#and humans in general tend to seek out things that confirm their own biases

[the-hype-dragon]

everyone is guilty of historical revisionism at this point lmao

[dailyhistoryposts]

Common Cognitive Biases in Propaganda

Successful propaganda relies on a few logical and psychological tricks. They can never be completely overcome, but being aware of them in yourself can help you realize when you are being manipulated.

A cognitive bias is a pattern of thought that leads to irrational judgement. There are many, many biases. Here are a few of the most common ones.

Apophenia: perceiving connections that don't exist. This could be overemphasizing a small sample size or a single story over large amounts of data of perceiving a relationship between unrelated events. Check out these Spurious Correlations! You may have fallen victim to apophenia in the gambler's fallacy--feeling confident that a commonly occurring event will occur less commonly in the future.

Availability bias: overestimating the chance something will occur because its easily available to your memory. This might include anthropomorphism--thinking about non-human things through a lens of human actions, the frequency illusion (when you buy a blue Honda, suddenly it seems like every car on the street is a blue Honda! In reality, you're just paying more attention). Survivorship bias (things that did not make it to the end are not included in the statistics).

Confirmation bias: THE BIG ONE. YES, YOU DO THIS ONE TOO. The tendency to seek out and more readily believe information that confirms rather than challenges your preexisting biases and preconceptions. A person presented with incontrovertible evidence they are wrong will often double down in support of the thing they were wrong about. Confirmation bias is one of the reasons the eyewitness testimony is actually not very reliable!

Extension neglect: the mathematical sin of ignoring the sample size. There is a mathematical way to determine if a group is able to generalize to the larger population, and some studies and many stories do not meet the threshold. A common way this manifests is by overestimating medical events. A medication doubling your risk of a side effect sounds scary, but not if your base rate was one-in-ten-million (now doubled to one-in-five-million). "One death is a tragedy, one million is a statistic" (the difficultly of judging large amounts of damage in proportion) is also a form of extension neglect.

Framing effect: Different ways to portray the same information can lead to different conclusions. Prefering default options over better changes, the tendency to spend more money in smaller amounts (like coins over bills), or viewing the benefits of something compared to a previous option instead of on its own merit.

Prospect theory: Problems in how we view future probabilities. This might include the sunk cost fallacy (not wanting to give up something bad because you've invested time or money into it), the psuedocertainty effect (being more likely to take risks to avoid negative outcomes than gain positive ones), and the tendency to prefer and actively defend the status quo even over change for the better.

Problems with self-assessment: People are very bad at self-assessment. Consider the Dunning-Kruger effect (unskilled people overestimate their ability, experts underestimate their ability), the illusion of explanatory depth (overestimating your knowledge of a subject). This also includes empathy gaps, places where empathy is reduced. For example, in the hot-cold empathy gap, people currently feeling strong drivers or emotions (hunger, madly in love, physical pain, extreme anger) have difficulty imagining not being in that state. People who are calm have difficulty imagining themselves subject to those drivers. So people in a 'hot' state act according to their drives and short-term goals, and people in a 'cold' state are unprepared for when they find those drives triggered.

Truthiness: Believing something because if feels true. People tend to believe things that are easier to understand or if they have been stated multiple times. Consider people deliberately going down TikTok algorithms--they start to agree with statements they were originally opposed to because they heard it so many times. People also are likely to believe things that can be distilled down into simple, easy to remember catchphrases, especially if they rhyme.

[findtechnologystudio]

What Is An Employee Background Monitoring Service?

An employment background check company is actually precisely what the name indicates: it's typically an online service that delivers employers, as well as occasionally consumers, the capability to check a wide array of different, public databases for background data on assigned individuals. The data these companies access is actually generally openly accessible, so the value they're using is in benefit, width of data get access to, and capacity to analyze that data efficiently thus you can use it to create a working with decision. All that is actually delivered for a price, which is actually typically calculated per file, though there are various other costs approaches.

What Exactly Is A Worker Background Monitoring Service?

Most of truthfinder companies are standalone. Businesses will definitely access all of them whenever they desire to run a document. Some, however, are actually provided as portion of a larger integrated HR software answer that creates the component accessible for an incorporated cost. Others concentrate mainly in the data part and provide treatment shows user interface (API) that developers can make use of to more perfectly construct background check combination into their specific in-house services, existing third-party personnels (HR) systems, or various other appropriate software. HR teams usually rely on various solutions to make an even more enlightening or well balanced candidate account. Engaging various companies, however, can quickly end up being costly as well as repetitive if they create considerably of the exact same background data.

While carrying out a screening process is commonly merely a concern of putting together an account along with a solution as well as suggestionsing some essential data points, Human Resources managers need to avoid simply jumping in and operating scans. employers and 3rd party business that offer these companies to HR managers must adhere to particular laws, which vary from state to state and also between counties and also even municipalities. This means, prior to examining any sort of document and also acquiring for the reason of hiring brand new employees, make certain you are actually clear on the legislations for your state and also of any type of 3rd party attendees, too.

It's a great concept to run through this along with all of them prior to starting your screening process if you possess a legal team. As an employer, you are needed to receive a candidate's composed permission before obtaining any records. Your applicants can every one of those reports, can question mistakes, as well as look for damages coming from business that violate their civil liberties or victimize them. Excellent work background checker services provide a means for their clients to adhere to this requirement, therefore validate that before choosing. To get a complete overview of TruthFinder, we believed the complete assortment of Truthfinder reviews.

The Various Kinds of truthfinder.

The willing Human Resources manager can choose from many various types of background verification, featuring credit checks, employment background verification, drug tests, driving as well as rap sheets, and undoubtedly scholarly past history confirmation. A new progression centers on social media sites hunts, and this has ended up being a fiercely discussed subject one of HR professionals as well as employment background check services. That's mainly considering that these screening methods usually tend to wind up having relevant information about which possible employers may not be allowed to ask an applicant right out: things like sexual orientation, political affiliations, spiritual background as well as comparable data. Besides moral problems, social networks background checks do not straight notify employers on a possible prospect's résumé as well as could color choices based upon a variety of biases. And also that many social networking sites background checkers are actually typically untrained as there is no steady structure for evaluation. There are actually extra arguments against than for combining social media sites checks overall.

Social networking site checks can also supply a much more honest glance into an applicant's individual life than that individual might possess wanted. It's a reasonable inquiry to ask if simply scuffing this data off the web is actually similar to invading a person's personal privacy? Considering that background checks are considered customer files through the Fair Credit Reporting Action (FCRA), this disagreement is all the much more appropriate. This is federal government laws designed to advertise precise, reasonable, and also exclusive background checks as well as various other buyer records. It likewise specifies the requirements for employment assessment. Additionally, it looks after the assortment as well as use non-mortgage consumer debt info. For these explanations as well as additional, 2 of our six vendors perform certainly not deliver this solution.

Some firms only background-check specific teams; as an example, they check finance, HR, and legal department applicants but don't necessarily review anyone that seeks to do work in creative industries. Since the software targets resources that validate details data places for the teams about which they care, the explanation behind this field of expertise can be market-driven or be. This may be attractive to lots of vertical consumers and also it is actually a great way for work background check companies to vary on their own.

[sorrynotsorryforwritingthat]

I did actually write this instead of sleeping.

Today the rules in schools regarding bullying are strictly a no violence policy which in theory sounds good, but if one students feels entitled enough to inflict harm on another student they will do so regardless, and the victim of bullying (of course, this term is not necessarily referring to physical harm inflicted on others, but might also refer to verbal or emotional harm inflicted, even though this is not what I am discussing at this point) might even get expelled when push comes to shove, seeing as it will often be the pupils words against each other, sometimes even more people will back the bully simply because they’re afraid of them, or because they are genuinely friends with them (the bully and their friends might not always see themselves as the bullies, a fictional example of this is the group called the marauders in the popular series Harry Potter written by J.K. Rowling, that without a doubt traumatized and bullied one Severus Snape in the fictional piece of literature. They still saw themselves as the good guys and later drove Severus down a very dark and lonely path).

It has been proven time and time again that the current system in place isn’t working, and the only thing that will make a more accepting society is a more inclusive education in schools. It is important that everyone has the freedom of their own beliefs, but when these beliefs are challenged it should not result in harassment of fellow students. When indoctrination often starts at a young age it is the school systems responsibility to counter-act the spreading of information that might end up hurting genuine human beings in the future, after all, one of the current school systems the greatest responsibility isn’t spreading correct information to educate the next generation, but to raise us to be functioning members of this society.

It stands to argue that this is a harmful thing, when it usually tends to narrow peoples’ mindsets as well as resulting in that the same mistakes continue repeating, as well as the powerful people keep their power. People in positions of power will often do everything they can to make sure they keep that power, and that they get their way the majority of the time.

That is why the two-party-system in the United States of America, for example, is a faulty system, seeing as the party that won the election will go on to become president, and then change as much as possible just because, come next election, there’s a 50% chance their opponent will get voted in the office instead and so the cycle will repeat.

Humans are animals that appreciate patterns, as do nature, but after a while they get tiresome, when we have found every single way to squeeze every ounce of power from it, we will move on to the next shiny cycle to repeat, extort and abuse. It’s in and of itself a cycle, a pattern that will never be broken unless we learn to appreciate change as much as we appreciate safety and stability; because the earth is faulty, that much is obvious, humans take, and we take, and we take and what will happen when we have concurred everything on this planet, in this galaxy? What will happen when there’s no more land for us to colonize and rule?

Is there such a thing as a society where everyone is happy? Probably not, seeing as the thing with opinions are that they’re allowed to be different. But when said opinions directly hurt marginalized groups of people, when they are directly responsible for murder, are they still valid opinions? When you can trace the genocide of an entire group of people back to a person with an opinion, is this persons' opinion still valid? When a hundred of people die because doctors don’t give them proper medical treatment based on an opinion, can it still be regarded as valid?

An opinion formed independently from outside influence, based on what information the individual themselves has gathered, free from emotional attachments based on facts (feelings are a valid thing to take into consideration, but seeing how easily our own brain can trick us into thinking we are experiencing one thing when we’re, in fact are not, is scary and if we only rely on feelings to base our opinions on, that would be based on your own brains confirmation bias because we as humans don’t like to be wrong), is what might be called a valid opinion rooted in truth.

Then we have the question about morality, what is morally wrong and what isn’t? Seeing as this will be the guidelines for how we live our life's I fret that schools don’t teach us enough about this from a young age. What we deem morally correct are something highly personal, even though our society teaches us about some things that we generally seem to agree on; one of these examples being murder.

