Cognitive biases: Why we fall into thinking traps
Three classics from everyday life:
Yes, smoking (drinking/ eating too much/ …) is unhealthy. But: My grandfather lived to be 96 years old even though he smoked! So, all not that dramatic! It is possible to grow very old as a smoker!
Mark will definitely be a successful team leader because he's such a nice guy!
Surely his phone is broken otherwise he would have called me already after this date!
Why your own logic matters
No matter how strange some statements of others may seem from the outside: The main thing is that our logic is consistent. Us humans love coherent stories. We need coherent stories. We strive for cognitive coherence.
Coherence means that our thought processes and perceptions are logical, coherent, and comprehensible, - that they fit together.
This also means that all new information must fit into our worldview.
Cognitive dissonance
If perceptions, thoughts or experiences do not match or do not fit into our worldview, then we feel uncomfortable. Often we hardly notice it, because our brain has quick, unconscious strategies to deal with such dissonances and makes our world seem coherent again.
Cognitive dissonance is something like a mental contradiction. The contradiction occurs when several pieces of information do not fit together, - and this annoys us. This contradiction feels quite unpleasant and is sometimes hard to bear.
The solution our brain has to resolve these dissonances is:
We reinterpret.
Resolve cognitive dissonance
And hello!! Our brain is great and pretty creative in creating fantastic stories. It is really a construction machine, constructing coherent stories from what is available. And in doing so, it is easier to build plausible stories when we know only a little.
An example of cognitive dissonance and its resolution.
Let's look at these two statements:
Tom admires Mike and thinks Detlef is a coward.
Now Tom finds out that Mike thinks Detlef is brave.
In Tom’s world, these two pieces of information do not fit together. One (unconscious) possibility now would be to simply avoid this thought dilemma and not think about it any further.
However, it is also possible that Tom (unconsciously) constructs a coherent story for himself by reinterpreting information:
"Mike is not as smart as I thought! Otherwise, he wouldn't talk such nonsense!”
"Oh, I suppose Detlef isn't a coward after all!"
“Mike probably feels obligated to say that! After all, his mother is a friend of Detlef's mother. So I'm sure he doesn't really mean that.. “
“I think Mike has gone crazy."
Do you want to try a cognitive dissonance?
You want to try out the feeling of a cognitive dissonance?
Then you have here and now the opportunity to do so! But beware: This feeling could be unpleasant ...
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Question 1:
On a scale of 1-10: How bad do you think it is that 10,000 children starve to death every day?Question 2:
What have you done about it lately?Well, what feeling do you have right now?
And what thoughts come to your mind?Maybe you have the following thoughts:
Hm, donations never arrive anyway...
Is that even true?
I can't help everyone, the world is too big
Besides, I've had quite a lot on my plate lately…
Next time, I promise!
We humans like to see ourselves as rational and logical beings. If we cannot logically justify our behavior, we feel extremely uncomfortable. Our subconscious mind, therefore, helps us with the strategy of offering us a coherent variant. The "pressure" decreases when coherence is restored.
We obviously make the world the way we like it - to avoid unpleasant feelings.
So what? Conclusion
We all do not always act rationally and fall into thinking traps, and we will not be able to avoid them all. What we can do, however, is to become more aware of this fact in important situations.
Knowing about thinking traps also helps us put situations and reactions of others into perspective. Since we all strive for coherence, this explains why our neighbor sometimes fails to recognize the obvious.
All things simply have to fit into our personal worldview.
Therefore, we have a theory that explains why our irrational actions are rational after all. So there is no more dissonance about our illogical thinking - and everything is back in balance. Yay!
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