Slides: Think Humbler (Dr. Feddes)

By David Feddes

 

Sources for this presentation

• Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow
• Rolf Dobelli, The Art of Thinking Clearly

 

Smug slug

• System 2 feels in charge. But it’s lazy and prefers minimum effort.
• Some thoughts and actions that System 2 believes it rationally chose are prompted by System 1.
• Quick, easy answers feel right.

Overconfidence

• 84% of French men think they are above-average lovers.
• 93% of American students think they are above-average drivers.
• Most people assume we know more than we really do. We are more sure than the evidence would warrant.

Confirmation Bias

• Interprets new evidence to fit prior beliefs, preferences, expectations
• Filters what doesn’t fit by ignoring it or calling it “an exception”
• Choice of news and social media
• Self-image, astrology, business, medicine, science, politics, theology

• Seek evidence against your belief.
• Listen to views different from yours.

Self-serving bias

• My success is from skill and work. My failure is due to other factors.
• Spouses or team members feel they have done more than their share.
• Rolf Dobelli asked five roommates how often they took out the garbage. Their answers added up to 320%!

Introspection bias

Assuming that soul-searching and looking inside will produce reliable self-knowledge.

• Introspection is biased in favor of current beliefs and behavior.
• Introspection ignores input from outside and discounts critics.

 

False consensus bias

Would you wear sign, “Eat at Joe’s?” Do you think most others would?

• Surely others agree with you.
• If not, they are abnormal!

Attention bias

• Gorilla? What gorilla?
• Seeing only what we focus on
• “We can be blind to the obvious, and we can be blind to our blindness.” (Daniel Kahneman)

Specialty bias

Assuming that my specialty reveals the only cause and the one solution

• If your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
• Avoid single cause fallacy.
• Seek multiple causes and reasons. Consider variety of responses.

Think humbler

We are too sure of what we think we know, and we seldom realize the vastness of our ignorance and the uncertainty of our world.

Survivors bias

• Success stories are known: lottery winners, athletes, actors, authors, singers, tycoons, megachurches.
• You hear little about the vastly greater number who failed.
• Blind to probability of failure, you overestimate chances of success.

Outcome bias

• Evaluating decision by results, not by whether it based on the best information available at the time.
• Reckless leaders who get lucky are praised for boldness and foresight.
• Wise leaders who end up with bad result are blasted as incompetent. 

Hindsight bias

• Memories change to fit how things turned out, or our current opinions.
• 3,000 people surveyed on issues: memories matched current views, not actual answers of years ago
• Even “flashbulb memories” are often very mistaken.

Illusion of
 understanding

The illusion that one has understood the past feeds the further illusion that one can predict and control the future. (Daniel Kahneman).

Forecast illusion

• Annual survey asked chief financial officers of corporations to estimate S&P index returns for the next year
• 11,600 forecasts had < 0 correlation with value of S&P a year later
• Expert forecasts were worthless—but they still didn’t know it.

• Economists, fund managers
• Climate scientists, tech futurists
• Date setters for Jesus’ return

Plan vs. reality

• Scottish Parliament building estimate: £40 million; final cost: £431 million
• Rail projects worldwide cost 45% more than estimated; estimates of passenger use were 106% greater than actual use.
• In 2002 Americans remodeling kitchens expected cost: $18,658. Actual: $38,769

Planning bias

Expecting things to go as planned

• Ignoring you own track record
• Ignoring factors outside plan

Humbler, more realistic planning

• Consider others’ similar projects
• Imagine disaster; describe it.

Control Bias

• Keeping giraffes away
• Thinking we control things that we really can’t control
• Traffic, elevator “placebo buttons”
• Doctors, economists, politicians insist on “doing something”

Ignoring our ignorance

Our comforting conviction that the world makes sense rests on a secure foundation: our almost unlimited ability to ignore our ignorance. (Kahneman)

Think you know?

The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know. But the man who loves God is known by God. (1 Cor 8:2-3)

Now I know in part. (1 Cor 13:12)

Now that you know God—or rather are known by God… (Galatians 4:9)

Think humbler

• You have many mental blind spots.
• You’re wrong more than you admit.
• You understand less than you realize.
• Many plans and expectations fail.
• Much is beyond your control.
• Still risk and think—but humbly!

Thinking, fast & slow

• System 1: fast, involuntary, automatic, effortless
• System 2: slow, deliberate, attentive, effortful

Complementary roles

• System 1 (automatic reaction) and System 2 (attentive thinking) work well together much of the time.
• System 1 saves time and energy. Pondering every belief and decision would be too slow and exhausting.
• System 2 can evaluate as needed.

Beware of biases

• System 1 has built-in biases and tends toward systemic, frequently repeated errors in certain types of situation.
• System 2 is sometimes blind to biases of System 1 and accepts its errors rather than finding and fixing them.

Smug slug

• System 2 feels in charge. But it’s lazy and prefers minimum effort.
• Some thoughts and actions that System 2 believes it rationally chose are prompted by System 1.
• Quick, easy answers feel right.

Smug slug

• Don’t be a slug. Think harder.
• Don’t be smug. Think humbler.

Intuition and reason

• If a belief or decision is minor, go with intuition. Don’t think too hard.
• If a belief or decision could have important, long-term impact, think harder and think humbler.
• Train thinking skills so System 2 can work well when needed.

Train thinking skills

To get at truth, think harder, think humbler—and strengthen skills to:

• See structure of arguments
• Detect biases and fallacies
• Use inductive logic & probability
• Use deductive logic & proofs