Tag: cognitive bias

PERCEPTION IS NOT REALITY!

Perception is Reality is one of the most misleading, and potentially damaging, pop psychology myths.

The problem centers around the word “reality’. 

The definition of the word reality: something that is real or a fact.

So, there can’t be an individual reality, only a shared consensus about what is real. There can be individual versions of reality but that’s not reality, merely a version of it. And if everyone had their own versions of reality, then there can be no reality.

The problem with the notion of Perception is Reality is that it encourages people to think that their perceptions reflect reality, or should. This leads people into believing that whatever they think is real, and from there, to right. It encourages an egotism that is most damaging to the person, who eventually will  become angry, frustrated and depressed when others don’t share their “reality”.  Of course we all have our own perceptions, opinions, beliefs, etc.,  but we can’t have our own reality.

The fact is perception is perception, there’s no such thing as your “reality”. If something is just real to you, then it’s not real, just a perception.

This cognitive relativism is a damaging philosophy that seems more and more common.

From my book I Think Therefore I Am Wrong

“Similarly, there is cognitive relativism which also argues that there isn’t an overarching “truth” but that it, too, is constructed and relative to a variety of factors, like culture and even human understanding.

Protagoras, a famous philosopher who lived about 2500 years ago,  asserted that “man is the measure of all things — of things that are, that they are, and of things that are not, that they are not.” In other words, truth and knowledge are a function of human beings and human variables and don’t reflect any independent and objective reality.

Plato objected that this relativism eliminates the distinction between truth and falsehood; if each individual is really the “measure of what is”  then each person would be infallible.

An excellent article by Emrys Westacott, summarizes these debates about knowledge and reality. Professor Westacott is the author of many works including  The Wisdom of Frugality: Why Less Is More – More or Less.

(This was from an article on Cognitive Relativism that appeared in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
https://www.iep.utm.edu/cog-rel/)

Westacott writes:

“Plato argued that if Protagoras is right, then whatever a person thinks is true, is true. But in that case, Protagoras must concede that those who think relativism is false are correct. So, if Protagorean relativism is true, it must also be false.”

That Plato was one smart guy.”

The notion that perception is reality is a damaging myth and we need to stop perpetuating it.

Hilton Head Island Resident Heroically Prevents House Fire

Quick Thinking Prevents Disaster

There are many reasons to be grateful on Thanksgiving, but Hilton Head Island residents Howard and MJ Rankin have an extra reason this year. On Tuesday, Howard bravely dived into action to prevent a major disaster at their home.

“My wife has been telling me for  several years that our dryer vents needed cleaning, but I never really took it seriously. It was just an example of the Spouse Communication Bias, the tendency to undervalue what your spouse tells you. I didn’t think it was necessary,” says Rankin, who appropriately is the author of the recently acclaimed book I Think Therefore I Am Wrong and the podcast How Not To Think.

However, when someone at the Assisted Living facility where his mother-in-law lived told Rankin about the real danger, he listened. After doing some research he discovered that blocked dryer vents are one of the leading causes of house fires.

A piece on the Building Performance Institute says:

“According to the National Fire Protection Association, nearly 17,000 home clothes dryer fires are reported each year. These clothes dryer fires cause around 51 deaths, 380 injuries, and $236 million in property loss. Unsurprisingly, the leading cause of these fires, at 34%, is the failure to clean dryer vents.”

https://www.bpihomeowner.org/blog/things-you-should-know-dryer-vents-can-be-fire-hazard

On Tuesday, Howard jumped dramatically into action. He quickly picked up the phone early in the morning and called Advent, a multi-state vent cleaning company that has offices in the Low Country, and arranged for the vents to be cleaned.

After Advent had cleaned the dryer vent, the Rankins were shown the evidence of a massively blocked dryer vent that even included remnants of a bird’s nest.

“We were very lucky. If I hadn’t acted so fast, we were looking at real trouble,” says Rankin.

His wife MJ agrees. “It only took him seven years, but better late then never.”

A blockage in the dryer vent not only increases the risk of fire, but decreases the efficiency and life of your dryer.

‘The service was great and I’m sure we will regain the modest outlay back in extended dryer life and reduced energy bills,” says Rankin. “I’m just thankful I acted so quickly.”

