Biases

In this week’s episode, Justin and Mark explore cognitive biases – the shortcuts our brains take that shape our thinking. While covering a handful of types and categories of biases listed on Wikipedia, they note that they are not necessarily good or bad — but it’s important to recognize the role they play so we can improve our decisions and have more balanced perspectives. We encourage you to explore cognitive biases further as it can provide insight into how you think.

Show Notes:

Transcript

I’m turning it up just a little bit in my ears.

I hear you.

Yep.

I think that’s good.

I’m good.

Oh, that’s a lot.

Look at you.

This is the crowd welcoming Mark back.

Welcome back Mark.

Hey, it’s good to be back Justin.

Not that anyone knows you were gone.

Yeah.

They may be no because we know I released the encore episode.

~ ‘Cause we were busy, we couldn’t record that.

~ Maybe wouldn’t have known, but he is like, “Have we heard this before?

~ That’s right.

~ This sounds vaguely familiar.

Maybe it didn’t, maybe it was like, “Yeah, this is all new material.

” Sometimes when Chris and I will have that difference, it’s like, we’ve seen this show before, I’ll say it and say, “Oh, you know, ’cause yeah.

” – You say you haven’t or you say you have?

~ I say you have, and Chris will typically say, “No, I don’t think we’ve seen this before.

” It’s just, it’s kind of, she can read books multiple times too.

I have no use to read a book.

~ Yeah, two movies, I don’t know.

~ Yeah, or it has to be, I have to have forgotten most of it.

~ Or like a movie like Braveheart or Patriot.

You could watch that over again.

~ I think so, yeah.

~ But yeah, I can think of five movies that I watch again, but probably.

~ What are they?

~ Well, Braveheart, Patriot.

~ Yeah, gladiator.

~ Gladiator would be one, and then Guardian.

It was a one good movie that– – Of the galaxy?

~ Aston Cusher did.

(laughs) – Oh, where he’s a smell swimmer.

~ What’s a swimmer with the coast guard?

~ Yeah.

~ Yeah, I never saw that one.

~ Oh, that’s a little hokey, you know, depending on your terminology at the end, ’cause it’s like, you know, the guy lives on forever.

Water, but there’s a lot of good, you know, there’s a lot of good stuff.

So let’s say that would be top four.

I can’t necessarily think of what the fifth one would be.

Maverick, Top Gun Maverick could be, ’cause that could kind of complete my top five just because it was very straightforward, but yeah, action pack, but yet it wasn’t far right, far left, it was just this.

little fashioned romper.

~ Yeah, this, you know, it’s like, yeah, probably there’s a little bit of me that can appeal to that anti-government not followed with the rules.

~ Yeah.

~ No kidding.

Yes, no kidding.

But yeah, so that would be my top five.

~ Nice.

~ Yours?

~ I don’t, I don’t think I have a top five.

~ Really?

~ Although you mentioned Braveheart and Beatrice, and I mentioned Gladier, and those I definitely would watch again.

~ Yeah.

~ So yeah, me okay.

~ I mean, it’s definitely feels like cheating.

~ You can share my top five.

(laughing) – Never seen Guardians, I can’t speak to that.

And Maverick, I really enjoy it, but I don’t know that, put it in my top five.

~ I agree.

~ But maybe if I watched it again in five years, I’d be like, yeah, that definitely belongs in top five, but yeah, as of right now, maybe not.

~ And I would say the whole, you know, the way they tied the previous movie and the single movie together, you know, that kind of family systems type and the, you know, that definitely probably had some appeal to me.

~ Yeah, that makes sense in the realm.

~ In the rooster.

~ Yes, yes.

~ What was his dad’s name?

~ Goose.

~ Goose, yeah, of course.

~ Goose.

(laughing) – Rooster and Goose.

~ Yeah.

~ I was thinking this morning, you know what?

We could probably do a podcast on nicknames sometimes.

~ Oh yeah?

~ Yeah.

~ Do we do that one today instead?

~ Nah, we’ll stay with this one.

You got this one.

You got this one, Prab Tom, right?

~ Well, would you say that your preference in movies is somewhat biased?

~ Very much so.

~ Why?

~ Due to what?

~ Because I think they appeal to, like when I think of Braveheart, I think of freedom and what that costs.

~ You’ll never take that freedom.

~ Yeah, and just that, but I would even say, I would have a different bias or view, if you will, of what freedom looks like.

And I think that’s kind of what every movie or the difference between a movie’s appeal is, if it agrees, tends to agree with my personal bias, it becomes more favorable to you know, And that’s why probably so many other movies don’t necessarily appeal to me.

Yeah.

You know, in that whole scheme of things.

But so yeah, I would say my hour, I would say hour as people, but me personally, yeah, I would say my personal bias kind of ties into what makes something favorable.

Yeah.

Or an idea.

Yeah.

So there’s an interesting thing about bias that’s pretty common, I think, among people.

Right.

Sure.

Is that, I think we often believe that me personally of all the people.

Yes.

I am the least biased, right?

Sure.

That tends to be the bias that we have.

Exactly.

That I am the least biased.

I have the most, you know, collection of the most truth.

Yes.

access to it, right?

And so therefore my decisions are less biased.

My perception of my decisions are less biased than others.

And there’s something about that.

I think if we all think that, I guess probably one of us isn’t right.

And I think it’s kind of like.

It’s probably one that’s right.

It’s kind of like that aspect.

There’s three sides to every story.

Yeah.

Yours mind and the truth.

There is a truth of what happened, but yet we’re not going to know that.

In the context of interaction between two people, because your biases are going to help you hold on to certain dynamics or tenets of that interaction that you agreed with or lined with you.

I’m going to have a different viewpoint just because those tenets that were important to me are different.

and I believe that comes out of our bias.

And I think part of that is the ability to recognize that.

Or I think when we’re able to see that or acknowledge that as individuals, then I think it makes the conversation easier.

