Talk 11: The Psychology of Human Misjudgement

of what use is a philosopher who never offends anybody

~ - Diogenes

• identify bad judgement using known psychological tendencies and learn to avoid it yourself
• our brain takes shortcuts for efficiency – these can backfire and be "hacked" –> take precautions against this

Reward/Punishment Super-response Tendency

• incentives will outweight most other considerations
• prompt reward more effective than delayed
• random distribution of rewards is more effective than guaranteed reward
• bad incentives can cause otherwise good people to do bad or dumb things; people tend to then rationalize the bad decision
  • fear profession advice; especially if it benefits advisor in some way
  • know your own fundamentals when dealing with advisor. Double check and doubt them
• offering reward without foolproof verification causes corruption
• use Granny's Rule
• punishment influences behavior; but less effectively than rewards

Liking/Loving Tendency

• Liker will
  • ignore faults
  • comply with
  • favor person and associations
  • distort reality to facilitate liking

Disliking/Hating Tendency

• Diskliker will
  • ignore virutes
  • disfavor associations of object of disklike
  • distort reality to facilitate dislike

Doubt Avoidance Tendency

• people feel uneasy in doubt and will strive for conclusion to avoid this pain.

Inconsistency Avoidance Tendency

• few people can list many bad habits they've stopped

chains of habit that were too light to be felt before they became too strong to be broken

an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure

• causes humans to maintain some conclusions, loyalties, identity, etc. – even at own harm
• new ideas rejected because of this –> people tend to accumulate fixed ideas and attitudes over time
• confirmation bias
  • do the opposite; aim t odisprove our most cherished ideas
• ceremonies aim to intensify commitments
• act as if you have what you want

Curiosity Tendency

Kantian Fairness Tendency

• act in a way that would work best if everyone did the same
• people do crave fairness and this is acted out

Envy/Jealousy Tendency

• deep human tendency – treated throughout the scriptures for good reason. In scripture is always leads to loss and pain.

Reciprocation Tendency

Influence-from-mere-association Tendency

Pain-avoiding Psychological Denial Tendency

• we all do this to some extend
• addicts deny their deteriorated state

Excessive Self Regard Tendency

• spouse and children appraised higher than is accurate
• preference for self-simnilarity-cliques
• it is a good idea to rely more on past performance than face to face impressions
• don't make excuses for our own failures – fix ourselves instead. Don't downplay our failures of character – be more objective when self reflecting instead.

Overoptimism Tendency

• use probability math of Fermat and Pascal

Deprival Superreaction Tendency

• losing 10$ hurts more than gaining it in the first place
• strong reaction to threat of loss
• explains special hatred for former believer in a cult or ideology
• "cut your losses" is difficult to do because of this

Social Proof Tendency

• we act as we see those around us act
• kids will do as their friends do
• groups are knownn to follow eachother into quite foolish actions
• we look to social proof when confused or stressed
• this tendency can be hijacked
  • sales tactices that create stress response
  • faked social proof or hype evidence
• this is a reason why society must stop bad behavior early, before it spreads
• learn to ignore wrong example – this is a critical life skill

Contract Misreaction Tendency

Stress-Influence Tendency

• extreme stress can cause fundamental behavior changes; i.e. breakdown – only similar level of stress can reverse this behavior change

Availability-misweighing Tendency

• out of sight, out of mind
• use checklsit ot bring each consideration in sight
• entertain outsider ideas
• vivid images stick in memory
• we should avoid giving fact or idea more weight merely because of its availability

Use-it-or-lose-it Tendency

• practice useful skills
• assemble useful skills into a checklist used routinely
• take the time to raise a skill to fluency – slower decomposition and fast refresh

Drug-misinfluence Tendency

• Don't do it

Senescence Tendency

Authority-misinfluence Tendency

Twaddle Tendency

• bull-shitters end up confusing things; keep them aways from the serious work

Reason Expecting Tendency

• people respect reason in and of itself – hence the power of using the word "because"; reagardless of what follows
• think through and communicate reasons when delegating
• ask why

lollapalooza Tendeny

• multiple forces in tandem work to great effect