You probably think you have complete control over your decisions and thoughts... But how often are they driven by something else? Something you don't even notice deep in your mind... Here are 21 cognitive mind traps, delusions, biases and other phenomena that exist in your brain. Strange things that are built into all human minds. You can go through life or well into adulthood without even realizing that you carry these thinking errors and mental shortcuts that affect your everyday thinking. You cannot turn them off or erase them from your brain. But being one of the few people who can notice when they pop into your mind and knowing in which situations they are likely to influence your decision-making is one of the first steps to achieving thinking that is thoughtful and rational. This lesson is largely inspired by the works of Nobel Prize winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman and his amazing book Thinking, Fast and Slow.

Survival bias

During World War II, Navy researchers conducted a study of damage aircraft suffered from enemy fire during missions. They concluded and recommended that armor should be added to the most damaged areas. At first glance, this seems like the most sensible move, "We need to put more armor where the planes get hit the most." However, a mathematician named Abraham Wald quickly noticed the mistake the researchers had made. They only looked at data on planes that survived their missions, and bombers that were shot down were not included at all. Wald suggested that they reverse their initial decision and do the opposite, to place armor in areas where the surviving planes had not been hit, because those were the areas that had caused fatal damage to the other bombers that had not survived. Survival bias is a logical fallacy in which the data presented to us are only representative of a subset of the population that has already survived some filtering process. Put simply, we tend to focus on the things that survived the process and ignore the things that failed. People can say things like "They made much stronger and nicer buildings back in the day", ignoring the fact that this is one of the few buildings that survived this long and 99% of the buildings back then were probably flimsy and ugly, but now they are completely invisible to us.

Here is another example. Move to a new city. You see a lot of successful restaurants in the area and figure that if all of these restaurants are successful, you might as well. What is invisible to you are all the restaurants that have failed in previous years. When you focus only on the "winners," survival bias causes you to underestimate the challenge and overestimate your chances of success. Everywhere you look there are successful actors and actresses. In reality, your chances of becoming successful are slightly above zero. But no one is interested in all the failures, so the graveyard of all failures is mostly invisible to you. Society and the media only focus on the winners. Try searching for "Actors Who Failed... Or People Who Failed In Life After Dropping Out Of College" and you won't have much luck finding anything useful. For every rock star, there are thousands of people in the "graveyard of failures" who didn't make it. For every startup business, there are thousands of failed startups. Everyone should chase their dreams, but don't let survival bias fool you into thinking the challenge is easier than it looks. Be careful with your overly optimistic beliefs that are caused by unseen failures. Do you focus only on the person or thing that survived the process?

Self-serving bias

You got an A on the test because of all your hard work. However, you failed the test because the teacher is unfair and doesn't like you. For the CEO, all the great things that happened to the company that year were a direct result of his/her brilliant decisions. If a company has a bad year, blame the economy, interest rates and government policies. According to the self-serving bias, our failures are the result of external forces, but our successes are the result of our internal actions. For most people... The natural reaction to a negative outcome is to find an excuse and blame others. To combat this, the first step is simply to become aware of the bias. Try to practice humility and always seek accountability and feedback about your strengths and weaknesses from others. Self-serving bias is also closely related to…

Fundamental attribution error

We judge the behavior of others based on their personality or fundamental character, but we attribute our behavior to situational factors. If Simon is late for work, it's because he's lazy and doesn't take his job seriously. If you're late for work, it's the fault of traffic and weather conditions. Try to notice yourself in situations where you judge someone based on their personality the way you would blame external factors in the same scenario.