Because you’re able to speak to that bias that you can see in me and I can see in you.

~ Even better when I can speak to my own bias and vice versa.

Oh sure.

They’re not better, but also beneficial to be able to recognize and speak to it and address it.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

I think, um, yeah, the thing about biases is that everyone has them in a bias is simply a perspective, right?

I think are a leaning of perspective.

Sure.

A leaning that is that there’s probably a more scientific way to describe it.

Right.

There’s actual term called cognitive bias.

Sure.

And I’m actually staring at the Wikipedia page right now.

You know, this is a side thing, but yes, I could tell Wikipedia is pretty awesome.

Yeah.

I mean, as a whole, I feel like I hear I hear a bias.

I hear a bias.

Yeah.

Yes.

And I think I would understand based on who markets would that bias would be.

But just think about the fact that there’s this resource that’s available to anyone at any time.

That if I wanna learn about cognitive bias, I can just go on Wikipedia and read about it.

No, that information might be biased.

That would be in Mark’s bias.

~ Yes, it’s like I could go on Wikipedia right now, not literally, but figuratively speaking, an individual could and go and write on Wikipedia about cognitive bias and we’d be reading it as if it were factual.

~ Should we do that?

(laughing) We don’t have enough time to do that.

~ That’d be hilarious.

Maybe part two, we’ll go edit the cognitive bias page and kind of make up our own version and see how long it lasts.

~ It would be interesting to see what, not safeguards, but if you could just go in.

~ Yeah, I’m sure there’s a checkers moderators, yes, exactly.

And as far as I know, that’s good and bad too.

Right.

Because they have a bias as well.

Kind of goes on, right?

Yeah.

But all that being said, yeah, I think it’s pretty cool.

I would give you that.

It is a I don’t own a set of encyclopedias anymore.

And if I did, they’d be out of date because that’s the nature of encyclopedias, especially in today’s insane, lean, insane moving pace.

I can honestly say it was about six months ago.

I got rid of a copy of Encyclopedias, a set.

What was the year?

I want to say it was late ’60s, early ’70s type thing.

It was a family, actually, a great experience set.

Gotcha.

But yeah.

It’d be interesting to– like we have time– but to review it and see where we got things wrong.

where your editor’s got things wrong because you know bias.

Yeah.

So bias, I see it as, and of course, of course I do.

I see it as a stick thing, right?

Oh, of course you do.

I like that.

Of course you do.

Yes, you would see that as a stick thing.

Yes.

Right.

But there’s like, it’s not a bad thing.

It just is a thing.

It is a thing.

one has a bias, a bias one way or another, any given subject or area.

It just is a thing.

You can’t remove it.

You can’t extract it.

But what you can do is try and keep a balance, recognize where the, keep that stick balance, recognize where the bias tends to make you do the wrong things.

And by wrong, I mean spiritually, morally, right?

Judgment, for instance.

Sure.

Yeah, I don’t know.

~ Well, that being said in that context– – You don’t like my stick?

~ I do like your stick, but how do you go about confirming or denying the stick?

In other words, the bias.

When you’re thinking about, you know, what that bias is, or when you say it is and we can be too far in one direction or the other, How do you acknowledge that or how do you recognize when biases are too far?

Because if we’re not fully aware.

~ Yeah, well, I mean, – Was source, sir.

~ I feel like the answer to that is not unique to this episode, and what I mean by this, I feel like we’ve talked about that a lot.

~ I hear you.

~ You know, through changing our mind is the episode where we talk about that.

I feel like even integrity talked about that a little bit.

But yeah, I feel like that’s kind of an ongoing theme of how to do that.

So I don’t think I’d have anything novel to add to that.

~ Sure.

~ But I’d be curious if you did in the sense of something came to your mind, which is why you asked the question.

~ Well, I think for me, the part of number one, being able to recognize that I have them.

And number two, being able to have a relationship, you know, number one with God, but then with other people who are able to speak into those biases.

Yeah.

Because I think, you know, in that whole context, when I think I’m right.

Yeah.

That’s, that’s, that can be a dangerous territory.

Yeah.

That’s where the stick is out of balance, in my opinion, and the bias becomes problematic is.

And that’s, that’s where we need that humility, you know, to know.

I think it would be interesting to go through some of these biases at some point, but just to finish what you were saying.

But what were you saying?

That we need in order, the fact that we have relationship, we need biases, we need relationship in our lives to help us recognize when our biases get too far.

I’m the only person in this group of 10 people that knows the right answer and the rest of you have no clue.

‘Cause a bias can get that far.

And I think being able to have those other people who are able to say, well, what about this?

Have you thought of it this way?

And that’s not to say that we always have to have full-on agreement, but I think we can recognize that I may not always be as right as I think I am.

~ Right, yep, and again, that’s just the most common thread in all of our episodes.

It’s kind of that middle ground of having the conversation to move us from our polarized perspectives.

~ Sure.

~ I mean, that’s that polarizing perspective is a bias, right?

~ Sure.

~ I guess it’s kind of the epicenter of what we discuss.

~ Sure.

But yeah, that’s where it’s beneficial to have a bias in that there’s iron sharpening iron, right?

~ Sure.

~ In my bias, though bias can still help balance yours.

~ Sure, yeah.

~ And that doesn’t mean I got it all right, but it does mean I can potentially help others modify their bias.

You know what I mean?

I think that’s where, again, iron sharpens iron, we sharpen each other and knock down some of the rough edges.

Yeah.

You know, that kind of thing.

Yeah.

So you want to go through some of the.

Yeah.

I’m looking forward to it.

Me too.

So excited.

There is a page on Wikipedia called list of cognitive biases.

And it’s some some nerdy stuff.

And it’s really fun.

And it’s pretty long.

We’re not going to go through all these, but we’re just going to like touch on some of them.

There’s some higher level topics, and then they break them down into some specifically named biases.