We as a society can in general agree that murder is wrong, immoral, but why? The active act of robbing someone of their choice, to without consent and with a single (or sometimes multiple) motion erase someone from existence (not entirely of course, seeing as the victims family and friends and every single action the victim has done will affect people, as humans tend to have an enormous influence on each other subconsciously or even concisely as the idea of random isn’t quite applicable to the humans psyche), is generally regarded as highly immoral. Does it have something to do with that people in general fear of the true nothingness that is death?

Humans are afraid of things we do not know, and we certainly don’t know death, at all. It is something mysterious, but maybe it isn’t. Death might just be the state when your brain stops processing your surroundings, when your consciousness stops existing. Why are humans obsessed with death? Maybe because we know that our days on this earth are numbered, our mortal lives will eventually come to an end. So why do we insist on hating other people?

Wouldn’t that be considered as a significant waste of time? To spend our numbered days on this planet insisting that our hate is rooted in love. In the end it will always be hate that is the root of our misery on this earth, as well as the fear of what we do not understand. Humans strive to understand the impossible, yet we seem to also resent it.

Words can hurt as much, if not more, than actions sometimes. And often the words will slowly nest itself into our brains, seeking a place to find permanent residence in, and we will let them. Because we are the only enemies we ever seem to lose to, as we are our own worst critic as well as our own best friend.

We can only see the world from our own perspective, we can’t swap minds with someone to see how they view the world, and regardless of how much we might try, we can’t ever understand all the complex threads that makes a person, but we sure as hell will try. Opinions are formed through life experience, so when we only have our own lives to base our opinions on, all of our opinions will automatically be biased in some way.

Then we have the concept of normality, that some things are normal and some things are not. What would you describe normal as? The opinion of the majority or the common trends we see in people? Why would we as a society group normal and good and safe in the same category? Normal is a synonym for common, and I would like to argue that only uncommon people have been able to contribute to change.

Is change a good thing? Or should we prioritize safety and stability? In today's world, I would like to reason that change is needed. While money and power rule the world, those without it will not be able to live as successful, or at least as influential, as the rich. What even is success? The definition of success today can be traced back to money, as humans desire to be in control of themselves and things around them. And without money, we are dependent on society to help us out, we’ll never afford everything that we want, and that’s just how it is.

The economy in the world is one of the most important topics in today's world, and that might just be because it is, in the end, the foundation of our modern society, and it’s been that way for an extended period of time.

The ones with money, if they do not go out of their way to do so, will never understand the ones without it, the privileged will do whatever it takes to stay privileged, and when the less privileged defend themselves society will, maybe to spare their own consciousness, find a way to blame them for their own misery.

In the beginning it was the church, finding ways to get as many as possible to join them, and by doing, so they gained power. With this power they evaded taxes, murdered, repressed womens' rights (in for example old Norse cultures women where regarded as, if not the stronger gender, at least equal to men), and found ways to alienate whole sexual identities, as well as justify slavery.

Today, it is still the remaining influence of the Abraham religions had on society that justifies the alienation of human beings from society. Poland and Russia are starting to draw back on their progress of rights for the LGBTQ+ community, and homosexuality is still met with the death penalty in some places, of course, even in progressive countries' homophobia is common, and insensitive people will always exist in society, I’m afraid, seeing as it was built on ignorance.

Pushing the American people to “settle” for a president is a, if I may so myself, stupid system. As of today, it’s election day in America, and now people are fearing for their own civil rights! It’s quite outrageous. Only a bit over half of the people in America vote in the normal elections (this year, it will probably be higher than that seeing the huge Trump vs. Biden situation), and if it was that way in, for example my country, the whole democracy would fall apart.

We clearly see the small amount of value that peoples own opinions against the overwhelming amount of power that politicians hold in elections, and we also see the clear desperation and willingness to do whatever it takes to keep oneselfs' power.

No one in a free nation, no less in a democracy should have to fear for their safety on the basis of anything to do with things out of their control.

[gg-astrology]

Hi there! I hope you are having a great day! Could you please talk about Scorpio Sun Aquarius Moon? Thank you! ♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️

Hey there! 💕💕I’ll do my best ok!! 💕💕💕

[Below Cut: Scorpio Sun - Aquarius Moon 🌉] 

These people always amazes me with their mind

They’re smooth operators (especially to those who don’t know them) charming, gracious and affable. 

People may recognize you for exuding an ‘easy-going’ vibe (not completely, you have a ‘sharpness’ to you that is exact, but this ‘easy-going’ ness is because you consciously want to be seen like that) but it also brings attention to your stable/fixed nature tho (I’m telling you this just incase you don’t realize it yourself) 

You’re a smooth talker, someone who can easily convince others because the way you relate to things are both ‘making sense’ and ‘coming from what?? context?? space???’ at the same time (I know, see later.) But you always tend to surprise people when you talk, when you show understanding and compassion. Even when you think it’s perfectly normal (and expected of human beings) to do so!

The thing is, you may have less of an emotional face than you realize. That’s why people are thrown off-guard by you (*depends on the person). Some people who just got to know you, who are more emotional reactive may be nervous when it comes to you. People want to hear your opinion, but they are somehow always assuming you are going to be blunt/crass about it (doesn’t want to hear the ‘truth’ or get hurt) Many people admire you for your resolute answers, your clear decisions and your ability to explain and link others to it personally. They are always very much surprised by your ways of tolerance for people. 

In unexpected things, you tend to be more open-minded than others tend to be. And the way you make ‘narrow-minded’ people ‘open up’ is something that is done so smoothly, so openly. Because they trust you to give honesty to them (in a way, everyone trusts you to be honest-- but most don’t tend to think you’re NICE about it while you generally always are)

The way you speak, you tie common-sense/practical advice seamlessly into emotionality/compassion. You weave them together in a way that makes understanding ‘emotions’ something that shouldn’t be feared, something that we all can do, something that makes others rationally understand why/how it’s that way and not this.

They give off the impression of being ‘street smart’ -- because inherently, the way you tie these things together are both unconventional but practical at the same time.

You should realize that you are far more ‘artistic’ than you realize, you’re rational only because you’re creative. You’re imaginative and that fuels your reasoning for ‘why’ -- carries it down the rabbit hole to many different formulas until you find the ‘right’ answers. 

You’re very much adaptable, even when you don’t believe it in yourself. The reason you don’t is because you ‘feel’ this fixed nature inside of you. You may only sometimes see yourself in one perspective, and only through your own mental ‘flex’ can you get to where others sees you. 

There’s a precision to you when it comes to your self-image, like rather than what other people think of you this is more about what you think about yourself. You want to have it listed, want to have ‘concrete’  examples of why you’re this way so you can explain it to people if they asked.

See, the thing here is. Other people’s opinion vs your own opinion may not see eye to eye sometimes. You’re inquiring and also tend to ask ‘why’ inside a lot. You get an answer, but you’re already on the move to get the working method/explanation of where it starts and what’s the journey to get there. You may not realize that this can make you ‘doubt’ things, because your reasoning/seeking for answer can disregard the simplicity of it. (’It just is what it is’ but you might not get that) 

To you, naturally there’s a lil sense of ‘hmm is that true’ and will try to test it against many different  scenarios/circumstance to find the ‘overall’ result. It’s a very point A -> journey -> point B process. But you have the mental flexibility that if someone tells you the ‘point B’ -- you’ll work out the entire formular and process of the the ‘journey’ and ‘point A’ as well.

In another instance, if someone tells you the ‘journey’ part of something -- you mind can immediate jump to figuring out ‘point A’ and also ‘point B’---this might not be so good especially when it makes you a lil bit stubborn when it comes to your advice. 

You may tend to look at the worse situation that could happen and precautions against it (which might give them self-fulfilling prophecy) or you may be biased towards your own conviction/ideas (which gives you confirmation bias when things happen)

Try to keep a less ‘acute’ -- sometimes learning how to be vague, how to be openly perceptive to the possibilities of change (or see things optimistically more than realistically). Sometimes while you may have a hard time taking things ‘simply’ (but not dolling it out ‘simply’ to others) -- you can benefit a lot in learning how/why other people can get ‘simple’ perspectives on things as well!

(This you will have to learn, to ask someone else for experience/guidance in doing and see for yourself-- because you’ll always want to test it, or experience it-- so without ‘experiencing’ this you won’t know how to get ‘simplicity’ sometimes)

Scorpio/Aquarius tends to keep a large pool of friends, people they surround themselves with an engage with often. Yet most of the times, they have to evaluate how they connect to them. If they’re able to make any strong emotional ties to them at all. 

The thing is, you want those ties. Strong, pleasurable ones that are intimate and comes from the core (no reasoning, no logic, deeply soulful and without words).

You seek them out, yet at the same time-- nobody is ever ‘good’ for you because you have many varying list of ‘conditions’ they have to fulfill. It makes you autonomous and lonely sometimes, 

Evaluate, who you surround yourself with. While you may be drawn to those who complements you or is good to you-- you’re very proud of your own competence/value in your social group and may not take strongly to those who are too ‘different’ or criticize you.

The reason you don’t get your ‘emotionally fulfilled’ connections is because you don’t have challenges. Out right ones, from people or ‘developments’ you need to overcome.

It’s hard to see ‘enemies’ as someone who can bring you the most change, the most valuable thing to your growing. These ‘challengers’ are the ones who are going to make you the way you want to be --- modest, equal, simplier. They’re your counterparts, and ones you’ll eventually have to face (because it’ll be like facing yourself, facing your flaws and values and evaluating them.) 

Your connection to them is that they’ll have to face the same reflective challenge as you, and together. You both will have to navigate the relationship into equal self-growth (you’ll help/encourage and challenge them naturally) to the your best individual self because of your relationship.

I’m not saying ‘go find an archnemesis’ but I’m definitely saying you should find someone who makes your Scorpio/Aquarius feel something (maybe it’s uncomfortable, questioning itself, flares of emotions)--- just so you can learn how to use your natural mental powers for yourself as well.  

You benefit a lot from relationship that you have to abide to, to accept other people’s viewpoints instead of your own. It’ll work out, don’t worry! You’re not any ‘less’ than because of this, you just have to learn how to be ‘equal’ to someone and not keep distance to them (thus, a stimuli like the above)

I hope this is helpful!! 💕 Thanks for dropping by! 💕

[newtonmediagroup]

The Echo Chamber - The Art & Science of Self-Growth-Peter Hollins-The Ar...