For more information:

Advent Duct Cleaning LLC

Phone: (888) 280-8368

Email: [email protected]

Web: www.adventductcleaning.com

I Think Therefore I Am Wrong

Now available on Amazon for as little as a box of dryer sheets: Just $5.99!

The How Not To Think podcast is available on Itunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Google and Buzzsprout. Here’s the Apple link to the first episode on nutrition.     https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-not-to-think-about-nutrition/id1488982079?i=1000457600082

Washington Post SuperBowl Ad Misses the Crucial Point

One of the most impressive Superbowl ads was the Washington Post commercial stressing the need for truth and honesty as vital to democracy and a civilized society.  The implication was that their reporting fitted these requirements and thus were serving a greater purpose. The Washington Post could be the most honest, truthful publication in the world but that’s not the point. The bigger problem is that increasingly the world is not interested in the objective truth, merely their own individual truth, i.e. opinions.

Writing in the May 2014 edition of The Atlantic Emma Green reviewing research on the holocaust said,  “Only a third of the world’s population believe the genocide has been accurately described in historical accounts. Some said they thought the number of people who died has been exaggerated; others said they believe it’s a myth.”

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/05/the-world-is-full-of-holocaust-deniers/370870/ )

TV news shows are full of so-called experts pushing their agenda without any regard or reference to meaningful data. The world has become increasingly egotistical and self-centered with scant regard to the evidence let alone truth.

Some of this disaster can be blamed at the feet of marketing. Ever since Freud’s nephew Edward Bernays realized that new insights into the psyche could be used to manipulate people, Marketing and Public Relations have created communication based on manipulation often in defiance of the facts.  (For more, please watch the BBC’s 2002 documentary The Century of the Self). And that pattern of communication has filtered down through the culture, so that people believe communication is about influence and getting what you want. The rise in the recognition of the need for authenticity, says a lot about how inauthentic much communication is.

If Bernays hijacked contemporary psychological theory to manipulate perhaps it’s time for us to do the same: to emphasize that contemporary neuroscience shows human beings not to be rational, but driven by cognitive bias and emotional comfort. With the advent of technology, cognitive bias has been amplified by curating content that gives people what they want to read rather than access to diverse views and  data. Through social proof it allows people to reaffirm their beliefs and ideas rather than question them.

Facts and truth have been washed away in a  sea of sensationalism, designed to get your attention, excite you and, if possible, capture your personal information.

This culture is neither healthy to us as individuals nor collectively as a nation.

The disinterest and denial of data and facts, leads to extremism, hate and conflict.  When we ignore our  ability to consider, and accept  facts as well as produce  and access valuable data, we’re definitely traveling  the wrong way down the evolutionary trail. Getting to the truth is one thing, getting others to believe it is quite another.

Cognitive Bias and Journalism

Human beings aren’t rational. As if we didn’t really know that already, the recent cognitive neuroscience research shows that we are story-tellers driven by emotional comfort not truth seekers. That surely has always been the case, but what seems dangerously different in the digital era is that for some, rationality and truth don’t even matter. And because for the most part we are not rational doesn’t mean that reason and truth should be sacrificed on the altars of narcissism and opinion.

Ever since the understanding of the mind and human behavior gained pace in the twentieth century, it has been used to manipulate and influence, a movement which was well documented in the BBC documentary, the Century of the Self (still available on Youtube) which showed how Freud’s nephew, Edward Bernays made a fortune out of turning the notions of the mind in to ‘Public Relations’ and ‘Propaganda.’

A communication, specifically one designed to inform or influence, can be simply be reduced to these elements

Evidence are facts derived by independent enquiry and qualified by the factors that influence them.

Beliefs and opinions. These are not facts. They are personal and can’t be proven, and only have relevance to the person who has them and the people who share them.

Emotions, like being offended, are neither evidence nor an argument.

Writing a news story is problematic if you want it to be even-handed. Even if there’s an appeal to some evidence there are key questions: What is the context? How are you approaching the gathering of evidence? Are you just selecting your stories to conform to your own biases, whether you know them or not?

