Tag Archives: Standard Biases

Hearts Vs. Heads

By Robin Hanson · November 30, 2009 9:00 pm · Comments (17)

Our minds are big, and composed of many parts.  When our parts disagree, other folks tend to see some parts of our minds as more their allies than other parts.  And such folks will tend to support their allies by encouraging us to give more weight in our minds to their allied parts.

One big division in our mind seems to be between our “heart” and our “head.”  But oddly, literature seems to contain far more examples of folks being encouraged to follow their hearts than their heads.  Why this difference?  Katja Grace ponders:

My favorite explanation at the moment is that we always do what our hearts tell us, but explain it in terms of abstract fabrications when our hearts’ interests do not align with those we are explaining to. Rationalization is only necessary for bad news. … We dearly want to do whatever our listener would have, but are often forced by sensible considerations to do something else.

OK, but why do we not as often give the reverse excuse, that we cannot do what our listener and head wants, because our heart compels us otherwise?  I suggested:

We usually know more about what their heart wants than what their head wants. So if they were going to lie they could just lie about what their head wants – no need to invoke the heart.

Here’s another heart-over-head theory:

Maybe the heart is stupider than the head, so we’re more often tempted to fool someone by appealing to their heart. Similarly, we’d prefer to negotiate with the less sharp partner in a business partnership.

Bryan tells me that for the thinking vs. feeling, or “agreeableness”, personality type dimension, more agreeable folks trust their head less and cooperate more via positive heart feelings.  Negative heart feelings, such as anger, are described via other personality dimensions.  So does “think with your heart” really just mean “be more agreeable” and so “succumb to my social pressure”?   If so why don’t those negative feelings come as easily to mind?

Are there other plausible theories?

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Status Quo Institution Bias

By Robin Hanson · November 23, 2009 2:25 pm · Comments (25)

New studies show existence and positive purpose biases.  First, we presume that what exists is better that what is not:

People treat the mere existence of something as evidence of its goodness. Studies 1 and 2 demonstrate that an existing state is evaluated more favorably than an alternative. Study 3 shows that imagining an event increases estimates of its likelihood, which in turn leads to favorable evaluation; the more likely that something will be, the more positively it is evaluated. Study 4 shows that the more a form is described as prevalent, the more aesthetically attractive is that form. … Mere existence leads to assumptions of goodness; the status quo is seen as good, right, attractive, tasty, and desirable.

Second, we presume the universe is designed to achieve broad positive purposes:

Children in first, second, and fourth grades were asked whether rocks are pointy because they are composed of small bits of material or in order to keep animals from sitting on them. The children preferred the teleological explanation. … Recent work suggests that it’s not just children: [researchers] found the same tendency to ascribe purpose to phenomena like rocks, sand, and lakes in uneducated Romany adults. They also tested BU undergraduates who had taken an average of three college science classes. When the undergrads had to respond under time pressure, they were likely to agree with nonscientific statements such as “The sun radiates heat because warmth nurtures life.”

For social institutions, these biases combine into a perfect storm: we assume our social institutions are well designed to achieve laudable broad purposes, rather than being more accidental arrangements where we each achieve private purposes holding constant others’ behavior.

Yes things that we have adapted to our needs are probably better than random other things that could be there instead.  I’d rather keep the current parts in my car than replace them with other random objects.  And yes when institutions have varied from place to place the better ones have probably spread further.

But even so we seem far too eager to believe that our current institutions are so well designed that there is little reason to consider alternatives.  This error is encouraged by the above biases, and by the fact that we can show loyalty to our local culture by believing it has superior institutions.  But be warned: it is nevertheless an error.  (And yes, I’ll tediously argue yet again that prediction markets could help correct this error.)

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Trust Puzzle

By Robin Hanson · September 18, 2009 6:00 am · Comments (17)

Highly trustworthy individuals think others are like them and tend to form beliefs that are too optimistic, causing them to assume too much social risk, to be cheated more often and ultimately perform less well than those who happen to have a trustworthiness level close to the mean of the population.  On the other hand, the low-trustworthiness types form beliefs that are too conservative and thereby avoid being cheated, but give up profitable opportunities too often and, consequently, underperform.  Our [empirical] estimates imply that the cost of either excessive or too little trust is comparable to the income lost by foregoing college. [emphasis added]

More here.  How much to trust others does sound like a very important parameter, and it makes sense that errors on this could have large consequences.  But it is puzzling that we make such large errors, apparently unable to learn much useful from those around us about how much to trust.  I could see how a lack of trust might prevent one from learning from others that one should trust more, but how does trusting too much prevent one from learning from others to that one should trust less?