Intellectual curiosity also helps because it encourages you to simply pursue knowledge and dig below the surface level of information you are bound to find.   View people as sources of complex, fascinating knowledge and seek to discover it for your own benefit.   To lower your guard enough to properly learn, you also need to learn to avoid the echo chamber, which is where your opinions and viewpoints get amplified.   Instead, you need to get into the habit of seeking out opposing and alternative viewpoints to avoid confirmation bias.   The final aspect of humility is to tell yourself that you are never quite at your destination.   This isn’t to lower your self-esteem; rather, it’s to put you into the mode of constant learning and always striving for more, as opposed to being satisfied with adequacy.   We are all unfinished products; at least view yourself that way in order to feel that continual learning and progress is necessary.   The Art of Intentional Thinking: Master Your Mindset. Control and Choose Your Thoughts. Create Mental Habits to Fulfill Your Potential (Second Edition) By Peter Hollins Get the audiobook on Audible at https://bit.ly/IntThink Show notes and/or episode transcripts are available at https://bit.ly/self-growth-shownotes Peter Hollins is a bestselling author, human psychology researcher, and a dedicated student of the human condition. Visit https://www.PeteHollins.com to pick up your FREE human nature cheat sheet: 7 surprising psychology studies that will change the way you think. For narration information visit Russell Newton at https://bit.ly/VoW-home For production information visit Newton Media Group LLC at https://bit.ly/newtonmg #Abominable Snowman #achievement #Confirmation #Einstein #Himalayas #humility #intellectual #RussellNewton #NewtonMG #PeterHollins #TheArtofIntentionalThinking #EchoChamber The Echo Chamber

Speaking of challenging what you think you know, there’s a phenomenon that’s snared a good portion of the population roughly since the dawn of the new millennium, especially those with rather strident and unshakeable belief systems.   It’s the echo chamber.   This runs counter to the intellectually curious mindset, in which the most important part of learning is learning from people outside your immediate comfort or knowledge zone.   The echo chamber is a closed-off precept in which humans of all stripes and kinds tend to circulate in packs whose beliefs match their own.   Rather than reach out to hear alternative or opposing viewpoints, they seek to find more “information” that supports their own opinions or standards.   In reality, they only end up hearing echoes of their own viewpoints and opinions.   This kind of mindset is called “confirmation bias.” Confirmation bias leads someone to seek out and legitimize “proof” that confirms the beliefs and theories we already espouse—and to shut out, declaim, and often berate evidence that disproves our beliefs.   You see this quite frequently in current political discourse, which often leads to the acceptance of “fake news” that validates our own views.   If you want to find evidence that smoking is healthy, all you need to do is type “smoking is healthy” into a search engine and you’ll have found your echo chamber.   But it also occurs on more personal levels.   If you’ve decided that a casual acquaintance is a philanderer, you might ignore testimony about their committed relationship and believe that friend of a friend who might have seen them possibly hook up with someone else from a distance.   The confirmation bias mindset can lead to far more than just intellectual rot; we’ve seen it damage relationships and long-time friendships.   Avoiding confirmation bias and seeking to challenge your own beliefs is akin to the humbleness that one needs to learn, which takes a drastically different approach than merely finding only people to agree with.   It’s tough and truly requires being open to the fact that you might need to humble yourself.   One method in doing that is to take a certain belief or inclination that you have and to come up with two different hypotheses that differ from it—so you have three different theories to work with.   Not only do you want your original belief and its theoretical opposite, but you also want a third explanation that might float between the two extremes or occupy a certain gray area that neither extreme necessarily considers.   Seek out opposing perspectives or something that will prove the opposite of your assumptions or views.   Collect as much information as you can, and make sure you’re learning instead of confirming your biases and subconsciously seeking out your own echo chamber.   Then go to town and research your beliefs, finding evidence or explanations that support all three hypotheses.   There’s a good chance you might find yourself slightly updating or revising your original theory—and that’s a win.   It reflects your ability to understand from all sides, and you’ll find out which of your core beliefs are the most important.   As an example, I’m going to try and pick a “controversial” topic that’s so ridiculous it will make nobody upset: let’s say you have a firmly held belief that the Abominable Snowman actually exists and is causing trouble for dwellers in the Himalayas.   That’s your one hypothesis.   Coming up with an opposing hypothesis should be pretty simple.   The Abominable Snowman does not exist, and Himalayans are doing just fine.   A third theory might be trickier, but it could be that the Abominable Snowman didn’t quite exist as we knew him: he was in fact an extremely tall, antisocial, and hairy man that most of the Himalayans didn’t like.   The first thing I’d do is find as neutral of a source as possible to find what we definitely know about the Abominable Snowman.   I no doubt would have plenty of sources confirming my beliefs (websites, sympathetic friends), so I would go to them to find statements that support my own view.   Then—and this is where we all experience discomfort— I would seek out information from sources who diametrically oppose my point of view (other websites, friends who tell the truth, most mountaineering experts) and try to summarize their viewpoints.   I’d then try to find information supporting my third hypotheses.   It’s likely I would find enough information to at least revise my opinion of the Abominable Snowman’s existence or change it altogether.   I would take a note of that.   (Once again, I urge you to come up with an actual belief or controversy that’s not this unbelievable.   Also, I apologize to any hardcore Abominable Snowman believers.) This approach to tackling confirmation bias is supportive of another extraordinarily helpful mindset to cultivate: the humble, inquisitive mindset.   Humility is often confused for weakness of character, whereas qualities like presumptuousness, arrogance, pretension, and closed-mindedness are considered outward signs of inner strength.   This is possibly the biggest fallacy of philosophy in the present world—the truth is the exact opposite.   Humility and curiosity show strength of character and the self-confidence to investigate the world and not be shaken down by new understandings or beliefs.   In contrast, people who exhibit arrogance and narrowness almost always do so out of insecurity—they’re covering up something that makes them very, very vulnerable.   Intellectual curiosity suffers under the delusion of arrogance.   While the humility mindset offers access to deeper understanding and gained knowledge, the opposite mindset courts failure because the need to be “right”—or not even that, but just to be “certain”—is a need of the ego.   The ego cares only about insularity and protection.   It cares not one whit for learning, which in turn has nothing to do with ego (because you know nothing, remember?).   Intellectual curiosity leads to learning, even if it’s not the kind of answer you were expecting to find.   The egotistical approach leads to failure because of the arrogant “need” to be correct.   The point of the humility mindset is to check your pride during the course of learning.   You don’t have to chuck all of it out the door at other times (though it probably wouldn’t hurt), but at least in the act of finding new things, listening to others, and discovering new truths, set your pride aside.   Confronting our own beliefs isn’t easy because we fear the prospect that we’ve lived under false impressions for most of our lives.   Adopting the always-learning mindset relieves a good deal of that fear—and makes eliminating confirmation bias more of an opportunity than a risk.  

You’re Never There: Perpetual Progress vs. Achievement

Finally, here’s some stone-cold truth that will bug some of you but hopefully relieve most of you: you are a work in progress and always will be.   You will experience monumental changes in the way you think, feel, and behave over long periods of time.   Most of these will be improvements and developments on your way to becoming an amazing human being.   But you will, unfortunately, never quite be there—at least in mindset.   It’s not that you won’t accomplish great things or shouldn’t show some pride in your achievements.   It’s just that you can’t stop there.   Albert Einstein published his theory of general relativity—arguably the most significant scientific moment of the 20th century—in 1915.   He could have stopped right there and cemented his legacy forever.   But he continued to refine his theory throughout the next decade and a half, incorporating information about electromagnetism and finally updating his findings with the theory of distant parallelism in 1929.   Only when he felt he was finished did he move on to other theories.   Our actions are highly susceptible to the labels we give ourselves—the short and terse descriptors that we use to identify who we are.   This is especially true with negative identifications: “lazy,” “stupid,” “weak,” “unstable,” “angry,” or “unimportant.” That’s why I suggest a change in your mindset of self- identification: the elimination of the phrase “I am” and the adoption of the phrase “I’m working on it.” When you say “I am,” you’re immediately giving yourself a label that frankly acts more like a stamp: “I am lazy,” “I am stupid,” and so on.   You’ve crystallized that belief and made it part of you.   That makes change so much harder.   If you really are lazy, the “I am” statement has boxed you in that corner and branded itself to you.   But changing that statement to reflect what you want to become, you’ve flipped the momentum.   Instead of saying “I’m lazy,” say “I’m working on being more industrious and productive.” Instead of saying “I’m stupid,” say “I’m working on improving my knowledge and study skills.” Instead of saying “I���m unstable,” say “I’m working on knowing my triggers and how to react more evenly.” Even if you’re completely broke, don’t say “I’m broke”—say “I’m working on managing my finances and finding ways to earn income.” Will some people think that’s just a roundabout way of saying “I’m broke”? Probably.   But that’s their label, not yours.   They’re just being judgmental—or I should say, “They’re working on being more empathetic and accepting of people in challenging circumstances.” This way of thinking also keeps you in line with the humility aspect of the learning mindset if you flip it toward your positive traits.   Instead of saying “I’m smart,” try saying “I’m working on being smart.” Instead of saying “I’m talented,” say “I’m working on developing my talents.” You’re not saying you’re not smart or talented.   You’re saying you’re working on improving yourself— which can and should be an unending process.   In turn, it might increase your enthusiasm for learning and discovering new things rather than stunting your enthusiasm with the idea that you already know it all.   Not only are you removing the disparaging quality from your identity, but you’re also articulating your purpose every time you say you’re working on something.   And you’ll always be working on it—because we never stop learning.  

[myserendipities]

In 1996, MIT researchers Marshall Van Alstyne and Erik Brynjolfsson warned of a potential dark side to our newly interconnected world: Individuals empowered to screen out material that does not conform to their existing preferences may form virtual cliques, insulate themselves from opposing points of view, and reinforce their biases. Internet users can seek out interactions with like-minded individuals who have similar values, and thus become less likely to trust important decisions to people whose values differ from their own.” Van Alstyne and Brynjolfsson dubbed this fracturing of the online community Cyberbalkanization. Ominously, they warned that “the loss of shared experiences and values may be harmful to the structure of democratic societies as well as decentralized organizations.” This proliferation of urban myths and conspiracies would perhaps be laughable if it weren’t so uniquely dangerous. An estimated 61% of millennials garner news primarily through social media. But in the process, we trigger algorithms that curate our feeds. These cherry-pick things with which we are likely to agree and jettison information that does not appear to fit our preferences – often at the cost of accuracy and balance. As the Knight Center observed in 2016, “… through social media, professional and other qualified news is mixed with un-checked information and opinions. Rumours and gossip get in the flow.” They also noted this tended to increase political polarisation, and warned: “people may be losing the skills to differentiate information from opinion.” So why does this happen? Part of the problem is our reliance on internet giants – and their vested interest in rewarding us with what we like to see. Everything from our Google searches to our Facebook news feeds are tailored to keep us engaged and generate profit. But while there is limited evidence that filter bubbles might reduce diversity, the data suggests that we play the lead role in driving our own polarisation. We are much more homogeneous than we think, and tend to interact more with people who echo our beliefs. A recent study in Science found that we tend to engage most with information that flatters our ideological preconceptions, and that this accounted for much more selection bias than algorithmic filtering. Such findings probably won’t be overly surprising to psychologists, who have long been aware of the human tendency towards confirmation bias. But such polarisation has consequences far beyond politics – it has alarming implications for science, and our collective wellbeing. It doesn’t have to be this way. The echo chamber may be comforting, but ultimately it locks us into perpetual tribalism, and does tangible damage to our understanding. To counteract this, we need to become more discerning at analysing our sources – something we are currently poor at doing. More difficult perhaps is that we must learn not to cling to something solely because it chimes with our beliefs, and be willing to jettison any notion when it is contradicted by evidence – no matter how comforting the disproven idea may be. As the great physicist Richard Feynman once observed, we ourselves are “the easiest person to fool”. This adage should never be far from our minds in our interconnected world. From the dying embers of 2017, we must resolve to make 2018 the year of questioning not only our opponents’ sources, but our own.