Even the most objective writer, especially on a short deadline, can’t possibly cover every angle or perspective, even on a long deadline.

You can slant a communication any way you want. And, as we have become more aware of how the mind works, that is what we all do. (see Advertizing).

Some , like the Skeptics, argued that the search for truth is an infinite regress, that the more you dig the more you have to explore. Others like the Stoics, argue that at some point one has enough evidence so that the facts have some practical usefulness.

So, how do we deal with this human imperfection?

Well, surely the answer is not to exaggerate the problem by not engaging in reasoned discourse.

Dismissing everything as fake news with an emotional response is actually worse than the fake news you’re complaining about it.

The answer is to provide an alternative view based on evidence, not belief, emotional convenience, or opinion. However, this is not how inconvenient news is handled. Rather, it is typically blasted with reality show emotionalism.

In fact, for me, an emotional response without an appeal to further evidence is the last resort for someone with a bankrupt argument. Their only defense is no defense – just an outburst designed to deflect, or even better abort, the discussion. It’s like hatefully marching against hate.

At one point, language was a key to evolution. Now, it might turn out to be the reason for our devolution.

BBC 10,000 Steps Headline Is Misleading, Disappointing and Potentially Dangerous

I

In a January 31st BBC health story, Dr. Mark Mosley wrote, “Forget about 10,000 steps.” It’s unclear who actually said that. Was it Professor Rob Copeland from Sheffield Hallam University whom Mosley visited while Copeland conducted a “study” on four people? In any event, the gist of the story was that doing more vigorous activity for 10 minutes, three times a day was a better way to improve fitness than doing 10000 steps.

Culture and society are sinking into a binary brain morass. Everywhere you look, there is a dangerous and idiotic trend of seeing everything as an either/or proposition even where common sense let alone logic dictates otherwise. This is especially true of the media, who need to sensationalize everything to attract more eyeballs, and more sales. It’s one of the reasons I typically turn to the BBC for my news. As one who grew up in England I might be biased, but I am usually more trusting of the BBC than any other news source.

This story is a microcosm of the downgrading of critical thinking and serious analysis that is crippling society. Someone suggests, that doing more vigorous activity is better for your health. Duh! That’s a real surprise. It might have an advantage over 10000 steps for developing cardiovascular fitness BUT THAT DOESN’T MEAN THAT TRYING TO ACHIEVE 10000 STEPS IN A DAY SHOULD BE SCRAPPED. There are still advantages to reaching that level of activity, especially as so many people lead very sedentary lifestyles. However, here we have a headline that tells people to “forget” about doing a healthy activity, which surely has no ill-effects. Now, there will be many who will see this story, or even just the headline, and believe that the 10000 steps idea has been discredited and is no longer a useful goal. I mean who has got time for some critical thinking? And the advice came from…well, it’s unclear but Dr. Mosely seemed to support the idea.

Perhaps the defense to this is something like, “I couldn’t get that complexity into a few hundred words.” I say it’s better to try than give some misleading and potentially dangerous advice. As a writer, I could easily see how you could construct a more helpful and TRUTHFUL story. The headline could read, “How Helpful is the 10000 Steps Goal?” Such a story would allow some discussion of the value of including more vigorous activity in the 10000 steps, and the advantages and limitations of the advice.

For me, wisdom is about escaping the restrictions of binary brain thinking and recognizing the full context as well as acknowledging what you don’t know. For example, how many people, like me, consciously or otherwise, use their 10000 step goal to actually get some vigorous activity into their day? Even if 3  ten minute bursts of vigorous activity are better than 10000 steps a day for building cardiovascular fitness it doesn’t mean that 10000 steps should be “forgotten.”

As you can tell, I was disappointed by the headline and the story. Does BBC now stand for Binary Brain Cognition?

A Hurricane, a Dog, and the Secret of Wisdom

There were many sad photos last week at the height of Hurricane Harvey’s Texas destruction. One, particularly, stood out for me. It was a photo of a German Shepherd, all alone, tied to a pole, in the midst of rising waters.

The social media response to the photo was damning. Many people condemned the owners for leaving a dog in such a vulnerable position. Several suggested eternal damnation for the people who abandoned this animal. Many people posted that they couldn’t comprehend leaving their animals at all, let alone left so vulnerably. The invective and hate were running full throttle. And there’s the problem with human beings.

