but with smaller problems.

You can also practice your reactions to these situations. If you like to wander in a mall or you have to go and buy something from them, you can use so-called if-then scripts. For example, if a persuasion professional approaches you to sell you something, then tell him your wife takes care of these things in your family. You can also tell him that you have a job interview and you have no time to talk. You can invent more of these scripts yourself. Use your imagination and I am sure you will find something to say.

Some situations are more dangerous than others. If someone creates new expectations and wants to fill them, you have to be smart. For example, a company sells you some sugary and fatty foods and it also sells diets to lose weight, you have to be careful about it. That company wins twice. First, it sells you an unhealthy snack, and then it sells you something that lessens the bad effects of it. The other sign of a hidden agenda is selling something you have not experienced before. Try this new product X and enjoy it. This can be something like a test drive, or a new service, etc. When new things are free, be extra careful.

Frame these situations in different ways if you want to avoid them. Distance yourself from them. Think like you are an outsider. For example, ask yourself what others would do if they were you. Would they say yes or no? Practice their answers. You can also find outsiders about their opinion in advance. Use your critics if you can. Try to be neutral. Think about finding the truth and nothing but the truth. Be aware of your prejudices. Be careful when your response is too strong for the situation. It is the best sign that something is wrong.

This is all for today,

-TT

Losses, Gains and Possessions

You tend to worry more about losses than you care about the gains. This is one form of excessive self-regard. Even though you worry more about losses, you tend to be optimistic about having fewer possible risks than others. You believe that other people suffer more from unemployment, bad break-ups, and bad illnesses. The availability of possible risks changes the way you see them. You do not have to suffer from these incidents yourself. You just have to see them happening to someone else. If you lose something, your risk level rises to get it back. Overreaction to these incidents is a normal human trait. It protected your ancestors from irreversible harm. Today´s world is different.

The ratio of hurting more from losses than enjoy gains is about two to one. 200$ gain feels as good as 100$ losses feel bad. This fact leads to many irrational decisions. It can have bad effects on the outcomes of your life. This does not mean you should always choose the option of getting larger gains than avoid losses. You can do this when losses do not cause you any bad damage. For example, it is smart not to bet your last 1000$ if you can win 1500$ and chances are 50%. But you can bet your 1000$ to win 1500$ when chances are the same if you have a significant amount of extra money. In the long run, you have to use these possibilities to your advantage if you want to have a life you deserve. Constant choices for avoiding losses are not the best way to live your life.

Losses and gains produce some other irrationalities in your life. One thing that makes the difference is the total amount of your gains and losses. This applies not only to the sums of money but to how many times you lose or gain something. It s more painful for you to lose 100$ twice than losing 200$ once. When this happens to you in the sum of gains, winning 100$ twice feels better than winning 200$ once. There are limits to the effects of gains and losses. Losses feel less painful after a certain point. For example, if you have 1000$ and you lose 100$, it feels less painful than if you have 500$ and you lose 100$. The same applies to gains. For example, gaining 100$ when you have 1000$ feels less good than having 500$ and winning 100$. This applies to your wellbeing too. After a certain point, your wellbeing doesn´t increase when you get more money than you felt before.

Possessions

Anything you own is more valuable to you than before you owned it. If you pay 100$ for an item, its value to you increases. This applies not only to your possessions but the effort you put to get them. IKEA furniture is a good example of this effect. When you buy something from the store, you have to assemble it. Putting screws, using a hammer, and other efforts to put pieces together increase the value of the items. When you put these two things together, your items become much more valuable than you paid for them. Your emotional attachment to your possessions grows when the time goes by. The more you use them or the more available they are to you, the more valuable they become as their availability in your mind grows. Riots and revolutions usually happen after something are taken away from people. They do not happen when people never had anything. Even small possessions that are taken away destroy governments.

Framing losses and gains differently

Framing losses and gains differently can help you get what you want. Frame all the undesirable things in a way that they feel like losses. For example, risks with negative expected value can be framed to feel like losses. For example, frame lottery tickets as losses of the money you pay for them, not to the opportunities to gain millions. Risks with positive expected value can be framed in ways that not doing them feels like losses. For example, not accepting a coin toss to win 1500$ and lose 1000 will be a loss of 250$ of expected value. There is a certain way to make gains feel better and losses feel less bad. Always bundle your losses and separate your gains. Separating gains and losses is a bad idea when the gains are bigger. Talk about investments, not losses.

Valuing possessions

Avoid most pay later to get something now deals. You will feel like an owner before you have paid anything. This possession may feel more valuable than they are. Do not underestimate the value of ownership. If you cannot afford something, do not even try it. Be realistic about your possessions. Most of them are not so valuable to others than they are to you. Do not overprice things you own if you have to sell them. Ask experts about their real value. Most and for all, understand the value of your currency. The dollar is a dollar and pound is a pound, no matter how much effort you have put to your possessions and how available they are in your mind.

-TT