The Thought That Counts - Insights into Biases and Fallacies 1

Short inspirational insights into our common biases and fallacies.  Become more mindful and make better decisions through a deeper understanding of our mental shortcuts and errors in judgment. 

Robin Hills (Ei4Change) was inspired to create The Thought That Counts podcast from his series of bite-sized, inspirational soundbites for his local radio station.

Since then, these comtributions have reached a wider audience through the podcast - The Thought That Counts.

This podcast explores the some of our common biases and fallacies:

• Priming
• Confabulation
• Confirmation Bias
• Hindsight Bias
• The Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 0:55 Priming
• 2:53 Confabulation
• 5:03 Confirmation Bias
• 7:04 Hindsight Bias
• 8:45 The Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy
• 10:44 Ending

Transcript

0:18

The Thought That Counts podcast originated from my participation in The Thought The Count slot on my local radio station, where I was frequent guest until the host and producer passed away a few years ago. While the slot still airs today without my involvement, I'm now continuing its legacy by building upon the format of five concise audio tips on emotional intelligence and associated topics into this new season of podcasts. The Thought That Counts. We like to think we're in control. We make conscious decisions, weighing up the pros and cons to define our own destiny. However, the power of unconscious priming is far more pervasive than you might imagine. Priming is the process by which exposure to a stimulus influences your subsequent thoughts, feelings, and behaviour, often without your awareness. Think about it. Have you ever walked walked into a room and suddenly felt a certain mood without knowing why? Or made a purchase you later regreted, feeling like you were somehow persuaded but can't pinpoint how. Our brains are constantly making associations. We link words, images, and experiences together, creating a vast web of interconnected concepts. When we encounter a prime, a word, image, or even subtle cue in our environment, it activates related concepts in our minds influencing how we perceive and interact with the world. Understanding priming is crucial because it reveals the limitations of our conscious control. We're constantly being nudged and influenced by forces we don't even recognise. This doesn't mean we're puppets, but it does mean we need to be more aware of these subtle cues that shape our behaviour and to be reminded that the world around us is constantly shaping our reality, often in ways we don't even suspect. Priming is the art of making you craved that one specific snack you saw in an advertisement three hours ago. The Thought That Counts. The idea that we always know why we do what we do is a comforting illusion. We believe we know ourselves intimately, including our motivations and the reasons behind our choices. But what if I told you that you're likely lying to yourself more often than you realise, and that you're often completely unaware of it. This isn't about conscious deception. It's about the fascinating and sometimes unsettling phenomenon of confabulation. The creation of false narratives to explain our feelings, decisions, and even our past without even realising we're doing it. Our brains are wired to make sense of the world, to find patterns and create narratives. When we lack a clear understanding of why we did something or feel a certain way, our brains fill in the gaps, often with plausible sounding but ultimately, fictional explanations. Confabulation serves a purpose. It helps us maintain a sense of self-consistency and control, enabling us to navigate the world without constantly questioning our motives. However, it can also lead to self-deception and hinder personal growth if we're not willing to acknowledge the possibility that our internal narratives might not be entirely accurate. By understanding the phenomenon of confabulation, we can develop a more nuanced understanding of ourselves and others. It's not about becoming hypervigilant about every thought and action, but rather about cultivating a healthy dose of self-doubt and recognising the limitations of our own self-awareness. Have you ever had a memory so vivid, yet so wrong? That's confabulation doing its best to keep life interesting. The Thought That Counts. We like to believe our opinions are carefully constructed, the product of years of thoughtful consideration and objective analysis. We imagine ourselves as impartial judges, weighing all the evidence before arriving at a reasoned conclusion. But the truth is, our opinions are often less about objective reality and more about something far more insidious, confirmation bias. Confirmation bias is the tendency to seek out, interpret, and remember information that confirms our existing beliefs whilst conveniently ignoring or downplaying anything that challenges them. This selective exposure creates the illusion that our opinions are based on solid evidence. After all, everywhere we look, we see information that supports our point of view. But this is a distorted picture of reality. We're only seeing one side of the story, carefully manufactured by our own biases. It can lead to polarisation, making it harder to understand opposing viewpoints and find common ground. It can also reinforce harmful stereotypes and prejudices. It's a reminder that the world is complex and nuanced, and that our own perceptions are often coloured by our pre-existing beliefs. Stepping beyond our limiting viewpoint even if it's only just occasionally, can broaden our horizons and lead to a deeper understanding of the world around us. If at first you don't succeed, blame it on confirmation bias try again with more selective evidence. The Thought That Counts. Have you ever learned something new and then almost immediately felt like you knew it all along You might even wonder why it took you so long to figure it out in the first place. This just isn't you. It's a common trick that our minds play called hindsight bias, and it can significantly distort how we perceive our own learning process. Hindsight bias is the tendency to believe after an event has occurred that we accurately predicted it beforehand. Our brains are constantly trying to make sense of the world and create coherent narratives. Hindsight bias helps us to do this by smoothing out the rough edges of our learning process. After we learn a new fact, concept, or skill, our brains conveniently rewrite our memories, making it seem like we possess that knowledge all along. We minimise the surprise or confusion we might have initially felt and exaggerate how confident we were in our previous understanding, even if it was completely wrong. This makes us feel more competent and in control, and it's even a bit of self-deception. It's a reminder that learning is a journey, not a destination, and that even the most obvious truths were once unknown. In hindsight, it's easy to see that hindsight bias was going to happen. The Thought That Counts. We're wired to find meaning. We crave explanations, connexions, and stories that make sense of the world around us. But this desire for meaning can sometimes lead us astray, causing us to see patterns where none exist. This is the essence of the Texas sharpshooter fallacy, and it's a trap we can all fall into. Imagine a Texas sharpshooter who fires his gun at a barn wall, seemingly at random. He then walks up to the wall, draws a circle around the cluster of bullet holes, and declares himself a marksman. He's found a pattern, but it's entirely manufactured. He shot first and then created the target. This is precisely what the Texas sharpshooter fallacy does to our thinking. We observe a seemingly meaningful outcome, then look for a cause, ignoring the role of random chance. We choose the data that fits our narrative while conveniently overlooking everything else. It's a reminder that our intuition can sometimes mislead us. By understanding this cognitive bias, we can become more critical thinkers and avoid the trap of seeing patterns where none exist. It's a call for intellectual humility and a recognition that the world is often far more random than we'd like to believe. Why stress over consistent results when you can choose the ones that match your hypothesis? That's the Texas sharpshooter fallacy, turning randomness into precision, one retroactive target at a time. I'm Robin Hills from EI for Change, Empowering your Emotional Management. The Thought That Counts.