Echo chambers are dangerous –  we must try to break free of our online bubbles | Science | The Guardian

[evolutioncounseling]

The critical mistake most of us make when people experiencing life conflicts come to us for help is that we think what they want is our advice. Of course they often think what they want is our advice too. But more often than not our supposedly well-intentioned advice is actually a cover for the chance to derive feelings of efficacy and superiority out of the situation. When we jump straight to giving advice we’re seeing things from our points of view, from what we’d do in similar circumstances, which means we’re not really listening, we’re not really creating a space for the other to feel heard or to explore possibilities. Instead we project our own hidden values and biases onto that person, all under the rubric of providing help. In the Catholic tradition hell is defined as the absence of God. This is a powerful symbol for human life. Feeling isolated and alone, bereft of community, cut off from anyone who really knows us or understands us, is hell. The unobserved life is hell. Sometimes simply knowing someone is there in the boat with us is all that’s necessary for us to summon up the courage and tenacity to weather the storm, to activate our individual powers in order to move through our life crises on our own instead of depending on someone else to do it for us. Offering advice right away narrows possibilities. And widening possibilities is the name of the game when we realize that the anxiety and doubt embedded within conflict situations tend to create tunnel vision. Helping people move through conflict starts with the firm decision to practice compassionate listening, to be actively interested in the meaning of the other’s words, in understanding things from the other’s perspective, rather than quickly categorizing those words within the parameters of our own life constructs and spitting out a solution based on those subjective perspectives. Two of the most effective ways to help others explore possibilities while engaged in compassionate listening are strategies therapists use with their clients all the time. These are mirroring and asking open-ended questions. Mirroring repeats back, in our own words, what the person struggling with conflict has just said to us. Open-ended questioning gets away from yes/no answers, phrasing the question in a way that allows for any number of answers and can’t simply be confirmed or denied. In all of this what we’re really trying to do for people embroiled in conflict is help them combat the unconscious pain and isolation of the unobserved life by letting them feel truly heard and understood. In this paradigm, where seeking to really understand the other’s viewpoint and assisting in the other’s personal exploration are the primary goals, people are often able to come to their own conclusions for what they need to do, they’re able to give themselves their own advice for how to move forward. But even when they can’t figure out what to do, that feeling of trust and community that’s being generated will make our own advice, if and when we choose to give it, much more likely to land, much more likely to be earnestly considered rather than given lip service.

[tryingahandinholdingapen]

Help I'm confusing myself with my own idea

Right so, basically this Nanowrimo, I'm not going to writing so much as I am planning and worldbuilding.

Problem is I've already hit a snag that's frustrating me

My idea is, roughly, this: it's going to be kind of slice-of-lifey, and it's going to focus on humans happening across another sentient and sapient species in a new world/unexplored area of their world, right? It's also incredibly self indulgent, but there you go

I'm creating this other species more or less from scratch. Here's what I've got about them so far:

They don't have a gender binary. Physically, they recognise three sexes: female, male, and nonbinary.

They have magic, and one significant thing this allows is, any trans person? Automatically starts phusically transitioning to the point they're comfortable with, sometimes their magic even picks up on it before they consciously do (yeah unfortunately subconsciously refusing to admit to being trans is still a thing, despite the almost utter lack of bigotry) so the first time they realise is, oh! I'm transitioning! Okay!

Gals have like a feathery type thing where humansd have hair, guys have like near solid patterns, enbies have like hair but, crystally type texture?? Also gals can fly, enbies are generally stupidly good climbers, and guys are most at home under the earth (of all things I was thinking of being taught to write in primary school, and how we had three streaks [the line, above the line, below the line] for every line of text that were the sky, the grass, and the earth and I don't know it just translated in my head to the three sexes being good in the air, on ground, or below ground)

Did I mention these peeps live above and under ground, dependent on the seasons

Anyway due to the physical differences and the automatic transitioning (I did mention this was really self indulgent right? Can you imagine? No problems with coming out, no need to even have to have the awkward talk particularly, being comfortable in your body without gender dysphoria just happens over time as easy as breathing? Can you imagine???) they recognise female and male sex as being equivalent to the same gender, but the nonbinary sex can be different genders (because I am not going to fall into the hole of assuming nonbinary=agender) eg genderfluid, agender, probably some I don't know names for,

The above is entirely for self indulgent reasons or because I thought it'd be neat. The next bit is harder for me to explain as to why this idea came to me, but I decided that

Their society was hugely biased towards being polyamourous because

Each person has three...links? I don't know what to call them yet, but the three are physical, mental/emotional, and magical, and it's generally unlikely for two people to have a relationship that includes all of those links just between them

Also it's, ahem, a tad similar to a soulmate au in how those kind of...are, I guess? Like. These people have a kind of "courting season" when they get to a certain age, but its not so much seeking a mate so much as it is finding out and or confirming who their mate(s!) are

Also, this part is again entirely self indulgent, but these relationships don't have to be romantic or sexual. They absolutely can be one or both, but a physical link with someone could just as easily mean someone they like to cuddle with as it does sex, yk?

Each, like, group of people who are linked, are one nest (?). These people don't really have a sense of parents per say, they aren't mammals (I havent decided yet if I want them to hatch like snakes or smth, I mean, I was thinking it'd be cool if they were kinda lizardy but not?) and it's not always clear who the parents are - and frankly they don't care anyway, everyone gets raised communally, and although there's sometimes someone who pitches in a bit more they don't really have much of a concept of parents. Their "nest" is basically their family and they tend to live together, although they'll be friends and that with others outside of the nest, and take care of any kids, that nest is gonna be their closest people

Like any polyamourous relationship, it could be a case of A is dating B and C but B and C aren't dating or that all three are dating each other...However I realised that with the requirement that each person has three links and one relationship is incredibly unlikely to have all three and in fact not uncommon for it to only hold one link.....I realised pretty quickly that I needed to put some kind of upper limit on how many people could be in any one nest

I think the easiest way to do that is to limit the amount of links any one person can have

I'm really attached to the idea of three partners being the general minimum and nine the general maximum, so three (three sexes, three links, etc) kind of remains a culturally significant number for them kinda? But I can't figure out how the hell I'd make that work in terms of restrictions, help me

Actually i can't figure this problem out in general

I've been sitting here colourcoding people and different links for quite a while, rubbing them out in frustration, trying again...This is driving me insane because I just can't figure it out

Help me

I was planning to write like 1000 words today but I think I'm just going to have to try and figure this out instead

[katrinratto]

Bias Impacts Your Business Decisions But You Can Learn To Control It If You Follow This Proven Advice

The human brain is hardwired to make generalizations.

Generalizations allow us to process the truly colossal amounts of input our brains encounter every day. They’re necessary for us to function and not be overwhelmed by data.

Generalizations also help by creating shortcuts in our brains.

Unfortunately, those shortcuts are a double-edged sword.

They allow us to move through the world and quickly assess a situation. But, they also lead to unconscious biases that impact our interactions with others.

Whether we’re talking to the guy in the drive-thru window, calling our sainted mothers, or chatting with our co-workers, unconscious bias influences the way we perceive everyone.

Unconscious bias happens outside of our control. It happens automatically when our brain makes a quick judgment. The HR team at Advanced Systems, a workforce management provider, explains that biases are:

…automatic and unconscious ways our brains try to help us. We cannot notice, remember, and value everything. These are not bad things only bad people do. But bias is a problem.

Good managers can’t afford to allow their biases to impact the way they perceive their teams. This is especially true when making hiring decisions, during annual performance reviews or when making recommendations for promotions.

With so much at stake, you owe it to the other people you work with to see clearly and make appraisals based in reality.

In fact, the ability to ground your decisions in facts, not speculation, is one of the most powerful traits of great leaders.

So, let’s take a look at the most common types of leadership and management bias and ways to overcome bias in the workplace.

Similarity Bias

Similarity bias over-values people who are like us.

This bias is rooted in the classic “US vs THEM” dichotomy.

Similarity bias states that we like people who are similar to us. Birds of a feather flock together, right?

And, we tend to treat people we like well.

The danger here is that managers influenced by the similarity bias may mistreat people who are different from them. These perceived differences could be based on age, race, sexual orientation, gender or personality.

As I’m sure you know, biases against people of different races, genders, sexual orientations or ages are considered discriminatory.  And whether you truly harbor negative feelings for these groups, or just subconsciously prefer people who are similar to you, the results are the same.

What You Can Do

Make the effort to find similarities with all of your co-workers. While you will always be naturally drawn to people who are clearly most similar to you, there are universal human traits that connect us all. Taking the time to get to know your employees and find common ground will humanize them and help level the playing field.

In-Group Bias

Most people have friends at work. These friends are our in-group.

Managers have in-groups, too.  And, in-group bias occurs when managers treat members of their in-groups better than members of the out-group.

We tend to think highly of the people we befriend. After all – they’re our friends.

But, if we’re not careful, we may make decisions that benefit our friends based on an over-inflated assessment of their abilities or simply out of the desire to help them get ahead.

In-group bias doesn’t stop with helping your friends. It can also actively manifest through behaviors that hinder your out-group. The Advanced Systems HR team points out:

The out-group is managed with more command and control, which reinforces the label by limiting their ability and motivation to grow and perform. No matter how well-intentioned the extra support and supervision, lack of confidence and appreciation lowers employee engagement, performance, and retention.

What You Can Do

Consciously identify the members of your in-group and out-group to raise your awareness of this issue. Then, take steps to avoid acting on positive or negative bias:

Seek out the opinions of other managers and employees to help round out your perspective of your report’s work performance.

Perform a self-assessment – can you be neutral regarding this employee? If the answer is no, remove yourself from the decision-making process.

Do your best to remove your feelings from the equation. Gather facts (not perceptions) to support your appraisal of the employee.

Timing Biases

Timing biases prioritize certain time windows instead of the whole timeline.

