The book "Why we are wrong. Pitfalls of thinking in action. ” Excerpts part 1

What increases the chance for a mistake?
What we do not notice when we make mistakes?
How much does background influence our decision?

The author has been collecting error stories, experiments and research in this area for more than 20 years.
I suggest here the most interesting, in my opinion, stories.

For example, in the framework of the study, two groups of people presented the same person in different ways. Then they were asked to describe how he looked. So, those who were told that he was a truck driver, described him as a rather large guy, and those who were told that he was a dancer, described that the man was of an elegant physique.

A few stories without a theme.

The restaurant decided to pour a glass of wine to visitors as a gift.
Half of the visitors were told that excellent Californian wine was poured into their glasses, and the second half that they were treated to ordinary wine. People who drank "ordinary" wine left the restaurant before and their check was smaller than those who drank "excellent."

Left-handedness and right-handedness largely determine preference in choosing a direction. Other things being equal, right-handers (American =)) more often prefer to turn right and left-handers left. Given that there are fewer left-handers, there is a recommendation when looking for a short queue to first look left.

Checked at the airport, not working. There is less queue at the far window.

During the experiment, a thief man stole a purse from a woman, and so, the women who observed this described more the reaction and actions of the victim, and the men described the thief more.

We see what we need to see.

Daniel Simons and Daniel Levine of Cornell University conducted a simple experiment on blindness to change.

"Stranger" on the territory of the university asked passing students to suggest how to get to the right place. While he was talking to the “local” between them, rather unceremoniously, two men passed by with a door and blocked the visual contact between them, literally for a couple of seconds.

During this time, one of the men carrying the door changed with the original "outsider." And the “local” was face to face with another person who, as if nothing had happened, continued their conversation.

Only seven of the fifteen have noticed a substitution.

But why? After all, we are confident that if something changes, we will automatically notice it.

The human eye has a high resolution only at an angle of 2 degrees, if you stretch your hand in front of you and put your thumb, it will be about 2 degrees. That's how many pictures we see absolutely clearly and accurately notice everything.

The first impression and the role of regret

The power of the first impression, both true and false, is known. Turn to student practice.

Three out of four students believe that when testing it is better to stick to the original answer, and not to change it. Although over 70 years of research of students' test results unequivocally indicate that when testing more often the answers change, just from the wrong to the right. That is, the change of the initial opinion often turns out to be true.

Most people are extremely surprised by the fact that this idea (the original opinion is necessarily the right one) may be wrong, ”says Justin Kruger, a professor at the Stern School of Business at New York University. - They are convinced that the rules are true: the first decision is correct. But, alas, there is practically no evidence to support this idea.

Justin Kruger and his colleagues analyzed the exam for more than one and a half thousand people. They found that students who changed the initial answers received a higher score. The number of replacements from the wrong to the right is more than two times higher than from the right to the wrong.

But this is not the most interesting. In the framework of these studies, another interesting feature was identified. Involving emotions of regret when making a decision.

After the exam, student surveys showed that the risk of changing the correct answer to the wrong one caused more regret than the prospect of leaving a mistake without changing the wrong answer to the correct one.
That is, there is not only confidence in the correctness of the first option.

People feel b ogreater responsibility for the actions than for inaction.
And they regret their inaction less than they do about the action, although in both cases they gave the wrong result.

A person considers inaction as passivity, I did not do anything, and since I did not do anything, I had less responsibility or no responsibility at all.

We are not able to accurately assess past events.

The perception and memorization of past events is influenced by how everything happened in reality.

An experiment by Baruch Fishhoff, a professor at Carneggy Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

In 1972, Richard Nixon made two historical trips to China and the Soviet Union. Before that, Fishhoff asked a group of Israeli students to assess the likelihood of specific events. For example, "What is the probability that Nixon will meet with Mao?" Or "What is the probability that Nixon will visit Lenin's mausoleum?".

After Nixon returned from trips, Fishhoff interviewed the same students again. He asked to remember his predictions, and also asked if the predicted events actually happened.

The results showed that after a long time, people did not remember their initial predictions too much. However, if a person predicted an event, and it actually happened, then he exaggerated the estimate of the degree of probability of his prediction. For example, if his forecast was a probability of 30% and an event happened, then he remembered it as a forecast of a probability of 50%. Conversely, understated if the event did not happen.

Almost all participants in the experiment recalled their prognosis as more far-sighted than it actually was.

I hope it was interesting, if I read it again, I will find more interesting ones.
Read on MyBook.
Also, I apologize for reading yesterday that I posted it with errors in the text, without due reading before publication.

The book "Why we are wrong. Pitfalls of thinking in action. ” Excerpts part 2.