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

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

In data analysis, survival bias is taking the known into account while neglecting the unknown (which nevertheless exists).

Roman Zykov • Roman's Data Science: How to monetize your data

survivorship bias

Both the physical and the electronic isolation from people we disagree with allow the forces of confirmation bias, groupthink, and tribalism to push us still further apart

Jonathan Haidt • The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure

Our bias is to always add more. More rules, more procedures, more code, more features, more stuff. Interdependencies proliferate, and gradually strangle us. Systems want to grow and grow, but without pruning, they collapse. Slowly, then spectacularly.

When a piece of trash drifts across the beach, it is our duty to pick it up so the next person can... See more

stephango.com • What Can We Remove?

Our bias is to always add more

Best practices are rarely the best — they're mostly just cargo cult common practices.

And as more people adopt them, the more mediocre they become.

The best is usually what most people aren't willing to do.

Jason Fried • Tweet

cargo cult

“Hope clouds observation.”

― Frank Herbert, Dune

Dune Quotes by Frank Herbert

Closure or need for closure ( NFC ), used interchangeably with need for cognitive closure ( NFCC ), are social psychological terms that describe an individual's desire for a clear, firm answer or peaceful resolution to a question or problem to avert ambiguity.[1]

Arie Kruglanski • Closure (psychology)

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)

One of the most concerning notions for science communicators, fact-checkers, and advocates of truth, is the backfire effect; this is when a correction leads to an individual increasing their belief in the very misconception the correction is aiming to rectify. There is currently a debate in the literature as to whether backfire effects exist at... See more

Searching for the Backfire Effect: Measurement and Design Considerations

backfire effect