The photo definitely evoked emotions, and people ran with the thoughts those emotions evoked without seemingly any attempt to consider the universe of possibilities. They accepted their first — and only — perception and the emotion that the photo elicited. Here are several thoughts that would have been useful.

I wonder whether that is a staged photo?

Is this dog lost or was it abandoned?

Perhaps the owners left it there briefly to rescue their other dogs and the cat?

Perhaps the owners are out of shot, hailing a rescue boat?

Etc., etc.

Moreover, even if the dog had been abandoned, what were the circumstances?

Perhaps the owner was searching for his lost children? Or searching for his/her parents, spouse and other three animals?

It is also likely that whomever this dog belonged to, was in a severe state of stress, possibly having seen their home, lifestyle and future totally destroyed. I have had to evacuate from oncoming hurricanes. I have always taken my pets and couldn’t imagine leaving them behind, and many don’t evacuate for precisely that reason. Last year, Hurricane Matthew actually hit my community but despite a lot of damage, it was nothing like Harvey. However, let’s cut some slack to people whose lives has just been brutally turned upside down and truly are in survival mode. This doesn’t condone cruelty and the abandonment of animals, but neither should it justify the cruelty and abandonment of people.

The point is that the hurricane that is in this picture, isn’t a tropical cyclone, it is the seemingly increasing human incapacity to think beyond what is at the surface, what I call “iceberg thinking.” At a time in our evolution, when people have mastered the art of emotional manipulation (see Advertizing), we need our capacity to be discerning more than ever. We need to realize that the default setting of the brain is indeed a quick, impulsive, emotional response, which drives the narrative. But we have to move on from there, because that is the road not just to fake news, but hate and the end of objectivity, intelligence and wisdom.

Three of the hardest words to utter are simple: “I don’t know.” I have seen thousands of affirmations designed to improve self-confidence and remove fear but for me, before all that, we should start with this one.

“I really don’t know what is going on. I can imagine dozens of scenarios, but without more information I don’t know. And when I don’t know, I am in no position to judge.”

That is the thought process of the wise person.

PS: When I saw this photo, Leaha Mattinson and I had just finished recording a Master Your Life episode on the Secret of Wisdom, which begins airing tomorrow, Tuesday September 5th at noon ET on VoiceAmerica radio.

https://www.voiceamerica.com/episode/102147/they-secret-of-wisdom

Charlie Gard, the Binary Brain, and the Assumptions of Medicine

The dramatic case of the British baby, Charlie Gard, diagnosed with a “terminal illness,” illustrates the challenges we all face in our perceptions, thoughts, and even the use of our language, let alone our moral decisions. In a legal battle, doctors at Great Ormond Street Hospital argue that Charlie will die because of his condition and are urging the court to euthanize the baby. His parents, Chris Gard and Connie Yates, have raised money in hope of bringing their son to the US for an experimental treatment. Donald Trump even welcomed them, offering an opportunity in the U.S. to get the medical assistance that could help.

Charlie’s brain has apparently been compromised by his condition, but in a completely different way, all of us are compromised in our thinking.

Recent work in how we think shows that the brain inevitably reduces complexity to simple binary alternatives. It is very hard, if not impossible, for us to hold all the complex variables of a real life problem in mind, even if we knew them all, which we certainly don’t. A metaphor I use in my upcoming book I Think Therefore I Am Wrong is that we can cope with watching a football (or any other sporting event) that has two teams playing against each other. But life doesn’t really fit that comfortable binary perception. To get to grips with reality would be like watching ten teams playing against each other simultaneously and realizing that there were at least another ten teams on the field that we couldn’t even see. That seems to be beyond our current mental capacities, so we settle for a reduced, binary simplicity.

One problem with the binary brain is that it treats facts as if they were 100% certainties when for the most part they are probabilities. So, we tell people that they have a “terminal illness” which implies it is inevitably going to kill them, when in fact, we are talking about probabilities. And the words we use absolutely influence the way we perceive and interpret the information we are given. Words resonate in different parts of the brain and influence our emotions and thinking, as any good public speaker will tell you. And when “the facts” are delivered by experts, they become even more “true,” simply because of the implied authority of the speaker.