So like anchoring bias is a higher level.

Appolfini, get to that, that’s a higher level.

Availability, heuristic.

~ I’m just looking forward to you pronouncing some of these words.

~ Yeah, I know me too.

Cognitive dissonance, which is, I always like that phrase.

And then I use it probably more than I should, ’cause I’m– – You like the word.

~ Yeah, I do.

Confirmation bias.

~ Sure.

~ Which is also, man, that’s a good one.

Egocentric bias, extension neglect.

false priors framing effect.

Oh my, logical fallacy, which we’ve all heard of.

~ Oh, sure.

~ We’ve all heard of the, no, prospect theory, self-assessment, true judgment, other.

~ Nice, there’s even a category for other you use.

~ Oh, and there’s more.

~ You scroll by.

So quick.

~ Yeah, but then we get into other, yeah, I mean, there’s a lot.

~ Yeah.

~ So we’re just gonna pick and choose based on our privacy.

~ There’s been a lot of writing that has been done.

~ Yes.

~ And, – I’m a fairly psychologist enjoy this subject.

Which makes it, right?

Like you sit down to talk to someone, like you hear their story and you go, “Hmm, that doesn’t sound right.

“What is causing them to, what is the weight?

” Right?

That’s pushing them towards that thought or that way of being, right?

~ Yeah.

~ So it makes a lot of sense that there’d be a lot of thought put into this.

~ Sure.

Yeah.

~ I was thinking of that first one, Anchoring bias.

Yes, anchoring bias.

Shall I read the description?

Look at what comes to, I’m curious what comes to your mind when you think about.

Anchoring bias.

I think of it as, well, I’m anchored here, at kind of that maybe like sunk cost fallacy.

Oh, maybe that’s a stretch.

But this idea that, well, I’m already kind of stuck to this thing and so I have to make everything fit to it because I can’t move from here.

That makes sense.

Yeah, yeah.

That’s kind of what I think about you.

~ Well, I apologize, I know it’s in Hebrews, that verse that we have this hope as an anchor, you know?

And that’s to where I would say there are people out there who would see Christianity even as a bias.

~ Is it anchoring bias, yeah?

~ As an anchor, you know.

~ Which it should be.

~ It can, yes.

~ No, it should be.

If you believe the words that Jesus said, then you should bias, you should anchor on what he said, right?

That is exactly what we believe you should do.

Right, right.

Yeah, and yeah, there would be those who would say, well, you’re stuck there.

You’re trapped there.

That is a, you know.

Again, that’s what, I agree with you.

That, again, that’s what I think a goal for this episode be to understand that it is.

Sure.

There’s no denying it is everywhere, but also it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bad, right?

So understanding where those biases are based on things that you want to be biased about.

Like, you know, angering too.

There’s a purpose in the bias.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

But yeah, that’s a good example.

I appreciate you kind of bringing in the positive sign ’cause I never would have gone there.

Ah, it’s all right.

That’s interesting.

That’s why we do this.

not positive for all.

Some people see that.

No, no.

If you say kind of a weakness or an anchoring in a healthy way.

Yep.

And potentially, for some it is, I guess certain theology maybe becomes an anchoring bias.

That’s problematic.

Sure.

Right.

Yep.

And the ability to think about in those, you would see an anchor as a, we would typically see an anchor as an unnecessary weight at times.

in the midst of a storm in a ship, it’s what keeps you from crashing into the shore.

And it’s just kind of a, yeah, here again.

~ Yeah, it’s good stuff.

~ Two perspectives.

Yeah, that one dynamic, that one word can have a lot of context involved.

~ Yeah.

~ Anchoring bias.

~ So the official definition of it.

~ I can’t read that from where I can zoom in more.

~ Oh no, it’s good.

~ You’re in charge of the, yes.

~ But I am gonna assume in more interest.

~ Oh, look at that.

~ I want you to be able to see Mark, but I will read it.

~ I can see.

~ The anchoring bias or focalism is the tendency to rely too heavily or to anchor on one trade or piece of information when making decisions.

Usually parenthetically, usually the first piece of information acquired on that subject, which is interesting, yeah.

~ Yeah.

~ Anchoring bias includes or involves the following, and they have four other names, common source bias, conservativeism bias, functional fix-cidness, law of the instrument.

A law of instrument is essentially, if you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

~ Yeah.

~ So.

~ Yeah.

~ I mean, we could break down some of these, but I think it’d be fun to kind of move on.

~ I agree.

~ Unless it, yeah, cool.

~ No, nothing else in the, yeah.

~ So the next one, what do you think of when you hear Apophania, you know what I honestly think of it’s like I think of like Greek Greek mythology Yeah, you know, that’s a perfect name.

Yeah, you know Apophania the warrior princess.

Yes, exactly Yes, that’s exactly what came to mind for me when I got a thunder.

Yeah, it’s like it’s like the goddess of apologies, you know That first part of the name has Apple, you know, it’s apology.

She’s the goddess of apologies.

That’s good.

Yes Thank you for that.

I can admit when I was wrong.

I can admit when my bias was not correct.

There you go.

You have apophania.

You are apophania.

All right.

The tendency to perceive meaningful connections between unrelated things like connecting a Greek goddess with the word apophania.

So more like difference between correlation and causation.

Yeah.

Yes.

Assuming that correlation is causation.

Two things happen at the same time, therefore they’re related.

Yeah.

But I may have mentioned it on this podcast before, but there’s a website.

Do we have any talking about this about correlation?

Yeah.

Like ice cream and crime.

Right, right.

It’s like number of pools installed in the United States correlates with the number of stabbing deaths.

Right.

Sure.

It’s like the chart, they draw this chart.

It’s like over the course of time, the rate is exactly the same.

~ Exactly.

~ And it’s just a website that’s full of those, right?

Like for those correlations.

It’s called, ah, it’s called spurious correlations.