The effect of hindsight bias

You've probably encountered people who constantly say, "I knew that was going to happen..." "I knew that stock was going to fall..." "I knew it was going to lose the election!" "I knew Jack and Mary were going to break up..." They are always experts after the event has already happened. This is the hindsight bias effect, also known as the "I told you so" phenomenon. When we look at past events, everything seems clear and inevitable. Imagine you are a computer with a virus (hindsight bias) that causes you to overwrite previous information. As a result of this virus, you are unable to reconstruct previous knowledge. We think our memories are clear, but we are actually bad at accurately remembering the past. The effect of hindsight bias is memory distortion. Memories of what you actually said or believed before the event are distorted to make your past thoughts or beliefs more closely match what actually happened. Here's an example. This is what you really believed before the election... The results you watched are updated in your brain. The virus starts working and now when you go back to that memory, it's distorted. And memory distortion always works to your advantage. It causes people to misremember things they said, their past opinions, and makes people overconfident in explaining all the reasons why something happened. The events leading up to World War II at the time, on the ground, probably looked something like this, but afterwards, with hindsight, people put it all into one clear sequence of events that people should have predicted. The effect of hindsight bias is particularly harmful to decision makers, doctors, coaches, CEOs, and financial advisors, because observers do not judge a person based on the correctness of their decision making, but on whether the outcome was good or bad. We blame good decision making that led to a bad result. But we praise bad decision-making that led to a good result. It's easy for us to blame when we know all the facts about what happened, we simplify the past, when at the time there was doubt, uncertainty or complexity. "Don't worry Mel, the mistake seems obvious now, but it's only in hindsight. You couldn't have known ahead of time" "I knew that was exactly what was going to happen" "Are you sure?... I remember you saying something very different" .

Access bias

"Cape Town is safe, I know a man who lives there and he's never had a problem with crime" "Smoking isn't that bad, my uncle has been smoking for 50 years and he's still alive" People are known for being bad at thinking statistically, even and when they are educated. We create a picture of the world using the examples that come to mind most easily. It is illogical, of course, and not in accordance with reality. We use statements like this to prove something, but they don't actually prove anything. When we talk this way, we are subject to access bias. Airplane accidents that are shown in the news are easy to remember, safe flights are hard to remember. Approach bias can lead us to an irrational fear of flying. The shark attack story in the news last week is easy to remember. Safe swimming in the ocean is hard to remember. Approach bias can lead you to an irrational fear of a shark attack. We estimate the probability of something happening based on the information that is most readily available in our memory. Here is all the information. And here's the information that's most readily available to us, which could be something we've seen recently, something in the news, or something extreme. Here's an example. Your chances of being attacked by a shark in Australia are about 1 in 1,000,000. And let's imagine that this is your perception of the risk of that happening. You see a news story about a shark attack somewhere in Australia that you've never heard of. You hear a story about a shark attack in the same state where you live. A relative's friend tells you that his uncle was attacked by a shark last week. Someone in your family was attacked by a shark yesterday. The closer you are to the available information, the more risk you perceive. The facts and reality remain the same, but the information most readily available to us changes the way we make decisions. With access bias, we go through life with an inaccurate risk map in our heads. We overestimate the chances of a plane crash, car accident or terrorist attack, and underestimate the chances of dying from cancer or diabetes.

Availability cascade

A local news story about a razor being found in candy leads to concerned mothers in the local community, which leads to news of worried mothers, which leads to a national story, which leads to parents panicking and inspecting their children's candy, which ultimately leads to the homemade candy being and cakes are not given to children who go from door to door across the country. This is a contingency cascade - a self-sustaining series of events that can begin with media reports of a relatively minor event and lead to mass public panic and/or large-scale government intervention. People begin to accept a belief, not because it is true or common, but because it is popular. In simpler terms, an availability cascade is a massive overreaction to a minor problem. When faced with minor risks, we either completely ignore them, or completely exaggerate them, with no middle ground. A parent may experience this feeling when waiting for their teenage child to come home. He knows there is a 99 percent chance that everything is fine as usual. But even the slightest thought that something might be misaccessible in your mind sets off a self-perpetuating train of thought that grows into more thoughts that something catastrophic has happened, which can eventually lead to panic and the need to immediately make contact and check that your kid ok When you watch the news, is it an objective journalistic article or just an availability cascade? "This is just an availability cascade, an event that doesn't happen, which the media inflates until it fills our screens and causes a public outcry."

Illusion of spent costs

You go to the cinema with a friend, after 25 minutes you both realize that the movie is terrible. You turn to your friend and say "This is terrible, let's get out of here". He replies "Yes, it is, but we spent a lot of money on these tickets, we can't just leave now". This is the illusion of spent costs. You've spent money whether you stay or go. Another example... Maybe you have a girlfriend who is constantly unfaithful, but you still forgive and accept her back. You may be saying things to yourself like "I've invested so much time, energy and love into this woman, I can't give her up now". If you find yourself saying things like... "I've come so far..." or... "I've spent so much money on this stock, I can't sell it now" when the price drops... You're probably dealing with a sunk cost illusion . The illusion of spent costs can especially influence the decision-making of investors in the stock market. To be more rational, look at the current status and forecast of the action, or relationship and do not put too much weight on past investments of money, time, energy or love.

