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

When we dedicate ourselves to a plan and it isn’t going as we hoped, our first instinct isn’t usually to rethink it. Instead, we tend to double down and sink more resources in the plan. This pattern is called escalation of commitment.6 Evidence shows that entrepreneurs persist with failing strategies when they should pivot,7

Adam Grant • Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

escalation of commitment

Steel Man Technique. Put simply, it’s building the best form of the other side’s argument and then engaging with it. It’s being charitable and patching up the weaknesses in the other side’s proposition so that he can bring the best counter-argument to your point of view.

It’s a simple idea, but incredibly difficult in practice. Most of the time... See more

Louis Chew • The Steel Man Technique: How To Argue Better And Be More Persuasive

Steel Man technique and why it is hard to apply

All people are flawed, a mix of good and bad, but we tend to see others as only one thing. The philosopher Amartya Sen calls this a “solitarist” approach to identity. And as we are biased toward negativity — a bad apple spoils the bunch — we are thrown off by a person’s bad character traits or past actions. Even minor ones. We identify people by... See more

Tim Gorichanaz • Finding Heroes In A Messy Digital World | NOEMA

We identify people by the worst thing they’ve ever done.

The trouble with error is that we have a natural tendency to dismiss it. When Kevin Dunbar analyzed the data from his in vivo studies of microbiology labs, one of his most remarkable findings was just how many experiments produced results that were genuinely unexpected. More than half of the data collected by the researchers deviated significantly

Steven Johnson • Where Good Ideas Come From

“The trouble with error is that we have a natural tendency to dismiss it.”

That sort of error is called “statistical bias.” When your method of learning about the world is biased, learning more may not help. Acquiring more data can even consistently worsen a biased prediction.

Eliezer Yudkowsky • Rationality

I sense there is a shift happening where people are realizing that they are channeling an ambitious impulse - the desire to grow and evolve - into dumb goals. Rejecting legible ambitious might be the most ambitious thing you can do.

A shift from legible ambition (my parents can easily brag about me) to illegible ambition (no one, including me

Paul Millerd • Losing Yourself, Ambition, Writing, 40k Books, Surrender | #247

Even though it isn’t necessarily true, people equate having choices with having control.

Susan Weinschenk • 100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People

I am giving you a choice (this or that) so don’t complain, you have control

But thanks to Zeigarnik’s follow-up research, we also know that we don’t actually have to finish tasks to convince our brains to stop thinking about them. All we have to do is to write them down in a way that convinces us that it will be taken

Sönke Ahrens • How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking

Zeigarnik effect

While the Zeigarnik effect highlighted the tension and memorability of unfinished tasks, Ovsiankina's research delved deeper into the subsequent behaviors this tension fostered. Specifically, her studies demonstrated that when individuals were interrupted during a task and later given free time, they displayed a strong inclination to return to and... See more

Maria Ovsiankina • Ovsiankina effect

Zeigarnik effect vs Ovsiankina effect