mind traps

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.

Poker players call this tendency to confuse the quality of a decision with the quality of its outcome resulting, and it’s a dangerous tendency. A bad decision can lead to a good outcome, after all, and good decisions can lead to bad outcomes. No one who’s driven home drunk has woken up the next day and seen it as a good decision just because they

The problem with armchair quarterback syndrome is that it stands in the way of rethinking. If we’re certain that we know something, we have no reason to look for gaps and flaws in our knowledge—let alone fill or correct them.

My favorite bias is the “I’m not biased”25 bias, in which people believe they’re more objective than others. It turns out that smart people are more likely to fall into this trap.26

Earlier I discussed the bewildering variety of priming effects, in which your thoughts and behavior may be influenced by stimuli to which you pay no attention at all, and even by stimuli of which you are completely unaware. The main moral of priming research is that our thoughts and our behavior are influenced, much more than we know or want, by