Moreover, the medical probabilities that are presented by doctors are not based on today’s data; they are based on yesterday’s data because it takes a while for the data and the assumptions about it to penetrate professional consciousness and practice. And given the rapid pace of change, the probabilities are ever changing. Who knows what treatments might be available in 2, 5, or even 10 years from now? In medicine, today’s wisdom can be tomorrow’s malpractice.

I have been fortunate enough to see several people defy the probabilities of today’s medical diagnoses. In my book Inspired to Lose, there is the story of a woman, diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, whose faith and resilience defied the odds and she has gone on to run marathons in every state and Canadian province. A neighbor of mine refused to accept the medical view that some discomfort she was experiencing was 99% benign, sought out the most sophisticated testing, and found that she had the beginnings of pancreatic cancer. She has been in remission for five years.

The soon-to-be-released In God’s Waiting Room, written with Barbara Morello-O’Donnell, recounts her miraculous recovery from the H1N1 virus, in which she emerged from a coma, not with a failing heart that needed transplanting as had been diagnosed from sophisticated medical imaging, but the heart of a 20 year-old, as was predicted in one of her amazing coma dreams.

Man has achieved some amazing things but it is easy to overestimate our capabilities and forget that the brain, while incredible, is still very limited. Just because science is based on data, doesn’t make it immune from these natural human limitations. We need to realize that even in science, we know very little and what we “know” now will inevitably change, probably sooner rather later.

With these limitations in mind, it is surely unethical to prevent the exploration of all treatment possibilities for anyone, especially a baby. No one is certain of the course of Charlie’s condition. While it is often fatal in infants, some have apparently lived into childhood and beyond. Of course, other variables, such as pain, need to be considered but are just one part of the complex matrix of an unseen reality.

The fact is that humility has not been a hallmark of the human race. An expert is someone who knows more than the average person, but they don’t know everything, or all the possibilities. It’s time for more humility and the recognition of our limitations. Wisdom comes from knowing what you don’t know.

Homo needs to get more sapiens.

And Charlie Gard needs to be given every chance at life.

 

 

 

5 Reasons I Hate Listicles Part Two: Was I wrong about #1?

 

 In a recent post I gave five reasons why I don’t like listicles. The first reason was that just getting attention could be counter-productive. “I would rather write a piece that had 50,000 views and 50% of readers liked it, than a piece that had a million views but only 1% liked it,” I wrote in the piece.

Several people contacted me to tell me that the more views, the more revenue. If we know that we can get a 1% conversion rate, it stands to reason that the more overall views generated, the more people that 1% audience response represents. So, more eyeballs means more profit.Or does it?

However, there is a flaw in that argument. It only focuses on the 1% who respond. What about the 99% who don’t? If the assumption that the other 99% don’t care is actually true, that’s one thing, but suppose 3% get really angry and frustrated at being led to click on a silly article that promises more than it can possibly deliver? Then getting a huge response, might actually turn out to be a negative.

What drives a behavioral response is the emotional response. Now, I will agree this could be more of a problem with some clickbait rather than a listicle. For example, if the headline bait mentions a celebrity but then the story has nothing to do with him or her, readers are likely to feel cheated and angry. For example, the lead might have a photo of Colin Kaepernick but the story has nothing to do with him but is about a steroid cream that turned Humpty Dumpty into the Jolly Green Giant. If you’re going to use a celebrity at least make the piece relevant and authentic. For example, check out my latest blog, First Down and Ten Commandments: What GOD thinks about the NFL.

 My point is that there are assumptions made about audience response that don’t include annoying, and thus negatively influencing, the vast percentage of the people that view the piece. Frustration and anger, I suspect, are common responses to intrusive ads.

Let’s take a common scenario — you’re on a roll trying to make it into the top hundred of the rankings of a Slots game, e.g. Double Diamond. You’re currently ranked 159,344 so there’s a long way to go. Suddenly, you are interrupted by an ad for another slots game, which you’re never going to get because you have already invested several months of your life trying to move up the rankings of the current game. The pop up ad is a distraction, activating the brain’s Default Mode Network and stimulating the Limbic System. As a result, you shout an expletive and decide you’re never, ever going to buy a game from that company.

