42 - no - 70(!) insights from "Thinking, Fast and Slow"

1.     Two important facts about our mind: We can be blind to the obvious, and we are also blind to our blindness (p.24)

2.     As you become skilled in a task, its demand for energy diminishes... Talent has similar effects (p.35)

3.     Switching from one task to another is effortful, especially under time pressure...Time pressure is another driver of effort (p.37)

4.     We normally avoid mental overload by dividing our tasks into multiple easy steps, committing intermediate results to long-term memory or to paper (p.38)

5.     Frequent switching of tasks and speeded-up mental work are not intrinsically pleasurable (p.40)

6.     Self-control and deliberate thought apparently draw on the same limited budget of effort (p.40)

7.     Flow neatly separates the two forms of effort: concentration on the task and deliberate control of attention... In a state of flow, maintaining focused attention on these absorbing activities requies no exertion of self-control (p.41)

8.     When you are actively involved in difficult cognitive reasoning or engaged in task that require self-control your blood glucose level drops (p.43)

9.     A lot of persons do not actively check whether an intuitive answer is correct.A failure to check is remarkable, because the cost of checking is so low (p.44)

10.Rationality should be distinguished from intelligence (p.49)

11.Exposure to a word causes immediate and measurable changes in the ease with which many related words can be evoked - priming (p.52) 

12.Money-primed people become more independent...They perservered twice as long in trying to solve a very difficult problem...They are more selfish...They choose to stay much farther apart in a conversation...They showed a greater preference for being alone (p.55)

13.Repeated experience, clear display, a primed idea and a good mood leads to cognitive ease...more intuitive and more creative (p.60/p.69)

14.If you are strained, you invest more effort in what you are doing and make fewer errors (p.60)

15. People are prone to apply causal thinking inappropriately, to situations to statistical reasoning... yoiu can learn to think statistically, but few people receive the necessary training (p.77)

16. When we are tired, low on energy or extremely busy (thinking abut something), we will believe almost everything (p.81)

17. Test hypothesis by trying to refute them. People seek data that are likely to be compatible with the beliefs they currently hold. We are wired to favor uncritical acceptance of suggestions and exaggerations of likelihood of extreme and improbable events (confirmation bias) (p.81)

18. To derive the most useful information from multiple sources, you should always try to make these sources independent of each other. The standard procedure of open discussion (in meetings) gives to much weight to those who speak early and assertively, causing others to line up behind them (halo effect) A simple rule can help: Before an issue is discussed ask everyone to write a very brief summary of their position. (p.84)

19. It is the consistency of the information that matters for a good story, not its completeness. Indeed, knowing little makes it easier to fit everything you know into a coherent pattern.  Neither the quantity nor the quality counts for much in subjective confidence. #storytelling (p.87)

20. People judge competence by combining the two dimensions of strength and trustworthiness (Alex Todorov). The faces that exude competence combine a strong chin with a slight confident-appearing smile. (p.91)

21. Our mind represents categories by a prototype or a set of typical exemplars, it deals well with averages but poorly with sums... The accuracy of these judgments is not influenced when cognitively busy #relative estimation (p.93)

22. A heuristic is a simple procedure that helps find adequate, though often imperfect, answers ... Substituting one question for another can be a good strategy for solving difficult problems (substitution) (p.98) + “If you can’t solve a problem, than there is an easier problem to solve” (George Polya)

23. The present state of mind looms very large when people evaluate their happiness. (p.103) ->It is a stupid question to ask people about their feelings about the last sprint in the retro as on opener

24. Extreme outcomes (both high and low) are more likely to be found in small than large samples (the law of small numbers) #leanstartup (p.111)

25. Professionals are almost as susceptible to anchoring as random people. The difference is, that professionals deny that influence. (p.124)

26. #anchoring

27. People who are asked difficult questions clutch at straws,  and the anchor is a plausible straw. ... Anchors that are obviously random can be just as effective as potentially informative anchors (p.125)

