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
Our bias is to always add more
‘Google Effect’
Sunk Cost Fallacy: The most common way in which people plan vacations is to decide where and when they want to travel, and only later do they consider the fares. (More on the fallacy of this approach and a superior strategy in Chapter 3.) Once we’ve mentally committed ourselves to a specific trip, not going or going somewhere else doesn’t feel like
... See morePart of the problem is cognitive laziness. Some psychologists point out that we’re mental misers:10 we often prefer the ease of hanging on to old views over the difficulty of grappling with new ones.
The converse of the halo effect is the horns effect: All perceived negative qualities correlate. If Stalin is evil, then everything he says should be false. You wouldn’t want to agree with Stalin, would you?
halo effect vs horns effect
the negativity bias can keep us so blind to the positive that we may start to take it for granted or not catch it when it enters our lives.