~ There you go.

Nice job.

Wait to bring that up.

~ Yeah, so Google that, because it’s pretty funny.

~ Yeah, but that.

~ And it makes, it really, man, it really makes you look at this, Apophania, it’s called clustering illusion, by the way.

But yeah, correlation is not causation, same kind of idea, but it really makes you go, – Oh, I bet I’ve fallen prey to that before.

Because especially if you have an anchor, if you have, ’cause biases sometimes stack, right?

So if I have an anchoring bias, or I tend to lean towards, like for instance, conservatism, they mentioned that as one.

~ Sure.

~ Or it could be liberalism, but kind of that bias.

I lean that direction and then I see a chart that says, you know, when Republican presidents are elected, you know, war looks like this and– that I may have a tendency to believe or disbelieve it based on that chart.

And right, that chart can be very weighing in my argument.

Where it could just be one of those situations.

~ Yeah, I was thinking about this in a context of the relationship.

How often do we hear, somebody will do something, I role as in a good example, it’s first thing came to mind, but you put your hand underneath your chin, for example.

~ Oh no.

~ I know what you’re thinking.

~ Yeah.

~ You follow me?

That’s definitely a bias that’s like, you don’t know what somebody’s thinking.

They may have a body language, but we can’t know what someone is thinking just based on the fact that they have done something prior to.

~ That could be a spurious correlation for sure.

~ Yeah, exactly.

~ Yeah, that’s good.

Another one in that same subject is illusory correlation, a tendency to inaccurately perceive relationship between two unrelated events.

~ Sure.

~ So that’s just kind of, yeah, making stuff up at that point.

(laughing) That’s like, you know, I ate a bagel and a cop pulled me over.

~ There you go.

~ You know, so memory bagels.

Or I guess a common thing there would be superstitions, right, like baseball guys, right?

~ Yeah, don’t change your socks.

~ Don’t watch your socks.

~ Change your socks, yeah, exactly.

~ Basketball players do that too, come on.

~ Yeah, well, all sports, yeah.

Excuse me, I’m biased against baseball.

(laughing) No, but I think that’s a good example of loser record-alation, like, yeah, when I did that, this other thing happened, therefore, I have to keep doing that, yeah.

~ Exactly, I’m looking forward to you to pronouncing that next one.

(laughing) – Peridolia, I have no idea how you stay back.

~ Sounds like the storm that just went by us – It would appear in front of it.

~ What was that, sir?

~ Adalia, what the storm they were doing.

~ Yeah, I don’t think there was a peak.

Oh yeah, you’re saying.

~ Yeah, exactly, yeah.

~ Peridolia, a tendency to perceive a vague and random stimulus, often an image or a sound as significant.

For example, seeing images of animals or faces in the clouds.

~ Man in the moon.

~ Yeah, this made me think of people, you see those articles where someone sees like the mother Mary and Stuckle.

~ Oh, yeah, yeah.

~ Or like toast.

Elvis is on the toast, right?

Yes, no doubt.

Yeah.

I think that’s peridolia.

That’s fair enough.

Have you ever seen Elvis in the toast?

I have not.

I really don’t eat much toast.

Okay.

All right.

Yeah.

What about your burger?

No.

I eat burgers, but yeah, I haven’t seen.

Yeah.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything in any food product.

Yeah.

I think I need to look harder.

(laughing) I would like to have a little peridolia.

Now the clouds, I can see stuff in the clouds.

But yeah.

Yeah.

Well, we’re kind of biased towards that based on children’s books and upbringings and stories and.

Yeah.

Right?

I think it.

Would it be fair to say you would have a certain bias if someone told you they saw, like Mona Lisa in their toast?

Would you have a certain bias about that?

I’d probably.

~ Probably, I don’t know.

(laughing) – That’s fair enough.

~ Yeah, that’s too deep.

~ Yeah.

~ All right, let’s move on to the next one.

~ Yeah, I think it does define, yeah, I was sharing that story about the eagle earlier.

You know, and it’s like, that would be, you know, certain people have a certain bias to, you know, like end-of-life-type dynamics that this means that that is that person.

~ Yeah.

~ When it’s like, in reality for me, that’s not necessarily that person, but that’s not to say that God couldn’t put an eagle in the sky at a moment that would say, “Hey, yeah, I know you’re thinking about this person, but it’s not necessarily that person.

” That would be, yeah.

That’s what made me think of that.

~ What’s that called again?

Someone comes back.

That’s a different thing.

~ Oh, reincarnation.

~ Reincarnation.

~ Yeah.

~ That’s probably a bias if some sort.

No, that’s different.

All right, move it on.

~ Availability heuristic.

~ Yes.

~ Which, before reading this, what do you think that means?

~ Ooh, availability heuristic.

Boy, I should know these base words, but– – Should you?

~ I guess.

~ That heuristic sounds like, you know, humanitarian, like, people groups type thing to me, but I could be wrong.

~ Yeah, forget what the word is.

~ I’m just looking available.

~ Yeah.

I think heuristic is just like a.

Is that another word for bias or viewpoint?

Okay.

So yeah, I don’t know.

I think heuristic is just like concept.

Okay.

So another word for bias.

Yeah.

Which it said viewpoint.

Define heuristic.

There you go.

Enabling someone to discover and learn something for themselves.

Ooh.

So it’s a heuristic process.

or it’s an opportunity.

Namely, someone to discover and learn something for the interesting.

Okay, anyway.

So availability– So what do you think that implies?

The availability to learn.

The availability to learn something for myself.

Okay.

That’s how I’m defining.

You think that’s, but what’s the bias?

Oh, that I have the ability to learn something.

I think– Go ahead.

Go ahead, you’re just gonna be other end of the spectrum, I’m thinking.

But go ahead.

~ I think it has more to do with, I believe the things that I have available to me to check and learn.

~ Oh sure.

~ But I don’t believe the things I don’t.