28. The anchoring effect is reduced or eliminated when focusing on e.g. a minimum offer that the opponent would accept, or on the cost to the opponent of failing to reach an agreement. A strategy of deliberately “thinking the opposite” may be a good defense against anchoring effects, because it negates the biased recruitment of thoughts that produces these effects (p.126)

29. #teams

30. Many members of collaborative teams fell they have done more than their share and also feel that the others are not adequately grateful for their individual contribution. Tensions often arise, when several people at once feel that their efforts are not adequately recognized. The mere observation that there is usually more than 100% credit is sometimes sufficient to defuse the situation (availability bias) (p.131)

31. Self-ratings were dominated by the ease with which examples had come to mind. The experience of fluent retrieval of instances trumped the number retrieved. (p.132) If you provide explanation for the fluency of retrieval they experienced, the influence goes away. (p.134) People who are personally involved in the judgment are able to retrieve more examples and less likely to go by influence.

32. When people frown while doing a task, they actually try harder and experience greater cognitive strain. (p.132)

33. Reminding people of a time when they had power increases their apparent trust in their own intuition (p.135)

34. People form opinions and make choices that directly express their feelings and their basic tendency to approach or avoid, often without knowing that they are doing so. (Paul Slovic, affect heuristics) (p.139) #think=like

35. How to discipline intuition? To be useful, your beliefs should be constrained by the logic of probability. Disciplined bayesian reasoning: Anchor your judgment of probability of an outcome on a plausible base rate. Question the diagnosticity of your evidence (intuition) (p.154)

36. Subject’s unwillingness to deduce the particular from the general was matched only by their willingness to infer the general from the particular. Statistical results with a causal interpretation have a stronger effect on our thinking than noncausal information.  But even compelling causal statistics will not change long held beliefs rooted in personal experience. On the other hand, individual cases have a powerful impact. (p.174) #storytelling

37. An important principle of skill training:  rewards for improved performance work better than punishment for mistakes (p.175) #motivation

38. Poor performance was typically followed by improvement and good performance by deterioration (p. 176)

39. We are statistically punished for being nice and rewarded for being nasty (p.176)

40. Our mind is strongly biased toward causal explanations and does not deal well with “mere statistics”. (p. 182)

41. Your intuitions will deliver predictions that are too extreme and you will be inclined to put far too much faith in them. (p. 194)

42. The explanatory stories that people find compelling are simple, rather concrete than abstract, assign a larger role to talent, stupidity, and intentions than to luck; and focus on a few striking events that happened rather than on the countless events that failed to happen. Good stories provide a simple and coherent account of people’s actions and intentions. (p.199) #storytelling

43. The human mind does not deal well with nonevents (p.200)

44. You build the best possible story from the information available to you, and if it is a good story, you believe it. Paradoxically, it is easier to construct a coherent story when you know little, when there are fewer pieces to fit into the puzzle. (p. 201) #storytelling

45. When an unpredicted event occurs, we immediately adjust our view of the world to accommodate the surprise... A general limitation of the human mind is its imperfect ability to reconstruct past states of knowledge, or beliefs that changed. Once you adopt a new view of the world, you immediately lose much of your ability to recall what you used to believe before your mind changed. (p. 202)

46. If an event had actually occurred, people exaggerated the probability that they had assigned to it earlier. If the possible event had not come to pass, the participants erroneously recalled that they had always considered it unlikely...  The tendency to revise the history of one’s beliefs in light of what actually had happened produces a robust cognitive illusion. (hindsight) (p.203)

47. When the outcomes are bad, the clients often blame their agents for not seeing the handwriting on the wall (outcome bias) (p. 203)

48. Decision makers who expect to have their decisions scrutinized with hindsight are driven to bureaucratic solutions – and to extreme reluctance to take risks. (p.204) #riskaversion

49. The illusion that one understands the past feeds the further illusion that one can predict and control the future. These illusions are comforting. They reduce the anxiety that we would experience if we allowed ourselves to fully acknowledge the uncertainties of existence. #goodtogreat #future

50. The halo effect and outcome bias combine to explain the extraordinary appeal of books that seek to draw operational morals from systematic examination of successful businesses...Because luck plays a large role, the quality of leadership and management practices cannot be inferred reliably from observations of success. (p. 206) #goodtogreat