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Seeing Red

By Robin Hanson · September 5, 2009 10:30 pm · Comments (25)

Seeing the color red apparently has large influences on our behavior.  Referees award more points to competitors wearing red, who win more competitions.  Test takers scored worse if their subject number was written in red, women wearing red are asked on dates more, and so on:

“There is now good experimental evidence that red stimuli are perceived as dominant and that they cause negative effects on performance in those viewing them,” Barton says. “It is plausible that wearing red also makes individuals feel more confident, although this hasn’t yet been tested.” …  Mandrills, the world’s largest species of monkey, use colour as a means of conflict management. In males, red faces, rumps and genitalia act as a status symbol, communicating fighting ability. “The brighter red a male is, the higher his testosterone level and the more aggressive he is,” … Other primates use more subtle variations in facial redness to signal dominance. Rhesus monkeys, for example, become redder in the face in the mating season.

Barton believes that red is involved in human behaviour in a similar way. “Subtle variations in redness are conveying information about dominance, vigour and confidence. In an aggressive confrontation, confident individuals flush red with anger whereas frightened individuals go pale. … Even a brief glimpse of red can change human abilities and behaviour in all sorts of ways. … What consistently impresses researchers is the fact that their volunteers rarely suspect that colour plays an important, or indeed any, role in the outcome of an experiment. … “Given that the influence of colour on our behaviour is so prevalent, it’s shocking that we aren’t more aware of it.”

Yes, shocking.  We have two main stories for this lack of awareness: accident and purpose.  Some suggest we shouldn’t expect our conscious minds to know much about how our unconscious minds work, while others suggest an inquisitive and social species like humans could not long remain ignorant about something this important without substantial pressures discouraging such insight.

This purpose story makes more sense to me.  I can see two pressures against insight here:

  1. We avoid seeing our own status moves, including reacting to red as a dominance marker.
  2. We identify ourselves as making decisions based on respectable criteria, which don’t include red effects.
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Blowhard Insight

By Robin Hanson · August 3, 2009 12:15 pm · Comments (5)

David Mazzotta gets me:

The trick when surfing these days is not to find curious bits of entertainment news that is ahead of the curve, but to find high quality thoughtful posting; things of intellectual or critical value that you can really sink your teeth into. In that respect, the web is no different than any other source of communication. So let me recommend four “blogs” where I regularly find thoughtful posts. Were I still an old school blogger, I bet 80% my posts would come from these places.  First and foremost is Overcoming Bias.

Yes, thoughtful is what I’m trying for.  One of the other three blogs is 2blowhards, where I find this insightful gem:

Killing time waiting for The Wife at the hair salon, I leafed through some women’s magazines. … I had a good time noting down some of the fantasies … these magazines’ readers enjoy indulging in:

  • Spend a year in a foreign country, and you’ll discover your true self. …
  • Embracing who and what you are — whatever that means — will make you look ten years younger.
  • Jobs aren’t about selling something others are willing to pay for. Jobs are about personal fulfillment. …
  • Emotions — no matter which, no matter when — need to be faced and worked-through. Then you’ll feel great.
  • Following your instincts and your feelings will always work out for the best. …
  • The troubles of movie stars are just like yours.

No doubt marketing to men involves similarly implausible fantasies.  Marketing seems all about identity, something economists know relatively little about. Makes me want to study the subject more.

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Who Will Fight Group Think?

By Robin Hanson · July 26, 2009 9:00 am · Comments (18)

At TierneyLab, Nickolas Wade complains about groupthink:

Conformity and group-think are attitudes of particular danger in science, an endeavor that is inherently revolutionary because progress often depends on overturning established wisdom. … If the brightest minds on Wall Street got suckered by group-think into believing house prices would never fall, what other policies founded on consensus wisdom could be waiting to come unraveled? Global warming, you say? You mean it might be harder to model climate change 20 years ahead than house prices 5 years ahead? Surely not – how could so many climatologists be wrong?

