Why You’re Biased About Being Biased(nautil.us)
nautil.us
Why You’re Biased About Being Biased
http://nautil.us/blog/why-youre-biased-about-being-biased
4 comments
> What is interesting is not only that _the majority of human beings act within certain patterns_, but that _some individuals are able to overcome these patters_. What makes it so? Do they have something in common? Can we learn anything from them?
My impression from reading some of Keith Stanovich's work (http://www.keithstanovich.com/Site/Research_on_Reasoning.htm... - Sorry, not my area, so I'm not so well-/widely-read) is that this isn't really a correct explanation for what's going on. My understanding is that everyone (absent some kind of brain damage) is capable of rational thought that is done separately from all these heuristics and biases, but that rational thought is an expensive, hard process requiring focus and effort, and most people would naturally and intuitively try to avoid it. So the result of the heuristics and biases studies is like an enumeration of these biases - a description of how thinking processes commonly fail in predictable ways when not being overridden by more careful rational thought.
> But they seem to paint a very dim perspective on humanity.
Yes, it's depressing, but on the bright side much of this is from not trying to think very hard. If you explicitly instruct people to pay attention and reason carefully, many of the biases disappear. To the extent that the heuristics and biases literature describes the less-conscious thinking processes, I think the most reasonable interpretation is that humanity really is just that dim.
> yet very little seems to be written about them.
People seem to have different thresholds for overriding their intuitive thinking processes with a more rational, algorithmic, reflective process. But that may well be innate to them, some people are more rationally-oriented than others. I'm not too sure what there is "to learn from them".
To be honest, I find the myside bias and cultural cognition, which intrude on deliberate rational thought, interfering with it, much more depressing than any of the heuristics that can be overridden just by careful thinking.
My impression from reading some of Keith Stanovich's work (http://www.keithstanovich.com/Site/Research_on_Reasoning.htm... - Sorry, not my area, so I'm not so well-/widely-read) is that this isn't really a correct explanation for what's going on. My understanding is that everyone (absent some kind of brain damage) is capable of rational thought that is done separately from all these heuristics and biases, but that rational thought is an expensive, hard process requiring focus and effort, and most people would naturally and intuitively try to avoid it. So the result of the heuristics and biases studies is like an enumeration of these biases - a description of how thinking processes commonly fail in predictable ways when not being overridden by more careful rational thought.
> But they seem to paint a very dim perspective on humanity.
Yes, it's depressing, but on the bright side much of this is from not trying to think very hard. If you explicitly instruct people to pay attention and reason carefully, many of the biases disappear. To the extent that the heuristics and biases literature describes the less-conscious thinking processes, I think the most reasonable interpretation is that humanity really is just that dim.
> yet very little seems to be written about them.
People seem to have different thresholds for overriding their intuitive thinking processes with a more rational, algorithmic, reflective process. But that may well be innate to them, some people are more rationally-oriented than others. I'm not too sure what there is "to learn from them".
To be honest, I find the myside bias and cultural cognition, which intrude on deliberate rational thought, interfering with it, much more depressing than any of the heuristics that can be overridden just by careful thinking.
Beware that merely knowing about biases isn't enough to correct them, and yet it may be enough to be overconfident in one's ability to avoid them. As you say, it's easy to not think about things very carefully as it takes less effort.
> People seem to have different thresholds for overriding their intuitive thinking processes with a more rational, algorithmic, reflective process. But that may well be innate to them, some people are more rationally-oriented than others. I'm not too sure what there is "to learn from them".
It may even be that the people doing the extra analysis are the irrational ones. The time required to get the right answer can cost more than the value of the right answer: https://xkcd.com/1445/
It may even be that the people doing the extra analysis are the irrational ones. The time required to get the right answer can cost more than the value of the right answer: https://xkcd.com/1445/
"Evolution wants you to be as stupid as you can get away with" - I don't remember who, but I read it somewhere.
You're ascribing intentionality. Biases are measured on populations, from that we infer things about individuals. But the bias we measure itself is about populations. There need not be any overcoming or superiority going on. The very same individual over many observations may exhibit the 'right' or 'unbiased' behavior some of the time and the 'wrong' or 'biased' behavior at other times.
There is a study that was published that showed that young children who are taught that stories from the bible are veridical have less capacity to tell truth from fiction from other young children. That does not mean they have no capacity, but impaired capacity.
Our current societies are based on unquestionable truths and not entirely coherent constructs. It may be that biases are a way for a brain to cope with the manifold contradictions of our lives. Stressed brains take shortcuts.
There is a study that was published that showed that young children who are taught that stories from the bible are veridical have less capacity to tell truth from fiction from other young children. That does not mean they have no capacity, but impaired capacity.
Our current societies are based on unquestionable truths and not entirely coherent constructs. It may be that biases are a way for a brain to cope with the manifold contradictions of our lives. Stressed brains take shortcuts.
If any one is interested in learning about biases further, I strongly recommend Daniel Kahneman's "Thinking, Fast and Slow". It changed the way I view the world in a lot of ways, and made me a lot more skeptical about my beliefs and intuitions than I already was, which I think is healthy.
http://youarenotsosmart.com/ ,book and podcast, is also pretty great
Ugh, off-topic rant: those podcasts seem really interesting, i with that they would make transcripts available!
What about this kind of bias: every experimental result can be attributed to some kind of bias. And bias is a hot topic, especially given the ascendence of progressive politics in academia and beyond. So there is a strong motivation for experimenters to explain any experimental result in terms of bias, rather than other reasons.
You seem quite biased about the bias toward bias.
Why do I seem biased to you? I don't think it's useful to conflate bias and having a strong opinion, even if strong opinions often result from bias.
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What is interesting is not only that _the majority of human beings act within certain patterns_, but that _some individuals are able to overcome these patters_. What makes it so? Do they have something in common? Can we learn anything from them?
I don't want to nitpick the experiments themselves, it is wonderful that science is being done and that these biases are pointed out. But they seem to paint a very dim perspective on humanity. If I recall correctly around 30% of the participants in the Milgram experiment refused the instructions to shock the actor to the maximum voltage, yet very little seems to be written about them.