Some biases are based on timing. Here are three examples of timing-related biases that may impact your relationships with co-workers.

First Impressions Bias

First impressions are powerful. They’re tied to a known psychological effect called anchoring in which people:

…unconsciously latch onto the first fact they hear, basing their decision-making on that fact… whether it’s accurate or not.

This is true when you’re negotiating a salary, buying a new car, seeing a business name or business logo for the first time, or appraising your coworkers.

First impression bias means that your first impression overrides the reality of the employee’s behavior in the time since you’ve met them.

A first impression cannot possibly encompass the totality of an employee’s work performance or capabilities. Humans are not static; rather they are constantly growing and evolving – for good or bad.

First impression bias doesn’t leave room to acknowledge change or factor in new data. And that’s no good.

Spill-Over Bias

Spill-over bias occurs when a manager’s opinion of an employee is too heavily influenced by events that happened in the past.

If an employee had a stellar first year and then let their performance slide, and you’re still fixated on their earlier performance – that’s spill-over bias.

Likewise, maybe an employee was a class clown during their training, but pulled it together and delivered awesome results once their training was complete. If you can’t get past the idea of that employee as a sass-talking joker, then spill-over bias is at play.

Recency Bias

When managers are unduly influenced by a co-worker’s most recent actions, they are suffering from recency bias.

Let’s say an employee is going through a troubled time at home and their work has suffered for a few weeks. A manager influenced by recency bias might overlook that employee’s positive contributions and strong performance earlier in the year.

An employee should be judged on the entirety of their work performance. It’s not fair or accurate to judge an employee’s overall performance only on first impression, or a portion of their working timeline.

What You Can Do

Make sure to consistently touch base with your employees and record your impressions as you go. This running record of performance will provide a more accurate view when annual assessment time draws near. It’s also a good idea to perform reviews more frequently than once a year. Building closer relationships and assessing employees more frequently will help to sidestep timing biases and lead to stronger empl0yee performance.

Expedience Bias

Expediency bias only sees the top of the iceberg.

Ask ten people the same question and you’re likely to get ten different answers.  This is because people are formed by their life experiences and we all walk a unique path.

Expedience bias occurs when managers think that just because it’s the most obvious answer to them, that it must be true.

This bias is particularly compelling when a manager doesn’t want (or have the time) to dig deeper.

Relying on what seems to be obvious is quick and easy. However, as Beth Jones, Khalil Smith and David Rock of Harvard Business Review point out:

Expedience bias tilts us toward answers that seem obvious, often at the expense of answers that might be more relevant or useful.

Imagine if a support representative were judged by how many calls she took per day. If you heard that on average she only spoke with 12 clients per day, you might assume she was lazy or inept. That’s the “expedient” answer.

But, what if you learned that each of those clients were high-value spenders and had been planning to take their business elsewhere? And, that 80% of her clients stayed with your business as a result of her efforts?

It’s important to look beyond what seems obvious to make sure that you understand the whole picture.

What You Can Do

Take the time to dig deeper. Make sure you understand the full context before drawing any conclusions. To help achieve this goal, work to understand the parameters that should be measured in order to get a true understanding of each employee’s contributions. Then make sure those are the parameters that you measure.

The Harvard Business Review team also recommends setting pre-determined goals with your reports on which their performance can be assessed.

Confirmation Bias

Confirmation bias knows it’s right.

Have you ever said, “I bet today is going to be an awful day,” and then turned out to be right?

There’s a good chance that this was confirmation bias at work.

Confirmation bias occurs when people focus primarily on the data that confirms their initial hypothesis.

This bias can be a sort of secondary bias that piggy-backs along with other biases.

For instance, Joel’s car broke down and he arrived late on his first day of work. Joel’s manager Kim remembers this and carries a negative first impression bias against Joel that never really goes away. She mentally tracks every time Joel arrives late. These occasional infractions confirm her opinion of Joel as a late person.

Confirmation bias is seductively powerful. We all want to be right. This bias simply involves looking for the evidence that you’re right while ignoring the evidence to the contrary.

What You Can Do

Learn to be your own “devil’s advocate.” Ask yourself if your argument is really as air-tight as you think it is. Review the opposing evidence with an open mind. And, seek out alternative perspectives from other people who know the employee or topic at hand. Most importantly, be willing to learn that you were wrong (if that turns out to be the case).

The Bias Game Changer: Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence is key to overcoming all types of management bias.

If you don’t want to be a biased manager anymore, focus on improving your emotional intelligence.

As we mentioned in a prior article,

Emotional intelligence (sometimes also called EI or EQ) is the ability to identify and regulate your own feelings, and the feelings of people around you.

And, the cornerstone of emotional intelligence is self-awareness. That’s the ability to accurately identify what you’re feeling and appraise your own motivations and behavior.

This higher-level awareness of your own emotions, motivations, and perceptions is essential to rising above the influence of your unconscious biases. As we previously explained:

You can modify your behavior for the better if you can identify your own bad habits and catch yourself when you’re doing them. So, in addition to creating the foundation for EQ, self-awareness is also the foundation for self-improvement.

The ultimate remedy to all types of bias is self-awareness. Bill George, the author of Finding Your True North,  offers three great techniques for improving your self-awareness. Check them out here.

  from http://bit.ly/2O3ZxyF

[theinvinciblenoob]

Facial recognition technology presents myriad opportunities as well as risks, but it seems like the government tends to only consider the former when deploying it for law enforcement and clerical purposes. Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) has written the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Federal Trade Commission, and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission telling them they need to get with the program and face up to the very real biases and risks attending the controversial tech.

In three letters provided to TechCrunch (and embedded at the bottom of this post), Sen. Harris, along with several other notable legislators, pointed out recent research showing how facial recognition can produce or reinforce bias, or otherwise misfire. This must be considered and accommodated in the rules, guidance, and applications of federal agencies.

Other lawmakers and authorities have sent letters to various companies and CEOs or held hearings, but representatives for Sen. Harris explained that there is also a need to advance the issue within the government as well.

Sen. Harris at a recent hearing.

Attention paid to agencies like the FTC and EEOC that are “responsible for enforcing fairness” is “a signal to companies that the cop on the beat is paying attention, and an indirect signal that they need to be paying attention too. What we’re interested in is the fairness outcome rather than one particular company’s practices.”

If this research and the possibility of poorly controlled AI systems aren’t considered in the creation of rules and laws, or in the applications and deployments of the technology, serious harm could ensue. Not just  positive harm, such as the misidentification of a suspect in a crime, but negative harm, such as calcifying biases in data and business practices in algorithmic form and depriving those affected by the biases of employment or services.

Algorithmic accountability

“While some have expressed hope that facial analysis can help reduce human biases, a growing body of evidence indicates that it may actually amplify those biases,” the letter to the EEOC reads.

Here Sen. Harris, joined by Senators Patty Murray (D-WA) and Elisabeth Warren (D-MA), expresses concern over the growing automation of the employment process. Recruitment is a complex process and AI-based tools are being brought in at every stage, so this is not a theoretical problem. As the letter reads:

Suppose, for example, that an African American woman seeks a job at a company that uses facial analysis to assess how well a candidate’s mannerisms are similar to those of its top managers.

First, the technology may interpret her mannerisms less accurately than a white male candidate.

Second, if the company’s top managers are homogeneous, e.g., white and male, the very characteristics being sought may have nothing to do with job performance but are instead artifacts of belonging to this group. She may be as qualified for the job as a white male candidate, but facial analysis may not rate her as highly becuase her cues naturally differ.

Third, if a particular history of biased promotions led to homogeneity in top managers, then the facial recognition analysis technology could encode and then hide this bias behind a scientific veneer of objectivity.

If that sounds like a fantasy use of facial recognition, you probably haven’t been paying close enough attention. Besides, even if it’s still rare, it makes sense to consider these things before they become widespread problems, right? The idea is to identify issues inherent to the technology.

“We request that the EEOC develop guidelines for employers on the fair use of facial analysis technologies and how this technology may violate anti-discrimination law,” the Senators ask.

A set of questions also follows (as it does in each of the letters): have there been any complaints along these lines, or are there any obvious problems with the tech under current laws? If facial technology were to become mainstream, how should it be tested, and how would the EEOC validate that testing? Sen. Harris and the others request a timeline of how the Commission plans to look into this by September 28.

Next on the list is the FTC. This agency is tasked with identifying and punishing unfair and deceptive practices in commerce and advertising; Sen. Harris asserts that the purveyors of facial recognition technology may be considered in violation of FTC rules if they fail to test or account for serious biases in their systems.

“Developers rarely if ever test and then disclose biases in their technology,” the letter reads. “Without information about the biases in a technology or the legal and ethical risks attendant to using it, good faith users may be unintentionally and unfairly engaging in discrimination. Moreover, failure to disclose these biases to purchasers may be deceptive under the FTC Act.”

Another example is offered:

Consider, for example, a situation in which an African American female in a retail store is misidentified as a shoplifter by a biased facial recognition technology and is falsely arrested based on this information. Such a false arrest can cause trauma and substantially injure her future house, employment, credit, and other opportunities.

Or, consider a scenario in which a young man with a dark complexion is unable to withdraw money from his own bank account because his bank’s ATM uses facial recognition technology that does not identify him as their customer.

Again, this is very far from fantasy. On stage at Disrupt just a couple weeks ago Chris Atageka of UCOT and Timnit Gebru from Microsoft Research discussed several very real problems faced by people of color interacting with AI-powered devices and processes.

The FTC actually had a workshop on the topic back in 2012. But, amazing as it sounds, this workshop did not consider the potential biases on the basis of race, gender, age, or other metrics. The agency certainly deserves credit for addressing the issue early, but clearly the industry and topic have advanced and it is in the interest of the agency and the people it serves to catch up.

The letter ends with questions and a deadline rather like those for the EEOC: have there been any complaints? How will they assess address potential biases? Will they issue “a set of best practices on the lawful, fair, and transparent use of facial analysis?” The letter is cosigned by Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Cory Booker (D-NJ), and Ron Wyden (D-OR).

Last is the FBI, over which Sen. Harris has something of an advantage: the Government Accountability Office issued a report on the very topic of facial recognition tech that had concrete recommendations for the Bureau to implement. What Harris wants to know is, what have they done about these, if anything?

“Although the GAO made its recommendations to the FBI over two years ago, there is no evidence that the agency has acted on those recommendations,” the letter reads.

FBI built a massive facial recognition database without proper oversight

The GAO had three major recommendations. Briefly summarized: do some serious testing of the Next Generation Identification-Interstate Photo System (NGI-IPS) to make sure it does what they think it does, follow that with annual testing to make sure it’s meeting needs and operating as intended, and audit external facial recognition programs for accuracy as well.