~ Yeah, if someone has a completely different experience than mine.

~ Right.

But maybe they grew up in California.

~ Yeah.

~ I don’t know.

And they understand that culture.

Man, that’s a stretch.

Let’s go more simply and say, someone has access to a telescope so they can say, well, you know, Mars is gonna crash into the earth and I go, well, I don’t believe you.

~ Sure.

~ Because it doesn’t line up with the things I know and also I don’t have the event, I don’t know.

~ Yeah, yeah, yeah.

~ That feels like stretch.

~ No, no, I hear where you’re coming from.

~ Just like, if I can’t– – I like the way I grew up.

~ Prove what you’re saying, I don’t believe it.

If I don’t have availability to believe it or know it, then it can’t be true.

If you grew up in a good school district where there wasn’t a lot of violence, you’d have a hard time believing somebody was actually almost mugged or almost knifed in their school.

Because that’s just not your experience.

And it would be hard for you to imagine that.

Yeah.

No, it didn’t happen.

Right.

Yeah.

To where it would be so foreign, you’d say, no, didn’t happen.

Yeah, I’m making it up.

Yeah.

You’re biased.

So that being said, it’s this tendency to overestimate the likelihood of events with great, oh, this is different.

This is fun.

We should mention when we talk about what we think it is.

Yeah, very much while we think it.

This is our version of Wikipedia.

That’s right.

Yeah, we should add it this later.

It’s a tendency to overestimate the likelihood of events with greater availability in memory, which can be influenced by how recent the memories are, how unusual or emotionally charged they may be, which makes me think about trauma, right?

~ Oh sure.

~ Makes us believe that trauma is very eminent, right?

That same trauma is around every corner, the boogeyman around every corner, but the actual percentage, chance, odds of that thing happening again are slim to none, right?

But like because of the situations I grew up in, how was it?

~ Yep.

~ You know, that opportunity for that trauma was open to me in a way that is very unique and unlikely to be repeated.

And yet it stands out, it’s such a strong, like you said, stands out in the timeline.

So it’s not like it happened, I mean, it’s not like it happened 20 years ago, it’s like happened yesterday, every day of my life, and therefore it’s that availability that tends to cause me to be biased towards, yeah, that thing can happen again.

~ Sure.

~ Yeah, right?

~ Yeah.

~ You think that applies?

~ I think that applies and I’m thinking about the first one is the anchoring bias and I’m thinking about this one as the most recent.

~ Yeah.

~ Because typically when we remember things, if we’re trying to memorize a list.

~ Yeah, I was assuming recency bias would be in here but I don’t see it.

~ But I think that’s a part of it.

~ Yeah.

~ The available, this one is about most recent.

we can always remember the things at the beginning of a list and the end of a list.

~ Yes.

~ So this one’s the most recent where anchoring is one of our primary ones that we’ll first hear.

So that’s kind of cool, think about that way.

~ Yeah, that is interesting.

Yeah.

Yeah, it’s like the book ends.

~ Yeah.

~ Yeah, it’s interesting.

So this reminds me, so what maybe put this topic on the list in the first place was listening to this podcast by with the guest being Daniel Kahneman.

~ Okay.

economy.

He won an Nobel Prize for economics or something, but he’s not an economist.

It’s interesting.

That’s kind of a joke he always talks about.

They ask him my economics question, “I don’t know.

I’m not an economist.

” But he’s done a ton of studies on bias.

One of the things, any of his books, one is called Thinking Fast and Slow, the most recent one is called noise.

I haven’t read them, but I kind of want to.

But he talks about how this, like how much we think we’re right but our biases and we don’t realize our biases.

So he talks about one of the studies they did was this idea of kind of recency bias and traumatic bias.

Like the things he basically said, what we remember is the worst part and the last part.

So sure.

And they did this This study is so interesting, people getting colonoscopies.

~ Oh, okay.

~ And he basically said, this whole experience is terrible for people.

This tube going on, whatever, right?

Like, and it’s painful.

~ This tube going where?

~ And when I get up, woo hoo, yeah.

(laughing) And it’s up there and it’s painful and it’s terrible, and the whole experience is terrible, he said.

But their hypothesis was essentially, Well, they didn’t have a hypothesis.

They studied a bunch of things and they found out that people rated the experience, oh, that’s what they did.

They would check every minute.

How are you feeling?

How do you think this experience is now or basically whatever?

And then they would follow up and say, how do you think the overall, you know, this whole thing, right?

And they found out that people, despite how long it was or how short it was, they gaged it on how bad it was based on the worst moment in the last moment, right?

And it was really interesting, ’cause he basically said what they found out is if they extended the procedure a minute, but stopped the movement of the thing.

So right at the very end, right?

And just left it wherever for a minute.

They generally rated the whole experience higher, no matter what.

~ Oh wow.

~ Right, because that last part wasn’t so bad.

~ Okay.

So that’s kind of, in what part would we get to the, I guess that’s, I’m trying to think, this sounds like maybe the trauma part is kind of the worst part.

And then like you said, the recency bias, but.

~ Well, I think it’s interesting in that part, they talk about emotionally, how the emotions of a moment.

And I think so often, that’s what creates the memory, if you will, is our ability to have an experience and there’s an emotion tied to it.

That’s what creates that fold in the brain and of course that creates that as a memory.

So like you say, it makes sense that we would have these biases in part based on the emotion that we felt of how terrible or how awful or bad, you know, uncomfortable and experience was emotionally as well.

~ Yeah.

~ Yeah, it’s crazy.

~ Yeah.

~ It’s crazy how our brains work.

~ Oh yeah, so there’s a bunch of sub ones under here.

I’ll just pick one selection bias, which happens when the members of a statistical sample are not chosen completely random, which leads to the sample not being represented of the population.

~ Sure.

~ So that’s like essentially, I’m picking quote unquote random sampling, but I happen to like people without beards.

