Post No.: 0950
Furrywisepuppy says:
So we’re off to perform a spacewalk today to replace a broken radio antenna on our spaceship. At the moment, we cannot pick up the music pup charts or greatest kits!
Fluffystealthkitten says:
Okay we’re both suited up. All systems are nominal. We’ve been cooped up inside this vessel for too long so let meowt of here!
Furrywisepuppy says:
Roger that.
(The pair of furballs follow the proper protocols and checklists and commence their extravehicular activity)
Fluffystealthkitten says:
…Wow, the view out here is even more awesome than from inside the ship!
Furrywisepuppy says:
There are no fitting words to describe the experience!
This colourful nebula of basic and social heuristics, that we’ve not covered before in this series of posts (which was last visited in Post No.: 0909), can be seen even more vividly from out here.
Fluffystealthkitten says:
Heuristics are mental shortcuts that can make a rough or satisfactory judgement or decision easier and quicker to make. But the problem is that they don’t guarantee a correct, perfect, optimal or rational one.
Why don’t we, while we’re out here then, go one by one through each heuristic we can each identify?
Furrywisepuppy says:
We do have enough time so that’s a terrific suggestion. I’ll go first.
Action bias – the assumption that ‘doing something is always better than doing nothing’ even when doing nothing would be better or when no problem really exists that needs dealing with. For instance, in this present gender and transgender equality debate, we see organisations trying to be seen to be ‘doing something’, even if they collectively contradict themselves. So motorsport has traditionally been gender-neutral, as in any gender can enter any major competition, but in an attempt to appear more inclusive, they had introduced a women’s-only race series. Meanwhile, entertainment awards categories have traditionally had separate ‘best male’ and ‘best female’ artist categories, but in an attempt to appear more inclusive, some competitions have presently changed that to have only one gender-neutral category for all!
Fluffystealthkitten says:
Additive bias – the tendency to think that we always need to add something to make something better, like adding more features on a product, when taking something away could be better.
Furrywisepuppy says:
Affect heuristic – messages that are framed to arouse our emotions tend to be more persuasive than those framed in a purely factual way.
Fluffystealthkitten says:
Attribute substitution – judging something by answering a simpler question when we’re really trying to answer a more complex question. For example, when trying to answer if we think someone is clever, we might instead answer if we think they look bookish, typically based on our preconceived stereotypes of people. And this substitution is usually done subconsciously hence we won’t always consciously know what we’ve done wrong when we’ve come to our conclusions.
Furrywisepuppy says:
Automation bias – how we can sometimes rely too much on automated systems or computers, like sat navs or artificial intelligence, for assuming that they’re never wrong. This can lead to incorrect information overriding correct decisions, or grave injustices such as the Fujitsu Horizon IT system and British Post Office subpostmasters scandal.
Fluffystealthkitten says:
Common sense – appealing to so-called ‘common’ thinking. A lot of propaganda assumes or presents itself as ‘the common sense of the people’.
Furrywisepuppy says:
Contagion heuristic – avoiding contact with objects that are associated with or have been touched by someone or something considered undesirable. Or less often, seeking contact with objects that are associated with or have been touched by someone or something considered desirable.
Fluffystealthkitten says:
Control heuristic – thinking that if one intends to create an outcome and has some personal involvement towards producing that outcome then one has a better chance of creating that desired outcome even if it’s down to pure chance, such as rolling a six when one is the one rolling a die.
Furrywisepuppy says:
Default effect – the tendency to go for the default option when uncertain about what to choose.
Fluffystealthkitten says:
Dilution effect – the more specific or personal the information one has, the less that general assumptions are taken into account, even if that specific or personal information is irrelevant, such as the odd name of a criminal suspect’s cat! Meow!
Furrywisepuppy says:
Educated guess or intuitive judgement – relying on one’s ‘gut feeling’ alone.
Fluffystealthkitten says:
Einstellung effect – the inclination to solve a given problem in a specific way even though there exist better ways of solving it.
Furrywisepuppy says:
Equity heuristic – splitting resources equally if one cannot personally think (or be bothered to think) of a better or fairer way to divide those resources.
Fluffystealthkitten says:
Fluency or cognitive ease – if something is simpler (for us personally) to understand, it tends to appear more truthful or correct. But often the real truth of something is quite complicated.
Furrywisepuppy says:
Following or imitating the majority – following the majority of one’s reference group and doing what they do.
Fluffystealthkitten says:
Form function attribution bias – this may be employed when judging robots, whereby we assume the functions of a robot always accord to its form.
Furrywisepuppy says:
Gaze heuristic – used when directing motion to achieve a goal by focusing on only one main variable. For instance, if we ignore the fact that we are essentially trying to solve a series of differential equations when trying to catch a ball in our mouths, and simply focus on the ball, then we’ll quite consistently arrive at the exact spot where the ball will land near the ground. This hence relies heavily on our instinctive physical reactions.
Fluffystealthkitten says:
Imitating the successful or best – copying the views and behaviours of the most successful of one’s reference group, even if their views and behaviours serve only the existing rich and successful.
Furrywisepuppy says:
Law of the instrument – we tend to over-rely on familiar tools or methods whilst under-valuing alternative approaches.