Of course, the world is full of examples of people who reneged on their promise to never, ever do X again, so perhaps a temporary emotional outburst is irrelevant.

However, in a SproutSocial survey1 58 per cent felt of respondents said they felt annoyed by brands posting too many promotions on their social media accounts, 46 per cent said they are likely to unfollow brands if they post too many promotions and 41 per cent said they would unlike or unfollow a brand on social media if they do not post relevant content.

However, the argument from any company might be, “We’re not trying to sell to everybody, 1% will be just fine, thank you. We don’t care what the other 99% think of us.”

I guess it depends on how much the other 99%, especially the 41% of temporarily annoyed users, might influence “brand perception.”

Any thoughts?

  1. Referenced at http://engagecustomer.com/brands-alienating-consumers-social-media-blunders/

Communication, Conformity and Memory

The binary brain and the misrepresentation of psychological research

The brain likes simplicity, or at least most of us aren’t prepared to do the hard work of critical thinking, research and analysis that is possible with a human brain. It’s a whole lot easier to rely on first impressions, simplistic perceptions, unreliable memories of both yourself and others. They can fuel a narrative that is emotionally comfortable and even psychologically satisfying. This happens in every area of life. As a result misinformation abounds. This is particularly troubling when “research” is hijacked, creating urban legends about everything from physiological processes to human behavior.

For example, you may have heard that 93% of all communication is non-verbal. While intuitively we might assume that such factors as gestures and tone shape our perception of a communication, most of us had no idea that almost all of communication is non-verbal.

It isn’t.

The statistic comes from work conducted by Albert Mehrabian. In this research, a person spoke just one word and subjects had to judge his communication. Hardly surprisingly, most people took their cues from tone or body language because let’s face it, there’s not much communication value in one word. So when a person just utters one word, most of the perception about the communication is non-verbal. Duh! The research, however, has been taken completely out of context and the findings generalized to all communication — which typically involves a whole lot more than one word. So 93% of all communication is not non-verbal, unless you’re using sign language, and even then you could argue that there is some serious verbal processing occurring in the “listener.”

Another area of confusion comes from Solomon Asch’s work on conformity. In his research, subjects were effectively asked to match one of three lines with another. The matching line wasn’t difficult to determine at all. The wrinkle in this experiment, or the part of it that’s quoted the most, involved fake subjects who chose the obviously wrong line. The real subjects, who didn’t know it was a set-up, made their judgments after hearing the other fake subjects give the wrong answer. Would they be influenced by listening to other people’s obviously wrong choices? Would they feel pressure to conform? YES! Everyone was swayed and gave the wrong answer showing the enormous power of conformity. Well, that’s not quite true. Actually, a majority of people weren’t swayed at all. 36% of people seemed to have been influenced, or at the very least gave the wrong answer. It’s a significant number but our simplistic binary brains hear this study and perceives and remembers it as convincing proof that most people are influenced to conform and that’s not what the study’s data show. One could certainly imagine some situations where there was a greater pressure to conform and more people would go along with the narrative they were presented with, but that’s not what this particular study shows.

How about a statistic from a memory experiment? Elizabeth Loftus has done a lot of research into memory, showing that it can be an unreliable and dynamic process influenced by many factors. In one study she attempted to implant a false childhood memory of being lost in a mall into her subjects. That she succeeded is noteworthy and made headlines. However, the vast majority of subjects — 75% to be precise — didn’t accept the memory. Loftus herself talks about the “fiction of memory.” However, what we are witnessing is the binary brain once again rising is two-sided head. While Loftus and others have shown that memories can be implanted, it doesn’t mean that all memory is a fiction and that all memories are false. Memory is a reconstruction and subject to bias and distortion, which can lead to inaccuracies.

I could write a thick book using such examples but hopefully you get my point. We like to see the world as black and white certainties rather than flexible probabilities and categorize our experiences as well as our ideas and beliefs accordingly. That’s one reason why knowing how to think critically and having the discipline and mindfulness to do it maybe the most important life skills to develop.