(laughing) And I don’t realize it, right?

And so it turns out there’s no beards on the panel or whatever.

Often that happens with panels where there’s not enough women representation.

That’s been a pretty big thing.

And I would say in the tech world and I’d say that shifted a lot in the last 10 years.

But for a while there, it was like that became a pretty strong signal of selection bias.

Like, yeah, all the tech dudes want to listen to tech dudes and that kind of thing.

So I think that’s interesting.

Is there any others on here you want to look at?

~ Yeah, I was looking at that, I was trying not to have to pronounce it, but I was looking at that and throw it over.

~ Let me try it, let me add it.

~ Okay.

(laughs) The second one down.

~ Anthropomorphism.

~ Yeah.

~ That one’s a good one.

~ Yeah.

~ The tendency to characterize animals, objects, and abstract concepts as possessing human-like traits, emotions, and intentions.

~ Yeah.

~ Yeah, that’s what the whole pet food, pet industry is based on from my perspective.

~ Yeah, yes, making like your cute little child.

~ Yes, yeah, yeah.

~ Yeah, it just, yeah.

~ And then it says the opposite bias of not attributing feelings or thoughts to another person is dehumanized perception, a type of objectification.

~ Yeah.

~ And that’s like often what happens when looking at too much porn, right?

Like, sure, we’ve talked about this before, or whatever, but like, you tend to stop thinking of that person as a person.

~ Yeah.

~ And thinking of more of as an object, right?

And objectification occurs, and then that’s, you know, objectification is a very big thing to determine in terms of looking at women and thinking, objectifying them, right?

Yeah.

And I think that’s that bias created.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think it stems from, yeah, from those choices, I guess.

Yeah.

Interesting.

Another one I just read that I thought was interesting, survivorship bias, which is is concentrating on the people or things that survive some process and inadvertently overlooking those that did not because of their lack of visibility.

Oh, wow.

So it’s like, oh, I feel I can’t think of an example of this, but.

Well, I think and here again, I don’t.

I think when we look back at different historical events, we can recognize certain groups of people died at certain things.

Now we’re typically gonna, the Holocaust is typically gonna be at the top of that list, from my perspective, due to number, but that’s not to say that there weren’t other people in history who also died, you know, but yet based on Holocaust being more recent, you know, we tend to think of it that way.

And they’re granted, there probably are other groups that we’re just not aware of who have been, you know, killed over time, but it’s not exactly the same.

But I think, you know, we can tend to focus on that one group understandably so, whereas throughout history, I’m sure there are other groups or people that have kind of faded away.

~ Yeah, I also think it can go to something like, there’s a tribe in Africa, right?

Where a disease hits them and everyone who hunts survives because they happen to have been out on the trail when this particular thing hit.

I’m just making stuff up.

when people go to research that group, they go, “Oh, the only kind of people here are hunters.

” – I got you.

~ And so this is Ivers, that’s probably a totally destroyed example, but you get the idea is like, the survivors tends to be what is listened to and understood to be the reality when really, maybe it’s not their– – It doesn’t represent the wholeness of the group.

~ Yeah.

~ Yeah, I’d give you that.

~ Thank you, appreciate that.

~ Yeah.

All right.

After all, this is our version of Wikipedia bias.

That’s right.

Because– How I see it first.

But we’re not biased.

So this is the trauma.

I can admit I’m biased.

Yeah.

Yeah, strongly so in some areas.

Oh, here’s a good one.

Yeah.

I can’t leave this topic.

There’s a bunch of them in here.

But this is the last one I’ll do in this.

Mark pulls one out.

But well-traveled road effect.

The tendency to underestimate the duration taken to traverse off traveled routes and overestimate the duration taken to traverse less familiar routes.

I have a perfect example of that.

Go for very recent one.

I’ve never decided a house before.

Okay.

So my perception of how long that was going to take, you know, it was like big, big project weeks, right?

Kind of thing.

And I did it in the course of a couple days on our edition.

So not like the whole But you know, and I just was like this is not too bad like it goes a lot faster I thought it would but my perception because I’ve never traveled that road that’s gonna be long Every single time I go to paint something.

Yeah, I think this is gonna be so quick I was up just to be clear.

That’s a that’s a try road.

I traveled a lot.

I was a house painter for 10 years.

Okay, so right, so Back to this house example.

There’s some fascia That’s unpainted so everything else is vinyl, but the the face show was this hardy unpainted So it’s like this yellow color, right?

Yeah, I need to be painted white.

I’m like, oh, yeah I’ll go knock that out take me an hour just buzz around paint the face.

I’ll be done It took me way longer than an hour and I was just like what in the world Why is this taking this long and it’s not like I wasn’t going slow But every single painting project I take on is exactly like that.

Wow always More painful and takes longer than I thought it would wow that’s so that painting sucks is the moral of the story.

That’s my bias That’s fair enough, but that’s a That’s in the context of this just a road.

Well, yeah roads.

I Would say I have a bias that I would rather I Would tend to think that a new road I would rather travel a road that I haven’t traveled on before and think it got me there quicker Yeah, then maybe the old road that I’ve done time and time again.

Yeah, and that’s probably contrary to Chris’s a different bias.

It is probably a different bias, but I think Chris has that desire to travel the new road I mean the old road because it’s fast because it is really probably faster although I’ll view the new road as just being faster because it’s a change.

Yeah, you’re both biased.

Yeah, you’re a change bias.

That’s probably a thing in here.

I mean, there’s a lot of biases in this page.

I’m sure that’s changed biases one, but like that you’re both biased.

She thinks the world will be faster.

You think the new ones going to be faster, but neither of those are good qualifications, whether or something’s faster or not.

Right.

Yeah.

So it is a great example.

Yeah.

Interesting.

Go it out.

All right.

Cognitive dissonance.

Yeah, I really like this phrase.

Yeah, so what would you say cognitive this don’t look at the thing?