“We are also eager to ensure that the FBI responds to the latest research, particularly research that confirms that face recognition technology underperforms when analyzing the faces of women and African Americans,” the letter continues.

The list of questions here is largely in line with the GAO’s recommendations, merely asking the FBI to indicate whether and how it has complied with them. Has it tested NGI-IPS for accuracy in realistic conditions? Has it tested for performance across races, skin tones, genders, and ages? If not, why not, and when will it? And in the meantime, how can it justify usage of a system that hasn’t been adequately tested, and in fact performs poorest on the targets it is most frequently loosed upon?

The FBI letter, which has a deadline for response of October 1, is cosigned by Sen. Booker and Cedric Richmond, Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus.

These letters are just a part of what certainly ought to be a government-wide plan to inspect and understand new technology and how it is being integrated with existing systems and agencies. The federal government moves slowly, even at its best, and if it is to avoid or help mitigate real harm resulting from technologies that would otherwise go unregulated it must start early and update often.

You can find the letters in full below.

EEOC:

SenHarris – EEOC Facial Rec… by on Scribd

FTC:

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Solving Brand Problems With Behavioral Science

One of the appealing aspects of behavioral science is that rather than being a single, over-arching theory, it’s a broad collection of biases. That means it’s flexible enough to be applied to the variety of problems we’re trying to solve for brands.

Despite this, the commentary in advertising has focused on the same handful of biases: social proof, loss aversion, framing and the like.

With that in mind I wanted to discuss briefly three underused biases. I’ve chosen a range that reflects the different facets of advertising. One affects creative messaging, another channel selection and the final one media implementation.

1. The Pratfall Effect

A bias that should be considered more often is the pratfall effect. This is the idea that admitting a weakness makes a person, or a brand, more appealing. Elliot Aronson, from Harvard university, was the first academic to investigate this.

He recorded an actor answering a series of quiz questions. The actor – armed with the right responses – answers 92% of the questions correctly. After the quiz, the actor then pretends to spill a cup of coffee over themselves (a small blunder, or pratfall).

The recording was played to a large sample of students, who were then asked how likeable the contestant was. However, Aronson split the students into cells and played them different versions: one with the spillage included and one without. The students found the clumsy contestant significantly more likeable.

The Implications For Marketing

So why do imperfections make people and products more attractive?

Everyone assumes that brands are fallible, so if a brand is open about its failings, it can persuade consumers that its weaknesses lie in inconsequential areas. Rory Sutherland has argued that this theory partly explains the success of budget airlines. At launch they openly admitted that the trade-off for cheap prices was a compromised service: no reservations and a small luggage allowance. If they hadn’t admitted as much, consumers may have assumed the cost-cutting had come at the expense of safety.

Admitting a weakness is also a tangible demonstration of honesty and, therefore, makes other claims more believable. Three of the most successful UK ad campaigns ever: “Good things come to those who wait” (Guinness), “Reassuringly expensive” (Stella Artois) and “Naughty but nice” (Lyons cream cakes) all made their core claim more believable by admitting a weakness. Sure, these cream cakes are full of sugar and won’t be good for your figure, but they’re worth it because they taste so good.

The Principal-Agent Problem

If admitting flaws is an impactful tactic, why do few brands apply it?

The rarity is explained by the principal-agent problem: what is in the interest of the brand – the principal – is not in the interest of the marketing manager – the agent. If the campaign flops it might be the end of the brand manager’s career. Imagine explaining to the CEO as sales dive that the key message of your campaign was that the brand was expensive. Even referencing Aronson might not save you.

For safe career progression then, this tactic is questionable. However, if you want the best chance of growing your brand, consider reveling in your flaws. It will always be a distinctive approach.

For a different take on the pratfall effect – here’s Rory Sutherland.

2. Overcoming The Confirmation Bias

Confirmation bias is the idea that we interpret information through a lens of our feelings for the communicator. This makes it hard to change peoples’ minds. As the legendary stock market investor, Charlie Munger says:

“The human mind is a lot like the human egg, in that the human egg has a shut-off device. One sperm gets in, and it shuts down so that the next one can’t get in. The human mind has a big tendency of the same sort.”

That’s a problem for brands trying to convert rejecters. However, research by Leon Festinger, a social psychologist at Stanford University, shows that there are moments when it is easier to overcome confirmation bias.

He ran a study with Nathan Macoby, from Harvard University, in which members of a college fraternity were played a recorded argument about the evils of fraternities in an attempt to turn them against the tradition. The students were split into two groups and either listened to the recording with no distractions or while being played an entertaining silent film.

Interestingly, students were more likely to shift their views when they were partially distracted. Festinger’s hypothesis was that the mind is normally adept at coming up with counter-arguments to any persuasive communications. However, distraction reduces the mind’s ability to generate these counter-arguments.

These findings are interesting as they suggest a counter-intuitive approach for targeting rejecters. Rather than seeking out high-attention environments brands should prioritize moments when the audience is slightly distracted.

It seems that one of the most cherished beliefs of media planners, that attention is key, may not be right in all circumstances.

For another angle on this topic read Seducing the Subconscious. Robert Heath’s book outlines how advertisers can avoid activating the brain’s capacity for confirmation bias by not engaging it in logical arguments.

Alternatively, there’s an argument that if it’s so hard to win over rejecters then ignore them and focus elsewhere.

3. Social Proof And TV Program Selection

Most people assume that the funniness of an ad is determined solely by the content, but psychologists Yong Zhang and George Zinkhan have shown that the social context is important too.

The two University of Houston psychologists recruited 216 people to watch soft drink commercials, either on their own or in groups. They found that ads watched in company were rated as 20% funnier than those viewed alone.

The impact of large groups might be due to social proof – this is the idea that people are consciously, or subconsciously, influenced by what others are doing around them. So one person in the group laughing encourages others to laugh.

So, what can brands learn from the social nature of humor? The main point is that the funniness of an ad is not just a creative issue but also one of media placement. Picking the right moment can increase the impact. One implementational tactic is therefore to run copy in programs or genres which tend to be watched in groups. For example, films, documentaries and news are all around twice as likely to be watched in groups according to Infosys data.

These are just three underused biases. There are plenty of others that I will cover in future thought pieces on Branding Strategy Insider. Whatever your brief there will be a finding from behavioral science that will help you solve it.

You can find more ideas like this in my new book The Choice Factory: 25 Behavioral Biases That Influence What We Buy  (Recently named the #1 book ever written on Advertising by BBH)

The Blake Project Can Help: Differentiate Your Brand In The Brand Positioning Workshop

Branding Strategy Insider is a service of The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy specializing in Brand Research, Brand Strategy, Brand Licensing and Brand Education

FREE Publications And Resources For Marketers

[joejstrickl]

Solving Brand Problems With Behavioral Science

One of the appealing aspects of behavioral science is that rather than being a single, over-arching theory, it’s a broad collection of biases. That means it’s flexible enough to be applied to the variety of problems we’re trying to solve for brands.

Despite this, the commentary in advertising has focused on the same handful of biases: social proof, loss aversion, framing and the like.

With that in mind I wanted to discuss briefly three underused biases. I’ve chosen a range that reflects the different facets of advertising. One affects creative messaging, another channel selection and the final one media implementation.

1. The Pratfall Effect

A bias that should be considered more often is the pratfall effect. This is the idea that admitting a weakness makes a person, or a brand, more appealing. Elliot Aronson, from Harvard university, was the first academic to investigate this.

He recorded an actor answering a series of quiz questions. The actor – armed with the right responses – answers 92% of the questions correctly. After the quiz, the actor then pretends to spill a cup of coffee over themselves (a small blunder, or pratfall).

The recording was played to a large sample of students, who were then asked how likeable the contestant was. However, Aronson split the students into cells and played them different versions: one with the spillage included and one without. The students found the clumsy contestant significantly more likeable.

The Implications For Marketing

So why do imperfections make people and products more attractive?

Everyone assumes that brands are fallible, so if a brand is open about its failings, it can persuade consumers that its weaknesses lie in inconsequential areas. Rory Sutherland has argued that this theory partly explains the success of budget airlines. At launch they openly admitted that the trade-off for cheap prices was a compromised service: no reservations and a small luggage allowance. If they hadn’t admitted as much, consumers may have assumed the cost-cutting had come at the expense of safety.

Admitting a weakness is also a tangible demonstration of honesty and, therefore, makes other claims more believable. Three of the most successful UK ad campaigns ever: “Good things come to those who wait” (Guinness), “Reassuringly expensive” (Stella Artois) and “Naughty but nice” (Lyons cream cakes) all made their core claim more believable by admitting a weakness. Sure, these cream cakes are full of sugar and won’t be good for your figure, but they’re worth it because they taste so good.

The Principal-Agent Problem

If admitting flaws is an impactful tactic, why do few brands apply it?

The rarity is explained by the principal-agent problem: what is in the interest of the brand – the principal – is not in the interest of the marketing manager – the agent. If the campaign flops it might be the end of the brand manager’s career. Imagine explaining to the CEO as sales dive that the key message of your campaign was that the brand was expensive. Even referencing Aronson might not save you.

For safe career progression then, this tactic is questionable. However, if you want the best chance of growing your brand, consider reveling in your flaws. It will always be a distinctive approach.

For a different take on the pratfall effect – here’s Rory Sutherland.

2. Overcoming The Confirmation Bias

Confirmation bias is the idea that we interpret information through a lens of our feelings for the communicator. This makes it hard to change peoples’ minds. As the legendary stock market investor, Charlie Munger says:

“The human mind is a lot like the human egg, in that the human egg has a shut-off device. One sperm gets in, and it shuts down so that the next one can’t get in. The human mind has a big tendency of the same sort.”

That’s a problem for brands trying to convert rejecters. However, research by Leon Festinger, a social psychologist at Stanford University, shows that there are moments when it is easier to overcome confirmation bias.

He ran a study with Nathan Macoby, from Harvard University, in which members of a college fraternity were played a recorded argument about the evils of fraternities in an attempt to turn them against the tradition. The students were split into two groups and either listened to the recording with no distractions or while being played an entertaining silent film.

Interestingly, students were more likely to shift their views when they were partially distracted. Festinger’s hypothesis was that the mind is normally adept at coming up with counter-arguments to any persuasive communications. However, distraction reduces the mind’s ability to generate these counter-arguments.

These findings are interesting as they suggest a counter-intuitive approach for targeting rejecters. Rather than seeking out high-attention environments brands should prioritize moments when the audience is slightly distracted.

It seems that one of the most cherished beliefs of media planners, that attention is key, may not be right in all circumstances.

For another angle on this topic read Seducing the Subconscious. Robert Heath’s book outlines how advertisers can avoid activating the brain’s capacity for confirmation bias by not engaging it in logical arguments.

