Fundamentalist thinking

Not everything you think is true ....

A conversation with a friend on Saturday saw me re-evaluating some of the conclusions I have reached recently. Simply put - I saw things from another perspective: presented in plainspoken and unemotional language. It got me thinking about how I think and why. So I did what I tend to do in non-emotional matters - I did some research. And came across a book called "Don't Believe Everything You Think". If we care about truth, says author Thomas Kida, we have to care about being able to reliably differentiate between truth and falsehood. But, working out how to do that isn’t always easy. And that's because many of the normal thinking habits that serve us well in day to day scenarios - don't really work when it comes to more complicated issues. He says that most of us make six basic mistakes which lead us to incorrect conclusions. And their resultant fallout.

Mistake #1: We prefer stories to statistics. Even a bad story is preferred over great statistics. Because we are social creatures - anything that connects us to others will have a bigger impact than impersonal numbers and percentages. So we will make a decision based on a single story ... which is most often not at all representative of a larger trend. And ignore the stats that will tell us about that trend. Despite excellent evaluations in consumer magazines about a model of car we are thinking of buying - we will believe the friend who tells us he's "had nothing but trouble with the damn thing" and purchase something else.

Mistake #2: We seek to confirm, not to question, our ideas. We all want to be right - so instead of looking for neutral evidence, we will focus on what seems to confirm what we already believe. In other words ... we ignore anything that might counter our own beliefs. If you believe woman are terrible drivers ... you will see plenty of evidence to back that up. Despite proof that motor-insurance companies offer lower premiums to female clients.

Mistake #3: We rarely appreciate the role of chance and coincidence in shaping events. We don't factor in how randomness and odds influence our lives. We ignore the likely and expect the unlikely. If something has a million in one chance of happening - we still anticipate that it will happen to us. Walk into any casino for confirmation of this ...

Mistake #4: We sometimes misperceive the world around us. Despite evidence that we have "got it wrong" in the past - we still believe in our own ability to perceive situations accurately. And we then operate confidently; believing that "we got it right". Truth is: we are not that accurate ... we see things that aren’t really there and we fail to see things that are. Ask anyone who has persistently believed someone else's behaviour will change, if only they give it more time ....

Mistake #5: We tend to oversimplify our thinking. Reality is a whole lot more complicated than we realise. We're just not able to take every possibilty/option/statistic into account. If we don’t simplify, we'd never make a decision. Unfortunately - we often oversimplify and then miss things we need to take into account. Think political elections ...

Mistake #6: Our memories are often inaccurate. And we can't help it - it's the way we are built. The real mistake is in not realising this, not understanding the ways in which our memories can go wrong, and then not doing what do what we can to make up for this fact. Ask any policeman about 'eyewitness' reports.

Kida notes these are not the only mistakes people make; we can't just focus on them. His point is that if we can make a habit of noticing these six, and avoiding them - we will be way ahead of other people. And doing far better than we were before.