Fluffystealthkitten says:
Naïve diversification – when asked to make several choices at once, we tend to diversify our choices more than compared to when asked to make the same type of decision sequentially such as one choice per day. For instance, if we were to plan all of our lunches for the next 7 days, we might choose a diverse selection of meals, both healthy and less healthy. But if we were to only decide what we want as each lunchtime comes, we might constantly choose only less healthful options!
Furrywisepuppy says:
Non-adaptive choice switching – ‘once bitten, twice shy’ or where we’re reluctant to make the same decision for something again if its outcome was undesirable the last time, even though that choice was and remains optimal.
Fluffystealthkitten says:
Prevention bias – perceiving that a dollar spent on prevention to protect against a risk is always better than a dollar spent on timely detection and response, even when investing in either option is as equally effective as the other.
Furrywisepuppy says:
Recognition heuristic – if only one of two objects is recognised then we’ll infer that the recognised object has the higher value. We therefore tend to choose a recognised or familiar option over one that is not.
Fluffystealthkitten says:
Representativeness – we categorise or stereotype people, things or events based on the idea of a prototypical type or ‘typical prototype’ we have in our minds for those categories.
Furrywisepuppy says:
Reverse bandwagon effect – not doing something because one believes others are doing it, often because one wants to stand apart from the ‘common people’. This kind of snobbery can arise when listening to the musical artists we claim to like.
Fluffystealthkitten says:
Scarcity value – more scarce, difficult to obtain and/or restricted objects are inferred to carry greater value and hence desirability. And likewise, more expensive objects are inferred to be higher in quality and more rare.
Furrywisepuppy says:
Similarity – letting past experience shape one’s current views and decisions. Learning from our past experiences is generally wise, yet we can falsely presume that the past still holds true for the present and future.
Fluffystealthkitten says:
Simulation heuristic – people determine the likelihood of an event based on how easy it is to mentally picture that event. Thus, partially as a result, we tend to experience more regret over counterfactual outcomes that are easier to imagine, like ‘near misses’ of wins.
Furrywisepuppy says:
Snob effect – assuming price always positively correlates with quality, and where such overpriced products also serve as social status symbols and conspicuous consumption/leisure.
Fluffystealthkitten says:
Social-circle heuristic – following the option that one’s closest peers most choose.
Furrywisepuppy says:
Social proof – in ambiguous or unfamiliar social settings, we tend to copy what others around us do in an attempt to reflect the appropriate behaviour for a given situation. But we are assuming that others are behaving appropriately or optimally in that given situation in the first place when everyone could be just blindly copying each other(!)
Fluffystealthkitten says:
Stereotyping – prejudging a member of a group as possessing certain characteristics without having information that’s actually specific about that individual. It’s a heuristic that we all use to form opinions or make judgements about people or things, especially about people or things we have never directly seen or experienced sufficiently enough before, because the less we specifically know, the more we generalise.
Furrywisepuppy says:
Surrogation – similar to attribute substitution, this is where we can start to believe that a measure for something is that something.
Fluffystealthkitten says:
Take the best – when trying to decide between two options, and when going down a list of criteria ordered by importance with the most important criteria on top, we’ll often decide which option to take as soon as we come across the first criterion that discriminates between these two options.
Furrywisepuppy says:
Take the first – choosing the first option that comes to mind, especially when there’s no time to consider all options.
Fluffystealthkitten says:
Tit-for-tat – reciprocating what one receives.
Furrywisepuppy says:
Trial and error – simply trying things and adapting if something doesn’t work.
Fluffystealthkitten says:
Turkey illusion – like how a turkey may think that, because it is being fed and cared for nicely every single day, it will be fed and cared for nicely in perpetuity; when in fact it doesn’t know that it’s going to be slaughtered one day! So we can wrongly assume that trends will always continue as they have been.
Furrywisepuppy says:
Using a rule of thumb – relying on a clichéd phrase or ruff rule to guide our general choices.
…Can you please pass me the pistol-grip tool for one last time kitty.
Fluffystealthkitten says:
No worries.
Furrywisepuppy says:
High four! The job of fixing the antenna array has been completed without a hitch. Let’s head back inside.
Fluffystealthkitten says:
Okey-dokey.
(The furry and fluffy spacewalkers return safely inside their spaceship, follow the correct procedures and doff their adorable little spacesuits)
Furrywisepuppy says:
Let’s check if the fix has worked…
(The radio crackles but then tunes into what sounds like an extraterrestrial language)
Fluffystealthkitten says:
What. Was. That?
Furrywisepuppy says:
I dunno. It’s coming from the starboard direction. Should we pursue it?
Fluffystealthkitten says:
Umm… okay.
Furrywisepuppy says:
By the way, the number of identified biases, heuristics and psychological effects will continue to grow and refine so we will never really be able to include them all in these lists. Some others have or will be covered elsewhere in this blog but won’t be covered in this series of posts. You may also notice the number of apparent duplicates or overlaps; as well as contradictions due to certain biases, heuristics or effects occurring in specific contexts and other biases, heuristics and effects occurring in different contexts, hence they come with heavy provisos. Some are downright disputed too.
Fluffystealthkitten says:
As usual then, we must all individually do our parts to remain as lifelong learners and critical thinkers to keep abreast with the latest findings and best-known truths. This is normal.
Furrywisepuppy says:
Woof.
Fluffystealthkitten says:
Meow.
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