Alternatively, there’s an argument that if it’s so hard to win over rejecters then ignore them and focus elsewhere.

3. Social Proof And TV Program Selection

Most people assume that the funniness of an ad is determined solely by the content, but psychologists Yong Zhang and George Zinkhan have shown that the social context is important too.

The two University of Houston psychologists recruited 216 people to watch soft drink commercials, either on their own or in groups. They found that ads watched in company were rated as 20% funnier than those viewed alone.

The impact of large groups might be due to social proof – this is the idea that people are consciously, or subconsciously, influenced by what others are doing around them. So one person in the group laughing encourages others to laugh.

So, what can brands learn from the social nature of humor? The main point is that the funniness of an ad is not just a creative issue but also one of media placement. Picking the right moment can increase the impact. One implementational tactic is therefore to run copy in programs or genres which tend to be watched in groups. For example, films, documentaries and news are all around twice as likely to be watched in groups according to Infosys data.

These are just three underused biases. There are plenty of others that I will cover in future thought pieces on Branding Strategy Insider. Whatever your brief there will be a finding from behavioral science that will help you solve it.

You can find more ideas like this in my new book The Choice Factory: 25 Behavioral Biases That Influence What We Buy  (Recently named the #1 book ever written on Advertising by BBH)

The Blake Project Can Help: Differentiate Your Brand In The Brand Positioning Workshop

Branding Strategy Insider is a service of The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy specializing in Brand Research, Brand Strategy, Brand Licensing and Brand Education

FREE Publications And Resources For Marketers

[glenmenlow]

Solving Brand Problems With Behavioral Science

One of the appealing aspects of behavioral science is that rather than being a single, over-arching theory, it’s a broad collection of biases. That means it’s flexible enough to be applied to the variety of problems we’re trying to solve for brands.

Despite this, the commentary in advertising has focused on the same handful of biases: social proof, loss aversion, framing and the like.

With that in mind I wanted to discuss briefly three underused biases. I’ve chosen a range that reflects the different facets of advertising. One affects creative messaging, another channel selection and the final one media implementation.

1. The Pratfall Effect

A bias that should be considered more often is the pratfall effect. This is the idea that admitting a weakness makes a person, or a brand, more appealing. Elliot Aronson, from Harvard university, was the first academic to investigate this.

He recorded an actor answering a series of quiz questions. The actor – armed with the right responses – answers 92% of the questions correctly. After the quiz, the actor then pretends to spill a cup of coffee over themselves (a small blunder, or pratfall).

The recording was played to a large sample of students, who were then asked how likeable the contestant was. However, Aronson split the students into cells and played them different versions: one with the spillage included and one without. The students found the clumsy contestant significantly more likeable.

The Implications For Marketing

So why do imperfections make people and products more attractive?

Everyone assumes that brands are fallible, so if a brand is open about its failings, it can persuade consumers that its weaknesses lie in inconsequential areas. Rory Sutherland has argued that this theory partly explains the success of budget airlines. At launch they openly admitted that the trade-off for cheap prices was a compromised service: no reservations and a small luggage allowance. If they hadn’t admitted as much, consumers may have assumed the cost-cutting had come at the expense of safety.

Admitting a weakness is also a tangible demonstration of honesty and, therefore, makes other claims more believable. Three of the most successful UK ad campaigns ever: “Good things come to those who wait” (Guinness), “Reassuringly expensive” (Stella Artois) and “Naughty but nice” (Lyons cream cakes) all made their core claim more believable by admitting a weakness. Sure, these cream cakes are full of sugar and won’t be good for your figure, but they’re worth it because they taste so good.

The Principal-Agent Problem

If admitting flaws is an impactful tactic, why do few brands apply it?

The rarity is explained by the principal-agent problem: what is in the interest of the brand – the principal – is not in the interest of the marketing manager – the agent. If the campaign flops it might be the end of the brand manager’s career. Imagine explaining to the CEO as sales dive that the key message of your campaign was that the brand was expensive. Even referencing Aronson might not save you.

For safe career progression then, this tactic is questionable. However, if you want the best chance of growing your brand, consider reveling in your flaws. It will always be a distinctive approach.

For a different take on the pratfall effect – here’s Rory Sutherland.

2. Overcoming The Confirmation Bias

Confirmation bias is the idea that we interpret information through a lens of our feelings for the communicator. This makes it hard to change peoples’ minds. As the legendary stock market investor, Charlie Munger says:

“The human mind is a lot like the human egg, in that the human egg has a shut-off device. One sperm gets in, and it shuts down so that the next one can’t get in. The human mind has a big tendency of the same sort.”

That’s a problem for brands trying to convert rejecters. However, research by Leon Festinger, a social psychologist at Stanford University, shows that there are moments when it is easier to overcome confirmation bias.

He ran a study with Nathan Macoby, from Harvard University, in which members of a college fraternity were played a recorded argument about the evils of fraternities in an attempt to turn them against the tradition. The students were split into two groups and either listened to the recording with no distractions or while being played an entertaining silent film.

Interestingly, students were more likely to shift their views when they were partially distracted. Festinger’s hypothesis was that the mind is normally adept at coming up with counter-arguments to any persuasive communications. However, distraction reduces the mind’s ability to generate these counter-arguments.

These findings are interesting as they suggest a counter-intuitive approach for targeting rejecters. Rather than seeking out high-attention environments brands should prioritize moments when the audience is slightly distracted.

It seems that one of the most cherished beliefs of media planners, that attention is key, may not be right in all circumstances.

For another angle on this topic read Seducing the Subconscious. Robert Heath’s book outlines how advertisers can avoid activating the brain’s capacity for confirmation bias by not engaging it in logical arguments.

Alternatively, there’s an argument that if it’s so hard to win over rejecters then ignore them and focus elsewhere.

3. Social Proof And TV Program Selection

Most people assume that the funniness of an ad is determined solely by the content, but psychologists Yong Zhang and George Zinkhan have shown that the social context is important too.

The two University of Houston psychologists recruited 216 people to watch soft drink commercials, either on their own or in groups. They found that ads watched in company were rated as 20% funnier than those viewed alone.

The impact of large groups might be due to social proof – this is the idea that people are consciously, or subconsciously, influenced by what others are doing around them. So one person in the group laughing encourages others to laugh.

So, what can brands learn from the social nature of humor? The main point is that the funniness of an ad is not just a creative issue but also one of media placement. Picking the right moment can increase the impact. One implementational tactic is therefore to run copy in programs or genres which tend to be watched in groups. For example, films, documentaries and news are all around twice as likely to be watched in groups according to Infosys data.

These are just three underused biases. There are plenty of others that I will cover in future thought pieces on Branding Strategy Insider. Whatever your brief there will be a finding from behavioral science that will help you solve it.

You can find more ideas like this in my new book The Choice Factory: 25 Behavioral Biases That Influence What We Buy  (Recently named the #1 book ever written on Advertising by BBH)

The Blake Project Can Help: Differentiate Your Brand In The Brand Positioning Workshop

Branding Strategy Insider is a service of The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy specializing in Brand Research, Brand Strategy, Brand Licensing and Brand Education

FREE Publications And Resources For Marketers

from WordPress https://glenmenlow.wordpress.com/2018/09/10/solving-brand-problems-with-behavioral-science/ via IFTTT

[studyingbymylonesome]

Fads and Fallacies in Psychiatry

As I grow older, I have become interested in the history of my specialty. As a medical student, I did not understand why we were taught the history of medicine. Once ideas go out of date, why learn them? Now I have come to realise that progress is not linear. Impeded by false beliefs, medical science sometimes goes off on serious tangents. Understanding past mistakes helps us to be appropriately sceptical about current theories and practices. I have always been the type of person who questions everything. When I was young, this trait got me into trouble. Teachers saw me as a rebellious but I had a strong need to question all received wisdoms.

Fads are temporary bursts of enthusiasm, based on fallacies that reflect cognitive errors or wishful thinking. with a weak base in evidence that run the risk of doing harm to patients.The problem is1fads and fallacies in psychiatry that psychiatry does not fully understand mental disorders,The brain is the most complicated structure.Since psychiatrists have so much to learn, they should remain humble. 

ironically, the main source of psychiatric fads is that practitioners want so badly to help their patients. Human nature being what it is, clinicians are uncomfortable with doubt and seek certainty. They have trouble maintaining a cautious stance in the face of scientific ignorance. That is the main reason why psychiatry has been infected by fads and fallacies.

why I have written this book

In total, I estimate that I have seen 25 000 patients over the past 40 years. When my students ask me how I seem to understand problems and make diagnoses rapidly, I tell them that things get easier after the first 25000cases. But even the most extensive experience does not make you right. You could be making the same mistakes thousands of times. That is why I so strongly support evidence-based psychiatry. 

In the first 10 years of my career, I aimed for radicalchanges in my patients. With experience, I learned that although I could help many people, psychiatry lacks the tools to achieve consistent and stableremissions of many mental disorders.

Although I aim to practise, as much as possible, in an evidence-based way, some of the most crucial questions cannot be answered by empirical data.

Psychiatric fads, then and now

Brain research has not even begun to explain how psychological symptoms develop (Hyman, 2007). It will eventually do better. But it will never be able to reduce all mental phenomena and symptoms to a cellular level, or to neural networks. Unless psychiatry embraces a broader model, it will suffer from a crippled perspective.

Fads in contemporary psychiatry

Diagnostic manuals are rough-and-ready guides to complex phenomena. Current systems are based almost entirely on observable signs andsymptoms, not confirmed by laboratory tests as in the rest of medicine. Mental disorders are being seriously overdiagnosed, leading to inappropriate treatment and unnecessary stigma. We lack a basis for establishing the true boundaries of illness, and as time goes on, diagnosis has crossed into normal variation, leaving hardly anyone free of mental disorder at some point in their life.

Unfortunately, that is not necessarily what happens in practice. Instead, symptoms may be treated ‘aggressively’ with one or more pharmacological agents, and little time is spent talking about the context of the patient’s life. Thus, practice has swung wildly – from talking without a clear purpose to not talking at all. Contemporary psychiatrists are rarely interested in conducting formal psychotherapy, and even those who have received training in these kinds of interventions may not use them. Talking therapy takes time and commitment. In the USA, the medical insurance system is organized in a way that encourages psychiatrists to offer drug treatment only, accompanied by a brief chat. 

