mind traps

“In driver’s training we were taught to identify our visual blind spots and eliminate them with the help of mirrors and sensors. In life (...) we need to learn to recognize our cognitive blind spots and revise our thinking accordingly”

from Think Again by Adam Grant

baja

The term “cognitive biases” is arguably misleading in that it suggests that believing truth would be a kind of default. Arguably, it’s amazing that we manage to believe the truth at all. If you want your beliefs to be accurate, you’re constantly swimming against your own biology and instincts.Broadly speaking, I think we can identify three reasons... See more

dynomight • Effectiveness beats accuracy

If you want your beliefs to be accurate, you’re constantly swimming against your own biology and instincts.

The sequence in which we observe characteristics of a person is often determined by chance. Sequence matters, however, because the halo effect increases the weight of first impressions, sometimes to the point that subsequent information is mostly wasted.

Daniel Kahneman • Thinking, Fast and Slow

halo effect

Rumination is the focused attention on the symptoms of one's mental distress. In 1998, Nolen-Hoeksema proposed the Response Styles Theory .[1][2], which is the most widely used conceptualization model of rumination. However, other theories, have proposed different definitions for rumination. For example, in the Goal Progress Theory , rumination is... See more

Susan Nolen-Hoeksema • Rumination (psychology)

The faster you’re moving the more you’re in fear. The more you’re in fear, the more you’re thinking about yourself. The more you’re thinking about yourself, the less compassion and kindness you have for others.

from this Reel.

and that is why urgency/speed and fear are so great mind control tools, they reduce our cognition to “survival mode” program and nothing more

But just as there are reasons why these design patterns won out, we shouldn't let survivor bias blind us to their inherent tradeoffs. The next wave of social startups should learn from the weaknesses of some of these choices of our current social incumbents

Eugene Wei • And You Will Know Us by the Company We Keep

survivorship bias

The implication of these studies is that this so-called “selective exposure bias” may be pushing us into more polarised positions.

This cognitive bias can push people into more extreme ideological positions | BPS

Hindsight bias is the tendency, after an outcome is known, to see the outcome as having been inevitable. When we say, “I should have known that would happen,” or, “I should have seen it coming,” we are succumbing to hindsight bias.

Annie Duke • Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don't Have All the Facts

hindsight bias

How to free yourself from "hindsight bias”

Josh Kaufman bigthink.com

The fundamental problem with an information cascade is that after a certain point it becomes rational for people to stop paying attention to their own knowledge—their private information—and to start looking instead at the actions of others and imitate them. (If everyone has the same likelihood of making the right choice, and everyone before you