Definitions
Psychological
heuristics can be defined as ”Simple, efficient rules which people
use to form judgments and make decisions.” Psychological biases can
be defined as ”Systematic patterns of deviation from norm or
rationality in judgment.” For the sake of keeping things simple, I
will call heuristics and biases psychological tendencies
Your behavior is guided by the
simple algorithms in your nerve cells
You will probably
see yourself as a rational thinker who makes decisions after careful
consideration. This is not an exact picture of reality. You have two
sides, the emotional and the rational. Both sides need each other to
work well. Most often they work the way they should. Sometimes, you
are predictably irrational. When this happens, you are mostly using
your emotional side. Your nerve cells have simple algorithms, that
are guiding your behavior. These algorithms are simple instructions.
They are either based on your genes or your experiences. Sometimes,
you are manipulated by some people using these algorithms.
Manipulation can be so subtle that you don´t even notice it. Subtle
manipulations can have a compounding effect in which repetitive small
changes create bigger results and irrationalities.
People have
different reactions to different tendencies. They can be personal or
cultural. Some people hate authorities and someone are infatuated in
them. Asians are more interested in the collective good and people in
Western countries are more individualists. You have to figure out
yourself which tendencies have the biggest effect on you. A process
of trial and error can be used. Gradual changes and reactions to them
will eventually lead to right responses.
Tendencies are not best suited to
modern environments
Environment
changes fast compared to brains. Most tendencies have been developed
through millennia. Emotions and instincts related to survival are
the most common reasons for these tendencies. They save your energy.
Especially, energy used by your brain. Their usefulness in modern
environment is restricted. Most often, they lead you to the right
direction, but sometimes they cause you misjudged decisions. Today,
your survival is not at stake all the time. Tendencies that increased
your chances of survival millenniums ago have more negative
consequenses in modern environments. These tendencies lead to
irrational decisions concerning on many other things than survival,
for example, decisions about money.
You can also
manipulate your own environment in a way that increases the
usefulness of these tendencies. You can and you should help yourself
to achieve success by using them to your own advantage. For example,
you can create better habits by creating an environment in which
there are many triggers that lead to good behavior. You can and you
should also create an environment in which triggers for bad habits
are unavailable or hard to detect. You cannot avoid all the negative
effects in your life.
Experts have diagnosed more than
hundred tendencies.
There are more
than hundred different tendencies diagnosed by the experts in
different branches of psychology. Most of them are just special
cases. Learning all the special tendencies in certain cases is
useless. There is a need to simplify things as far as possible. It is
safe to say that understanding less than dozen tendencies and how
they interact with each other is all you need to know about them.
Most often, psychological research is concentrating on a single
tendency. Most often, in real life situations, tendencies are not
working alone. Thinking about a single tendency often leads to wrong
conclusions. I have to say that, until now, it has been really hard
to research many tendencies in the same time. As big data increases
and artificial intelligence becomes smarter, it becomes easier to
understand the effects of the combinations of tendencies.
Many tendencies
are the exact opposites. By understanding one, you understand the
other. For example, liking and disliking tendencies can be put
together. I have also tried to simplify and group many tendencies
together. For example, egocentricity is consisted of loss aversion,
endowment effect, confirmation and consistency biases, etc. Figuring
out egocentricity helps you to understand all of them without
remembering all of their names, definitions, or situations in which
they have an effect on people. All this complexity becomes simpler
and things start to make more sense. Here is the list of all the
tendencies I will go through at some point. I have tried to put them
in order, where the most important ones are first:
- Contrast misreaction
All these
tendencies can and will be used against you, either you do it
yourself, or someone else does it. You should use them only to your
own and common good. Using them for others will eventually backfire.
Even the awareness of these tendencies, diminishes their negative
effects. And hopefully will create positive influence.
Sources:
Have a nice end of
the week
-TT
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