I was it wasn’t like I was looking at the screen.

I gotta shrink it back down Well Descentances whenever two things are in they don’t align with the one in there.

There’s a yeah – Yeah.

~ I kind of think of it as like the magnets when you put the options and they kind of bounce away.

~ Yeah.

~ I don’t know.

~ It’s when my thoughts don’t align.

~ Yeah.

~ Or my thoughts and my feelings may not align.

It’s emotional dissonance, you know, that kind of thing.

That’s what I’m, you know, so I’m thinking of the context of when my thoughts don’t align.

~ Yeah.

~ Yeah, I always think, I feel like I hear the term cognitive dissonance a lot of times in like cultural and political type conversations where what they believed isn’t aligned with the truth essentially is kind of how I come to understand it.

But I think it’s probably, yeah, so that’s really about it.

~ Yeah, because this is one of those things where I have a, well Lizzie’s in the back of my mind at this point.

She said, you know, she’s done.

She’s done a lot of stuff.

What do you have to say, Lizzy?

Well, she’s probably saying, no, dad, that’s not exactly right.

Right.

It’s close.

You know, like, like she does.

She’s our fact checker at times.

Well, I’m looking at Wikipedia.

So it can’t be wrong.

Actually, there is no definition for coming in this next one that confirmation bias.

She’s, you know, she has, I’ve heard her use that word.

Oh, yeah.

That’s a good one.

Yeah.

Don’t don’t.

I’m sorry.

I did – Don’t jump ahead.

~ Don’t jump ahead.

(laughing) All right, cognitive dissonance.

So they don’t have a definition, but we’ll jump in there’s three of them.

The first one’s normalcy bias, a form of cognitive dissonance, is the refusal to plan for or react to a disaster, which has never happened before.

Interesting, this is very much ties into the current global warming, or like the climate crisis situation, right?

There’s very much two sides.

~ Two sides.

~ There is a crisis.

~ Yeah, exactly, exactly.

There can’t be it, there’s never been yet, but I think that’s a good example of, you know, no matter where you fall on that, if it’s true, and you don’t believe it’s true, that’s what, that’s is that, right?

~ Yeah.

~ The normalcy bias, like we’ve never had a climate crisis before, therefore it can happen.

~ Or the other expense, this is normal, but that’s not necessarily normal bias.

~ That’s a different one probably, but yeah.

~ Yeah.

~ No.

~ So that’s a good one.

And I think too, like there are people who moved down here from the north.

~ Yeah.

~ I was one of them.

Where having never experienced a hurricane, you’re like, “You can’t be that bad.

” We have tornadoes in the Midwest, right?

Like, but it’s just so different than a tornado.

~ No.

~ Tornadoes are so much worse in a localized way.

~ Okay, yeah.

~ The hurricanes are, you know, what’s the word?

Not localized.

Not global, but yes.

Yes.

Yeah, they hit a big area.

Broder.

You brought her thinking.

Yes.

And the sustained wind is different, right?

Where a tornado is like, I mean, it’s a tornado.

It’s like, you think of a tornado, I think of Tasmanian devil, like, zzzzzz, and it’s gone, and it’s like the destruction’s done, but just sustained.

Anyway, the point is, I think sometimes we come down and we think, oh, it can’t be that bad, and we don’t prepare.

It’s like, holy crap, that was intense.

Like that was different than anything I’ve ever experienced.

The next time we’re more willing to prepare for that storm.

I’ve seen that.

~ Unless the next couple times are kind of duds.

~ Yes.

~ And then we’re more likely to– – Then our reason is bias.

~ Yes, we’re more likely to say, “Ah, we can ride this one out.

” – Yep.

~ It’s like, yeah, yeah.

It’s funny how that plays into the storm patterns, these biases.

~ Yeah, it does.

work happily through his page or not even.

But I think hopefully you’re starting to see, even in yourself, as you listen, like, “Yeah, I have a lot of these biases because they’re not nefarious.

They’re not evil.

They just are and they impact us in so many ways.

” And I think, again, the important thing is to recognize that it is and therefore trying to make decisions on top of your biases, to know that they exist and therefore to, at some points try to compensate for them.

~ Yeah, I was thinking about how tradition actually granted experience ties into our bias, but I think tradition, the things that I learned from my help create my bias.

I would dare say even like chauvinism would be a bias that I can learn.

~ Yeah, that’s probably racism.

~ Yeah, that’s probably a word in here, something about what’s the word for passing now?

~ Transgenerational?

~ No.

~ Okay, no.

~ Horraticarial.

~ Yeah, bias.

~ Yeah, sure.

~ It’s probably in here somewhere, right?

~ Yeah.

~ Yeah, we’ll get there.

~ Yeah.

~ Maybe.

Cognitive effort justification is persons tendency to attribute greater value to an oak outcome if they had put effort into achieving it So this is very much like the sunk cost fallacy.

I think Franklin a Franklin a Franklin a fact where a person who has performed a favor for someone is more likely to do another favor for that person Then they would be if they had received a favor from that person what?

Where did Ben Franklin come in?

We’d have to click that link He was a, what do you call that?

Like a person that goes to another country and represents people.

~ Okay.

~ Yeah.

~ Not a mediator, but a foreign dignitary type.

~ Yeah, diplomat.

~ Diplomat, yes, thank you.

That’s what, yeah.

That’s, my bias would say that’s why he got that.

~ I gotcha.

~ That’s why it’s, yeah.

~ That’s an interesting performer, favor for someone who’s more likely to do another favor.

So like, if I did you a favor for, I’m more likely to do you another favor than if you had done me a favor is what that’s saying.

Right.

Yeah.

I’m not sure I recognize that, but that’s also– It’s saying it’s not necessarily a balanced thing.

But it’s– and I would dare say there’s certain people– probably Ben from in Franklin, but I think of– when I think of charismatic people, Jim Jones, that kind of thing.

those people who you just want to do things for.

