We all know that nobody, not even ourselves, is perfect. Even the greatest narcissist recognizes the absence of perfection in him or herself. Yet even with recognizing our own fallibility we often fail to understand why we continue to make the same mistakes. For instance, many people don’t realize that simple subconscious habits can negatively impact their understanding of the world. Social psychologists have spent decades trying to unravel the mysteries of the human mind and they come up with five mistakes we all make.
1. Conformation Bias
Simply put, the conformation bias is when we seek out information to confirm what we already believe to be true. While some people do this on purpose, most people don’t even realize they do it. Any one can fall prey to the conformation bias and it can occur in almost any situation. For example if you believe a certain type of car is superior to another one then you will likely find examples to confirm those beliefs. The trick to avoiding this bias is to actively look for information that disproves what you hold to be true. Searching for the opposite opinion can help you fairly asses the accuracies of given beliefs.
2. False attribution
Too often we attribute success or failure to the wrong characteristics. This happens all across the board from judging a person’s talent to analyzing our own character traits. We tend to see the world through a broken lens. For example if a classmate fails a test we tend to believe it is because he or she is lazy or unmotivated, however if we fail the same test it is because it was too hard or we just didn’t have enough time to study. A false attribution can be hard to spot. Before making a judgement call on a person or a situation try to analyze all the different factor that might be involved.
3. Gamblers Fallacy
You don’t have to be a gambler to fall into the trap of the gambler’s fallacy. The gambler’s fallacy is the mistaken belief that if something happens frequently during some period, then it is less likely to happen in the future. It’s a problem with understanding probability. The most famous example of this problem is that of flipping a fair coin. If a coin is tossed multiple times in a row and each time it turns up heads, people tend to believe that on the next toss the coin will have to be tails. However that simply isn’t true. Each coin toss has the independent probability of 50/50. The best way to treat this fallacy is to understand when events are dependent or independent. Situations that depend on one another will be influenced by the previous event, independent events will not.
4. Misremembered Memories
Our minds are amazing things which can hold more memories than any super computer. We can remember big and small details from major events to minor changes. Yet no matter how great our minds might be, they are all susceptible to false memories. While there are ways to improve your memory, like spending more time concentrating on whatever it is you wanted to remember, it’s best to understand that memories simply are not facts. If there is something really important that you need to remember, the best thing to do is write it down somewhere. This way you can refer to it when necessary.
5. Stereotyping
No one wants to believe that they stereotype. We all want to believe that every person we meet is given a blank slate and we base our judgements about that person by accurate information. However this simply isn’t true 100% of the time. We live in a fast pace world and make quick judgements about people, places, and things. If a person is standing in a dark alley way with a hoodie pulled over his or her face we assume that person is up to no good. It is not always bad to make these snap judgements, we often do this for our own safety, however it is important to recognize when you are playing into stereotypes so you can understand why you made certain judgements.
For more information on these and other mistakes we make check out this article:
https://blog.bufferapp.com/thinking-mistakes-8-common-mistakes-in-how-we-think-and-how-to-avoid-them
