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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhy Smart People Are Stupid
Last edited Mon Nov 25, 2013, 07:32 AM - Edit history (2)
"Heres a simple arithmetic question: A bat and ball cost a dollar and ten cents. The bat costs a dollar more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?
**I didn't put the answer here, because that's not the point, and because of the fair use terms. The link below will explain it.**
...
Perhaps our most dangerous bias is that we naturally assume that everyone else is more susceptible to thinking errors, a tendency known as the bias blind spot. This meta-bias is rooted in our ability to spot systematic mistakes in the decisions of otherswe excel at noticing the flaws of friendsand inability to spot those same mistakes in ourselves. Although the bias blind spot itself isnt a new concept, Wests latest paper demonstrates that it applies to every single bias under consideration, from anchoring to so-called framing effects. In each instance, we readily forgive our own minds but look harshly upon the minds of other people.
And heres the upsetting punch line: intelligence seems to make things worse. The scientists gave the students four measures of cognitive sophistication. As they report in the paper, all four of the measures showed positive correlations, indicating that more cognitively sophisticated participants showed larger bias blind spots. This trend held for many of the specific biases, indicating that smarter people (at least as measured by S.A.T. scores) and those more likely to engage in deliberation were slightly more vulnerable to common mental mistakes. Education also isnt a savior; as Kahneman and Shane Frederick first noted many years ago, more than fifty per cent of students at Harvard, Princeton, and M.I.T. gave the incorrect answer to the bat-and-ball question.
What explains this result? One provocative hypothesis is that the bias blind spot arises because of a mismatch between how we evaluate others and how we evaluate ourselves. When considering the irrational choices of a stranger, for instance, we are forced to rely on behavioral information; we see their biases from the outside, which allows us to glimpse their systematic thinking errors. However, when assessing our own bad choices, we tend to engage in elaborate introspection. We scrutinize our motivations and search for relevant reasons; we lament our mistakes to therapists and ruminate on the beliefs that led us astray.
The problem with this introspective approach is that the driving forces behind biasesthe root causes of our irrationalityare largely unconscious, which means they remain invisible to self-analysis and impermeable to intelligence. In fact, introspection can actually compound the error, blinding us to those primal processes responsible for many of our everyday failings. We spin eloquent stories, but these stories miss the point. The more we attempt to know ourselves, the less we actually understand."
Kahneman, Here.
One of the things I like about DU is being surrounded by smart people, who should know better than others the results of bias on their own thinking, eh?
Enjoy.
Art_from_Ark
(27,247 posts)especially since the ball only costs a nickel. Must be one of those cheap plastic bats with a holey plastic ball.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)-Richard Feynman
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)evaluate our own bias. Never to busy to evaluate others, apparently
daleanime
(17,796 posts)Every ones in a rush to get the 'right' answer. It's when you stop and think about it for a couple of minutes that you go 'hey wait....'
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)System 1 and System 2 thinking. The example he gave in a talk was the difference between 2 math problems.
He spoke at a meeting of "100 Women in Hedge Funds". I found it here - http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2013/11/know-yourself-and-your-decision-making-process/
The first, what is 2 +2. The answer 4 just appears - from memory, hearing it, whatever, but it's just there.
The second, 17 times 58. - You have to think about the answer, calculate it.
Said we need to slow down, calculate, split things up into different parts, make sure the errors from each part don't just build into the next piece, make sure the errors we make are discrete.
Interesting.
bhikkhu
(10,708 posts)If it appeared to be a complex or challenging problem, it would be easy to build a little formula to solve it. As it appears to be a throwaway little question (involving a kid buying toys, more or less) anyone should just "know" the answer to, its very difficult to approach it properly.
delrem
(9,688 posts)I'd rather be surrounded by people who are open minded to criticism, yet are hyper-critical in turn, than by people who watch FOX, and Morning Joe, and the others.
nikto
(3,284 posts)2+2=4.
Fire is hot.
Water is wet.
The earth revolves around the sun.
But I suppose everything is relative.
Sometimes the above statements must not be true.
Right?
Next time you get in an argument with someone who insists, say,
2+2=13, let them win. It's the decent thing to do.
They may even be right, anyhow.
And we all know 2+2 actually does= 13, sometimes.
nikto
(3,284 posts)Saturn revolves around the Earth.
Tomorrow, i've decided 2+2 are going to equal 7.
But just for tomorrow.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)TexasProgresive
(12,148 posts)It depends on how your brain works. My son came home with the following joke. I got it immediately, my wife on the other hand did not get it until we drew up the simple flow chart.
A wife calls her husband, a software engineer...
"Sweetie, on the way home can you stop be the store and pick up a loaf of bread? And if they have eggs get a dozen."
He arrives home with several bags full of bread, 12 loaves to be exact. Exasperated she asks, "Why did you but all this bread?"
He replied, "They had eggs."
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)and they get it wrong, overwhelmingly. Because they don't give it a little attention.
But your example sounds exactly like something I would pull...
B Calm
(28,762 posts)talking on campus. Hey Joe where did you get that brand new bicycle? Oh John you wouldn't believe it. Yesterday this beautiful blond girl rode up on it, jumped off and took off all her clothes. She say's take whatever you want, so I took the bicycle.
Laelth
(32,017 posts)-Laelth
RBInMaine
(13,570 posts)There was a man who had no eyes.
He went outside and viewed the skies.
He saw a tree with apples on it.
He took no apples off it, and left no apples on it.
How is this possible?
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)What does solving that riddle tell us about the process of thinking and bias?
That's what the good Dr was after with that question above.
Anyway, your answer. -> http://www.desicomments.com/riddles/riddles/logic-riddles/page/4/
Love the Internet.
AAO
(3,300 posts)liberal N proud
(60,300 posts)Fortinbras Armstrong
(4,473 posts)If you have a fence 100 feet long, with a post every ten feet, how many posts are there? See here for a brief discussion.
A related question is the banana problem, from the story of a little girl who said "I know how to spell 'banana', but I don't know when to stop".
I don't remember how many times in the last forty years I have stood at a whiteboard and explained DeMorgan's Laws to a puzzled programmer who couldn't see why his or her complicated IF statement didn't work.
Tanuki
(14,893 posts)is a presumably smart person who has done some incredibly stupid things himself!
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2012/08/jonah_lehrer_plagiarism_in_wired_com_an_investigation_into_plagiarism_quotes_and_factual_inaccuracies_.html
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jtuck004
(15,882 posts)"...In each instance, we readily forgive our own minds but look harshly upon the minds of other people. "
Which is the point of much of this research, after all.
But at least he's got enough cred to have a history...as opposed to, well, who knows? Maybe the emptiness of anonymous posters and tweeters. LOL.