~ Yeah.

~ Because it’s like that person is the person.

So who doesn’t want to do something for that person?

That would be, yeah.

~ I also think maybe that ties into some codependence where you’re the person I take care of.

So I’m going to take care of you.

~ Sure.

~ You know what I mean?

~ Yeah.

~ All right.

~ Confirmation bias.

~ Ladies’ favorite.

~ According to my, one of the ones she definitely would use.

~ Yes, confirmation bias.

And I think, you know, most of our listeners probably know and would guess what that is, but would you say that is?

~ It’s the things that confirm my bias.

It’s like, I tend to see those things that I find agreement with or that agree with my personal bias.

~ Right.

And it’s giving more weight to those things.

~ Oh sure.

~ Because they agree.

That’s how I see it, right?

Giving more weight to the things that agree with what I have to say because they agree with what I have to say.

So in other words, I read 10 articles this month.

I remember the five that agreed with me and the other ones I kind of hand-waved, right?

Like, well, they didn’t really ask this expert.

If you google them, they’re all going to agree with you anyways, based on your search patterns.

Right.

Get into the right.

I’m not the silos.

The silos.

Yeah.

~Silo bias on my part.

~It is against Google.

~Yeah.

~So don’t Google, folks.

We’ve been over this.

~You should know this by now.

Only Wikipedia, no, Martin.

~That’s what bias on my part.

~Don’t look at a screen.

That’s the rule in Marx.

~Oh.

~Bias.

~All right.

~So, yeah, confirmation bias.

That’s a good one.

There’s a few under here.

backfire effect, a tendency to react to this confirming evidence by strengthening Oh one’s previous beliefs.

So I get more resolved.

Yeah, like you prove me wrong.

I go, Mmm, nice try buddy.

Yeah, I don’t believe you.

It’s like trying to get me to shave my beard by saying, What’s that going on your face?

You know, I just get more resolute.

Sure, except they’re not proving to you.

It’d be more like saying, you see, because you have a beard, you have a food stuck in it.

Like every time I see you, there’s food stuck in your beard, you really should consider getting rid of it.

And you go on, listen, buddy, I don’t have food stuck in my beard.

I want it.

It’s not stuck.

I chose to save it ever later.

That’s the choice.

But I think that’s kind of right where you think this proof’s gonna really rock their world and instead they they they double down.

Yeah.

You could call it the double down effect.

Good.

Backfire.

Congruence bias.

The tendency to test hypothesis exclusively through direct testing, instead of testing possible alternative hypothesis.

That’s like the real crude example, like every time I had it, I’d take Advil to prove that Advil works to help me get rid of headaches.

But I never take a walk, I never drink more water, whatever to see if maybe those are the problems.

It’s like, well, it’s because I need Advil or whatever.

Yeah.

We’re not sponsored by Apple.

I mean, ibuprofen.

Is that fair?

Yeah, that’s a good one.

Yeah.

Yeah, there’s some of the observer expectancy effect.

When the researcher expects a given result and therefore unconsciously manipulates an experiment or misinterpreted state in order to find it.

Yeah.

So that’s why they do double blind testing.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

So the whole thing there is the testes don’t see the testers and the testers don’t see the testes and they kind of do it in a blind fashion and it’s to avoid this observer expectancy effect.

Interesting.

And it’s random to the point I don’t know whether you’re receiving it or maybe the placebo or yeah.

Yeah.

It’s good stuff.

Yeah.

Should I try and pronounce this one?

Sure.

~ Semelwise reflex.

~ There you go.

~ The tendency to reject new evidence that contradicts a paradigm.

Now, I would like to know who Semelwise was.

That’s gotta be somebody’s name.

~ Do you want me looking?

~ No, but it’s a cliffhanger.

~ Yeah.

~ It’s something we’re gonna hang out there.

(laughing) – All right, next subject.

~ Extension neglect.

~ No, sorry.

~ Oh, sorry, if you scroll down.

~ You grow too far.

~ Oh.

~ There we go.

~ Ego centric bias.

Wow, ego centric.

~ So yeah.

~ 55 minutes, Mark.

~ Yeah.

~ So I think we could go on and read these and they’re really fun and I really want to, but I also feel like at some point your ear’s marks might start to bleed.

(laughing) – Yeah.

~ So maybe some other point we can discuss more.

~ I think it has.

~Yes, I think there is that part of us that could actually even look at this a little further and build it into our vocabulary as we’re having how I see it in the process.

~Yes, like, “Oh, that’s a whatever bias.

” -Yes.

~Simmelwise.

~Oh, come on.

~Oh, mark.

~Don’t mess up.

~Simmelwise me.

Nice.

~Yes.

~Yeah.

~Dementating your cognitive dissonance once again.

~I’ll just learn and I have the ability.

But yeah, but thanks.

Thanks for initiating this, Justin.

Yeah, it’s like fun.

I think it is good.

And it’s, I agree with you in that context.

I think we have a number of biases that we may not always acknowledge.

It’s kind of the way we started off the program, but it was just kind of neat to be able to say, okay, yeah, here’s some different ones.

And granted, we may not have always translated accurately, But this is a podcast on how we see it and what comes to mind.

And yeah, so yeah, it’s been fun, Justin.

Yeah.

All right.

Well, thanks for discussing these with me.

And I encourage our listeners to look at, we’ll post a link to some of these Wikipedia pages.

And maybe it’s not as interesting.

In fact, I’m almost positive.

But yeah, there’s plenty of good stuff in there.

there, you can check out, I also encourage you to, you know, check out some podcasts with Daniel Kahneman.

He’s a very interesting guy.

He talks about biases.

I’m not saying everything he says is going to be true, whatever, but the, the, this con concept, the way he talks about it and describes it is kind of eye opening.

So neat.

Yeah.

Thanks again, folks.

This is how we see it.

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