Wade cites Shiller on group think at the Fed:

Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman, acknowledged in a Congressional hearing last month that he had made an “error” … Mr. Greenspan’s comments may have left the impression that no one in the world could have predicted the crisis. Yet … lots of people were worried about the housing boom and its potential for creating economic disaster. It’s just that the Fed did not take them very seriously.  … Continue Reading "Who Will Fight Group Think?" »

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Stupider Than You Realize

By Robin Hanson · July 4, 2009 9:30 am · Comments (36)

A common bias among the smart is to overestimate how smart everyone else is.  This was certainly my experience in moving from top rank universities as a student to a mid rank university as a teacher.  A better intuition for common abilities can be found by browsing the US National Assesment of Adult Literacy sample questions.

For example, in 1992 out of a random sample of US adults, 7% could not do item SCOR300, which is to find the expiration date on a driver’s license.  26% could not do item AB60303, which is to check the “Please Call” box on a phone message slip when they’ve been told:

James Davidson phones and asks to speak with Ann Jones, who is at a meeting. He needs to know if the contracts he sent are satisfactory and requests that she call before 2:00 p.m. His number is 259-3860. Fill in the message slip below.

Only 52% could do item AB30901, which is to look at a table on page 118 of the 1980 World Almanac and answer:

According to the chart, did U.S. exports of oil (petroleum) increase or decrease between 1976 and 1978?

Only 16% could do item N010301, which is to answer “What is the purpose of the Se Habla Espanol expo?” after reading a short newspaper article called “Se Habla Espanol Hits Chicago; September 25,26,27 are three days that will change your marketing.” The article includes this quote: Continue Reading "Stupider Than You Realize" »

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For The Truth, Ask Friends

By Robin Hanson · June 19, 2009 6:00 am · Comments (9)

John Bargh at The Edge:

“If all these things are going on without my knowledge, then I don’t really know why I’m doing what I’m doing, and I don’t really know myself that well apparently. So how can I make the right decisions or make the right choices for myself when all these biases are throwing my decisions all over the place?”

There’s a really simple answer here, which I like and people also seem to like it. It is to ask your friends, ask your family, ask people who are close to you about yourself. Don’t be afraid to hear what they have to say. Tell them to tell you the truth, because they do know you, and in many ways better than you know yourself.

That’s the funny thing about all of this. It turns out we do know about other people pretty well. We’re much better at predicting other people’s behavior than our own, and Emily Pronin at Princeton, whose research has focused on this issue, gives a great example of when she was deciding on grad schools to go to. Continue Reading "For The Truth, Ask Friends" »

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Pretending To Be What You Are

By Robin Hanson · May 8, 2009 2:00 pm · Comments (9)

Which is harder: pretending to be what you are, or to pretending to be what you are not?   For example, imagine you are a news reporter, and want to, via your style and manners, convince typical folks that you are a) a reporter, or b) a stuntman.  Which task would be easier?   Which task would be easier for the stuntman?  We could ask such questions about not just reporters and stuntmen, but about a wide range of other roles.

The way to convince the public that you are an X is to act the way the public thinks that X folks act.  And the more vivid an image X folks have in the public mind, and the fewer real X the public know in person, the more the way X folks are will diverge from how the public thinks they are.  And so the more work it would be for X folks to convince the public, via their manner and style, that they are in fact X.

So while it is probably easier for a shoe salesman to convince folks that they sell shoes than that they are a private investigator, I'm guessing that it is harder for a P.I. to convince folks they are a P.I. than that they sell shoes. 

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Telephone Game With Functions

By Robin Hanson · April 22, 2009 6:00 am · Comments (9)

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In the old telephone game each person would pass on a phrase to the next person in the chain; the final phrase might little resemble the first.  An interesting variation appeared in the Phil. Trans. Royal Society last November:

Inductivebias

Here each row is a chain of people passing along a function relating X to Y.  Each person first guesses and is corrected on 50 (X,Y) cases, then just guesses on 100 more cases.  The final guesses of the last person become data for the next person.  The final relations are all basically lines, 7/8 with a positive slope, 1/8 with a negative slope.

The lesson?  When we are mainly rewarded for predicting what others will say on a topic, rather than predicting a more basic reality, our answers become dominated by typical prior expectations; reality has little influence.  HT to Jef Allbright. More from that paper:

Continue Reading "Telephone Game With Functions" »

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