We see vague statements as applying specifically to us even when they apply to most everybody.ĭunning Kruger Effect. Thinking everyone else is just selfishly out for themselves.įorer Effect (aka Barnum Effect). Thinking we have a better grasp of reality than everyone else. The tendency to believe the world is just, so any observed injustice was really deserved. Getting more upset at someone who commits a crime we feel we could have fallen victim to ourselves. People make judgments based on how easy it is to call an example to mind (and plane crashes are memorable).ĭefensive Attribution. Why we worry more about rare airplane crashes than objectively much deadlier road accidents. Overestimating how much other people are thinking about you.Īvailability Heuristic. Assuming everyone else knows what you know once you’ve learned something. Thinking most people agree with you even when that’s not the case.Ĭurse of Knowledge. Assuming winners are morally superior.įalse Consensus. Just because someone is confident or beautiful doesn’t mean they are also smart or kind, for example. Assuming a person has other positive traits because you observed they have one. The downfall of many a large organization. Going along with the group to avoid conflict. Everyone likes to jump on a trendy bandwagon. We tend to favor those in our in-group versus those who are different from us.īandwagon Effect. Attributing all your successes to skill or effect and all your screw ups to bad luck or a bad situation. When someone else is late, it’s because they’re lazy. He recently took to Twitter to declare that cognitive biases “should be taught to all at a young age.” His post included a (not super easy to read) graphic laying out 50 common biases, thinking errors, and irrational human tendencies that kids should be alerted to, which I’ve laid out in list from below.ĭo you agree that we’d all be a little better prepared for life if we learned them all in school?įundamental Attribution Error. Could we all get a little more Musk-like in our thinking if we learned about the quirks that often trip us up as kids? We get emotional, fear others’ judgment, or simply screw up our mental math thanks to the brain’s many inherent bugs and biases. Thinking like this might come relatively easily to a mind like Musk’s, but according to an absolute avalanche of psychological research, the rest of us often struggle to be as clear-headed. While others look around and see what other people are trying, or assume they can move the status quo only so much, Musk is a firm believer in what he calls “first principles thinking,” or focusing solely on the basic truths and constraints of whatever field he’s working in, and building up from there. It’s a skill he himself attributes to clear thinking. The guy is clearly able to achieve the near impossible when it comes to engineering and innovation. Would the world be more rational if we did as Musk recently suggested and taught kids about cognitive biases in school?īY JESSICA STILLMAN, CONTRIBUTOR, you think of Elon Musk’s many Twitter scandals, sometimes odd public utterances, and past tax bills, one thing is for sure.
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