51. In domains of uncertainty and unpredictability (e.g.  the prospects of success for new businesses, football matches) the accuracy of experts was matched or exceeded by a simple algorithm. (predictions) (p. 223)

52. Conducting an interview is likely to diminish the accuracy of a selection procedure, if the interviewers also make the final admission decision (decisions, overconfidence) (p.225)

53. Intuition adds value even in the justly derided selection interview, but only after a disciplined collection of objective information and disciplined scoring of separate traits. (intuition+scoring) (p.232)

54. Statistical algorithms outdo humans in noisy environments for two reasons: They are more likely to detect weakly valid cues and much more likely to maintain a modest level of accuracy by using such cues consistently.... Claims for correct intuitions in an unpredictable situation are self-delusional at best, sometimes worse. (expert intuition) (p.241)

55. Short-term anticipation and long term forecasting are different tasks. Experts do have intuitive skills in some of their tasks, but they have not learned to identify the situations and the tasks in which intuition will betray them (p.242)

56. If the environment is sufficiently regular and if the judge has a chance to learn its regularities, the associative machinery will recognize situations and generate quick and accurate predictions and decisions. You can trust someone’s intuition if these conditions are met. (known environment + experienced)

57. The proper way to elicit information from a group is not by starting with a public discussion but by confidentially collecting each person’s judgment. (p.245) #teams

58. The term “planning fallacy” describe plans and forecasts that are unrealistically close to best-case scenarios and could be improved by consulting the statistics of similar cases... The treatment for the planning fallacy is called “reference class forecasting” (p.250)

59. Confidence is valued over uncertainty and there is a prevailing censure against disclosing uncertainty... An unbiased appreciation of uncertainty is a cornerstone of rationality, but its not what people and organizations want. (p.263)

60. The main benefit of optimism is resilience in the face of setbacks (optimism) (p. 263)

61. When the organization has nearly come to an important decision, but has not formally committed itself hold a brief session: “Imagine that we are a year in the future. We implemented the plan, as it now exists. The outcome was a disaster. Please take 5-10 minutes to write a brief history of that disaster.” (premortem, Gary Klein) (p. 264) The suppression of doubt contributes to overconfidence in a group where only supporters of the decisions have a voice. The main virtue of a “premortem” is, that is legitimates doubt.

62. When directly compared or weighted against each other, losses loom larger than gains. (loss aversion) (p.282) A reference point can be a status quo, but it can also be a goal in the future: not achieving the goal is a loss, exceeding the goal is a gain. (p.303) #learning

63. People fight harder to prevent losses than to achieve gains.... Plans for reform almost always produces many winners and some losers while achieving an overall improvement.... Loss aversion is a powerful conservative force that favors minimal changes from the status quo in the live of both institutions and individuals (p. 305)

64. Unfairly imposing losses on people can be risky if the victims are in a position to retaliate (reference dependent fairness) (p.308)

65. People expect to have a stronger emotional reactions (including regret) to an outcome that is produced by action than to the same outcome when its produced by inaction (p.348) The asymmetry in the risk of regret favors conventional and risk averse choices. There is an intense aversion to trading increase risk for some other advantage. (p.351)

66. The number of entries is given no weight in single evaluation, because the numbers are not evaluable on their own. In joint evaluation (comparison) the number of entries is far more important than the individual quality alone. (p.360) #ebay

67. A bad outcome is much more acceptable if it is framed as the cost of a lottery ticket that did not win than if it is simply describing losing a gamble... Losses evoke stronger negative feelings than costs. (emotional framing) (p. 364)

68. The memory of people overweight peaks and the end of experiences of pain and pleasure, while neglecting duration. #storytelling

69. We cannot fully trust our preferences to reflect our interests, even if they are based on personal experience, and if the memories of that experience were laid down within the quarter of an hour. Tastes and decisions are shaped by memories, and the memories can be wrong! (p. 384)

70. Libertarian Paternalism: nudge people to make decisions that serve their own long-term interest by usage of opt-out. The default option is naturally perceived as the normal choice. (p.413)