As the American psychiatrist Leon Eisenberg once put it, psychiatry has gone from being brainless to being mindless (Eisenberg, 1986). Psychiatric drugs are effective when used for the right indications, but not when applied to problems for which they lack an evidence base. For example, antidepressants can be unimpressive in mild to moderate cases of depression and anxiety, often not much better than placebo. But when patients do not do well with these agents, clinicians are often advised to press on with augmentation and switching. That means prescribing agents originally designed for other problems, which often leads to ineffective polypharmacy associated with highly problematic side-effects. These practices remind me of the way psychoanalysts used to add on more therapy when treatment failed, stubbornly refusing to consider alternatives to their paradigm.

the antidote to fad

people are prone to preconceptions, and tend to see the world in a way that confirms them.These confirmation biases lie at the heart of fallacious thinking in clinical work. Adopting an evidence-based perspective helps us to be comfortable with uncertainty, makes us less likely to harm patients and more likely to help them

Most people assume that even though others can be foolish, they themselves are rational and show good judgement. This principle has been supported by research (Tversky & Kahneman, 1982). A lack of critical perspective on the self is the most prevalent of all fallacies. 

 What research shows is that most opinions andjudgements are based on emotion, not reason, and that arguments are used to justify conclusions already reached. This explains why it is often a waste of time to try to change another person’s mind by arguing – whether inpolitics and religion, or in scientific debate. Thus, the most important cognitive errors derive from preconceived beliefs. The idea that we discover the truth from reason is beloved of philosophers, but evidence shows that people adopt a view of the world based on intuition, not data (Haidt, 2012). Many years ago, Festinger (1957) introduced the term cognitive dissonance to account for how people explain away discrepancies between expectations and facts. 

And if scientifically trained people can sometimes be fanatical, those who are mainly trained as clinicians are even more likely to be credulous. Physicians with strong beliefs about the effectiveness of treatment methods can be very good at finding ways to explain away contradictory evidence.

A general term used to describe these phenomena is confirmation bias(Oswald & Grosjean, 2004). 

Many researchers writing scientific papers will have had the experienceof having trouble publishing results that challenge a current consensus or paradigm. Peer review is a necessary part of science, but can sometimes be used by experts who do not want data contradictory to their own views to appear in print. 

If a hypothesis is too controversial, one may be better off withholding submission.In a widely read book, Kahneman (2011) described the nature of cognitive biases. One of the most important is the ‘availability heuristic’. In that scenario, error comes from depending on what comes easily to mind, rather than on what is most probable. This type of cognitive bias frequently afflicts clinical practice. Even the most intelligent people tendto be impressed by a lively anecdote or a recent personal experience. But as the witticism goes, ‘the plural of anecdote is not data’. This kind of error is all too frequent in treatment decisions. If you have just seen a series of patients with a particular diagnosis and have given them a certain therapy, you may be tempted to view future patients as having the same condition and requiring the same intervention.

The human mind is programmed to find patterns in the world (Bloom,2004). Sometimes people see hidden faces in natural landmarks, and in medicine any explanation tends to be better than none. 

Thinking multivariately

We all prefer to think in a linear fashion, but the real world is multivariate. In other words, many different causes can contribute to the same outcome, and no outcome can be accounted for a single cause. Therefore, psychiatrists need to think multivariately when assessing and treating patients. A wide range of biological variations and adverse life experiences can increase risk for disorder. Only a combination of all these factors brings people to a tipping point at which they fall ill. Applying these models could be a useful antidote to faddish thinking.

[eichy815]

The Luck Starts Here...

Every year, fun-loving American citizens anticipate the frivolity and debauchery of St. Patrick’s Day.  For people with Irish heritage, it’s an opportunity to display ethnic pride.  For many others, it’s an excuse to watch parades and get drunk.

And then there are those such as myself – those of us who have rarely (if ever) partaken in St. Patrick’s Day celebrations.  Either we don’t possess Irish nationality as part of our genetic lineage (guilty!) or we have other priorities in our lives that don’t involve the garish festivities (also guilty!).

It’s only with the escalating socio-political chaos of our world that I’ve begun to reflect a little more about the concept that is most frequently associated with March 17:  LUCK.

Do we create our own luck, or is it all truly based on random chance?  Do most things in life happen as fluke occurrences...or do chains-of-events get set off that end up having greater ripple effects?  Or, is there truly supernatural/divine intervention in our lives that we have no real way of confirming or disproving?

One “self-stigma” that I’ve spawned for myself, over the years, is a self-perception that I am a human “bad luck charm.”  Worst-case scenarios tend to play out exactly as I fear they will – and I often seem to be an involuntary magnet for many different freaky, unstable, overbearing individuals.  It has been this way since my childhood.

The logical part of my brain realizes that this is merely negative thinking...and that I have more control over my life and my future than I’m usually willing to acknowledge.  Still, I find myself coming back to that fairweather adage of “We make our own luck...” and then reflecting:

“Well, great!  So *how* do I finally generate some good luck for myself???”

My quest for solutions might be off-base, but I’m going to begin giving it my best attempt.

So, the first thing I did was make a list of all of the MAJOR goals and results that I want to see come to pass – both in the short-term and in the long-term.

If we look at actual Irish traditions, there are some common threads.  Associating the color green with good luck and leprechauns just didn’t appear out of thin air.  Hues of green (particularly the shamrock) can be traced back to Catholicism.  Three-leaf clovers are a symbol of the Holy Trinity, and the rise of springtime can be linked to the greenish shades that first appear as plants reblossom following winter hibernation.

Saint Patrick himself had linked religious teachings to the rebirth of spring as well as new opportunities that can arise amidst the season itself.  In other words...what some people choose to perceive as “luck.”

According to historian Timothy McMahon, green began to arise as a nationalistic color for the Irish as they sought independence from Britain during the Great Irish Rebellion of 1641.  This came into play when the Catholics sought independence from Protestant rule...and, again, toward the beginning of the Nineteenth Century when newer freedom fighters desired more of a nonsectarian government.  The latter factor ended up becoming one of several dynamics which prompted mass immigration from Ireland to North America.

Even the clover itself goes back farther than the political unrest of post-medieval Ireland.  Celtic tribes believed that the oddity of a four-leaf clover would provide magical protection from evil spirits – repelling them with a combination of faith, love, and hope.  The pot-of-gold has symbolized eventual wealth and fortune...a bit of a folkloric allegory for how strength and perseverance can ultimately pay off for the sojourner.

Part of the irony here is also how Saint Patrick has been documented as a former slave who eventually attained his freedom and then succeeded in (ironically) converting the Druids to Christianity.  The mythical connection of four-leaf clovers to attract fairies to bring them good fortune became more palatable as the Irish people continued to fight for political revolution.

If you think about it, there are parallels that can be drawn to the modern day.  Most Americans are politically-agitated...at one point or another along the ideological spectrum.  Whether someone translates that into proactive behavior is obviously contingent upon one’s individual life circumstances.

When I first began to ponder the concept of “making my own luck,” I started off that mental exercise by creating a list of the biggest desires I have in life...both for myself and for the rest of the world.  I will mainly speak in generalities, here, so that it’s easier for anyone who wants to apply this to their own life.  That way, they can relate to my efforts without being simultaneously biased by my own specific desires.

First, many of us tend to want specific individuals (or, more broadly speaking, certain TYPES of people) to get successfully elected to office to enact positive changes.  So I began to mull over what little things I can do to promote those candidates while educating others about their virtues.  Then, you scale that up (as much as possible, within the context of your own life) – whether it’s working on a campaign for them directly, or “going rogue” and influencing outside groups to promote a message that will ultimately benefit your given candidate...every action you take to get the word out can have a ripple effect.

Like a stone being dropped in a pond...creating an outward reverberation of ripples in the water.   Or firing off a plethora of bullets from a gun...whereas those bullets are, instead, chunks of clarity and inspiration (rather than lethal tools for destruction).  How many of those individual bullets actually make contact with their intended target will be unknown until you actually fire the bullets.  But you won’t make contact unless you pull the trigger.  

So when you really believe in a candidate and view it as pivotal that they get elected (or reelected, as the case may be) – hammer away on their top endeavors that will make life positive for us.  And highlight the most glaring deficiencies embodied by their opponents. Lather, Rinse, repeat.

Next, too often so many of us tend to forget the art of conciliation.  When you have multiple voices who share a common basic goal – but have drastically different viewpoints on who is to blame, or what a solution should be – we have to find a cohesive way to bring those voices together.

Speaking in generalities, this can be accomplished if we ask all parties involved to identify tangible goals.  Then, outline what are the most likely paths that could be taken to achieve those goals; this will help the group, as a whole, determine which plan-of-action is going to be simultaneously the most realistic and the most effective.

A third area about which I often find myself stressing is our society’s collective stability when it comes to health, finances, and economics.  This is clearly a very complex problem with no instantaneous solution.  So, with that in mind, the best route here would be to imagine the worst-case scenarios that could befall our society.  Then “work backwards” and construct which preventative measures should reduce the chances of any worst-case scenarios from coming to pass.

On a macroscopic level, this should be the mechanism by which our politicians would construct public policy.  For those of us who aren’t actually elected lawmakers:  we can always do a better job of articulating those policy proposals to those who ARE in power.  Not to mention disseminating those ideas for the masses.

It can also be implemented on a smaller scale, more microscopically.  The aforementioned principle can be scaled down to apply to private organizations or the inner workings of social cohorts.  Context will always determine in which manner it’s modified.

The final ingredient in this general “recipe for luck-creation” would be maximizing one’s exposure so you can disseminate your message to as much of a mass audience as is realistic.  In some cases, your target audience might be very finite and self-contained.  In other cases, you may have reservations about “going public” because you fear ramifications or blowback at your workplace.  If those are indeed factors, you’ll need to adjust your approach accordingly.

Seek out as many like-minded people as possible...but don’t be hesitant about respectfully disagreeing on finer points of detail.  Restate your common goals and similar values.  Describe the ideal endgame.  Acknowledge everybody’s stake in achieving an optimal result.

As for those of us who haven’t yet found “true love”...that’s an even more complex journey.  It could also become an entirely separate topic that warrants a totally different discussion to be saved for another day.

I don’t necessarily believe that things in life happen due to “flukes” or “random chance.”  I think there are forces beyond our mortal comprehension that contribute to influencing the way life plays out.  And I don’t claim to ever hope to fully understand any of it before my mortal life concludes.

But my faith holds that always striving to take these sorts of steps will maximize the odds of an outcome becoming more positive than negative.  If we choose to define those outcomes as “luck,” then that’s in the eye of the beholder.

Do I literally believe that leprechauns and magical gold coins exist in our world?  Not in the literal, caricature-based way that pop culture has appropriated them.  Celtic mythology could indeed be based on greater supernatural and paranormal truths...but let’s not harbor any delusions about unlocking those mysteries during our lifetimes.

So where does that leave us?  “Luck,” such that it is, can be changed and influenced based on the actions we take in the present.  We won’t always know where that path will ultimately lead...but we still do the best we can with the information to which we have access.

That should be enough to make the leprechauns proud.