Post No.: 0588 Furrywisepuppy says: One of the most basic heuristics of ‘system one’ is to represent things in categories, with conceptions of norms and prototypical exemplars that things that belong to a particular category are perceived to … Read More
Post No.: 0584 Furrywisepuppy says: ‘Signalling theory’ is about conveying signals to other individuals that, ostensibly, display one’s genetic fitness or some other desirable trait. The purpose could be for trying to gain a potential mate’s attention or … Read More
Post No.: 0576 Furrywisepuppy says: If our rule of thumb when uncertain is to just ‘pick the middle option’ then what we pick will logically be affected by what options are presented. So we might pick a wine … Read More
Post No.: 0549 Furrywisepuppy says: During decision conflicts, different cognitive networks are competing with each other – for example, reason versus emotion, satisfying our present versus our future desires, reading the word or the colour of the word … Read More
Post No.: 0537 Fluffystealthkitten says: When you present your arguments and you want to motivate action from others – choosing the right framing for the audience in front of you is crucial. How are your arguments directly relevant … Read More
Post No.: 0526 Furrywisepuppy says: Firstly some definitions – the base rate, prevalence or prior probability (which term gets used depends on the context) is the probability of some thing or event occurring, such as the percentage of … Read More
Post No.: 0519 Furrywisepuppy says: The modern world tends to reward extroverts with more fame than introverts, even though it’s the introverts behinds the scenes who mostly make the modern world happen as they work on their computers … Read More
Post No.: 0510 Furrywisepuppy says: We often focus on a fact or story whilst ignoring the source of that fact (or ‘fact’) or story, even though the source will help tell us the reliability of it. We could … Read More
Post No.: 0506 Furrywisepuppy says: We judge things by comparing things – particularly by comparing things with other things that are currently being brought to mind. We don’t (and in many cases can’t) make true absolute or objective … Read More
Post No.: 0497 Furrywisepuppy says: Primes and whatever we happen to be currently thinking about affect our decisions, while anything we fail to currently consider or recall won’t. This should be obvious e.g. if we’re vegan and we’ve … Read More
Post No.: 0488 Furrywisepuppy says: According to some definitions, an ‘emotion’ is an external expression of an inner state that occurs typically without/before awareness in response to a stimulus; whereas a ‘feeling’ is an experience of being in … Read More
Post No.: 0481 Fluffystealthkitten says: I’m going to present here a random array of cognitive effects and tricks that might help improve your ability to convince or persuade others in various contexts. Post No.: 0078 also presented a … Read More
Post No.: 0471 Furrywisepuppy says: When you know what the lyrics to a muffled phrase in a song are, or the words of a messily handwritten letter are, then those words will seem more crystal clear to you. … Read More
Post No.: 0454 Furrywisepuppy says: Common tactics that people might use if they’re lying or want to conceal the truth include – wasting your time or trying to buy time (e.g. by questioning the question that’s just been … Read More
Post No.: 0448 Fluffystealthkitten says: Humans operate on some basic and reasonably predictable instincts that primarily evolved long before the species created this modern world. We can essentially break human behaviour down into a number of heuristics that … Read More
Post No.: 0437 Furrywisepuppy says: The ‘identifiable victim effect’ is the tendency to respond more strongly towards a single identifiable person at risk than towards a large group of unidentifiable people at risk. When we choose where … Read More
Post No.: 0431 Furrywisepuppy says: Especially in ambiguous or unfamiliar social settings, we tend to look for ‘social proofs’, follow the herd and copy the actions of others in an attempt to reflect the appropriate behaviour or social … Read More
Post No.: 0419 Furrywisepuppy says: Reality is an illusion constructed inside your own brain. Everything you perceive is down to a personal interpretation, based on your own genes combined with your own personal present and importantly past experiences … Read More
Post No.: 0414 Furrywisepuppy says: Education evidently isn’t enough sometimes to get people to do what’s good for them. For example, there are many health professionals who don’t even lead healthy lifestyles when they obviously know what they … Read More
Post No.: 0410 Furrywisepuppy says: Everybody’s got a personality or character unless they’re dead! So what most people (narrow-mindedly) mean when they think someone ‘lacks personality’ is that they lack an ‘outgoing’ character. It’s like everybody has a … Read More