Frame effect

What meat would you like to buy? 99 percent fat free or 1 percent fat Most people, when asked, choose option A, even though they are identical. And now? 98 percent fat-free or 1 percent fat? Most people still choose option A. This is the framing effect. We often draw different conclusions from the same information depending on how it is presented. Be wary of how different media sources frame their headlines and stories and how companies frame their offerings. Here, we have a small bag of popcorn for $3 and a large bag for $7. Which one would you choose? In this case, a higher percentage of people will opt for the cheaper option. Now, let me introduce you to a third option. Medium size for $6.50. Studies show that when offered these three options, a much higher percentage of people will choose the large one because they consider it the most valuable option. Small and large prices are exactly the same, but the apparent option changes your perception and influences your decision in favor of the more expensive option. When the Economist magazine offered readers these two options, they were quite disappointed with the results. Most opted for the cheaper option. When they introduced a third apparent option, their sales jumped 43%. The offer was exactly the same, but the print and online offer now seemed much more valuable. The bills are due! Honey, would you mind paying the bills. It's not what you say, but how you say it. Do you want to pay by cash or credit card? If the sign showed a 5% cash discount, people wouldn't feel so bad about missing out on the "discount" for the convenience of using a credit card. If a sign shows a 5% credit card surcharge, people will be inclined to avoid that fee. However, upon closer inspection, they are exactly the same things. There is a 90% chance that you will survive this operation. There is a 10% chance of dying from this operation. Same outcome. Different frameworks. The words we use affect the emotions we have towards making certain decisions.

The illusion of grouping

Have you ever seen faces in the clouds? Jesus on toast or faces on rock formations on Mars. The human brain looks for patterns and rules. In most cases, the grouping illusion is harmless, but it has real consequences in the real world. Investors who rely on technical chart analysis have an inexplicable ability to draw all kinds of patterns and predictions from data. They often sense patterns and make risky investments where there really isn't any. Take a moment to observe this series of X's and O's. Is the sequence random or planned? Although completely random, people often come up with all kinds of laws or rules to explain the pattern of letters. To overcome sensitivity to pattern recognition, try to reclaim your skepticism. If you find a pattern, ask yourself, is it more likely to be pure coincidence, or are you falling for the clustering illusion?

Exponential growth

If you fold a piece of paper in half, then fold it in half again and keep doing this 50 times, how thick will it be after 50 folds? If you guessed that it would be a few centimeters thick, you missed a bit, because the paper will be that thick. It could almost reach the Sun from Earth. Linear growth is intuitive to us. However, exponential growth is incomprehensible to us. But why is that so? Because, simply put, we didn't need it before. Our ancestors generally had linear experiences. Let's use this hypothetical country with some hypothetical growth examples. The inflation rate of this country is 5%. Intuitively, if we're being honest, we have no real idea what that even means. "Only 5%" some people may remark, "that's not so bad!" If I tell you instead that in 14 years your money will be worth half of what it is today, you can understand that without much thought. And that may actually give you reason to worry! "The greatest flaw of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." - Al Bartlett "The power of compounding interest is the most powerful force in the universe." - Albert Einstein To illustrate the power of exponential growth, if we put one grain of rice on the first square of this chess board, two grains on the second square, four grains on the third square, and so on, doubling the number of grains on each subsequent square. How many grains of rice would we need to complete this task? In the short term, exponential growth is not that impressive, but growth that happens at an ever faster pace in the long term is truly amazing and can quickly become astronomical and incomprehensible. To complete the task, you would need 18 quintillion grains of rice, a number we cannot even begin to fathom and illustrates how quickly a small amount of something can increase when exposed to the power of exponential growth. If you want to approximate the time it takes for a process to double, or need a way to describe something in a more intuitive way, use the rule of 70. 10% return on investment = your money will be worth twice as much in about 7 years. 8% inflation = Your money will be worth half of today's value in about 8.7 years. Earth has a population growth rate of 5% = Earth will double its population in about 14 years. Of course, these growth rates should remain constant, and the world is full of uncertainty and complexity, however, these are much more intuitive than just saying "The current inflation rate is X percent" Be careful with exponential growth. Never trust your intuition about exponential growth, because we don't have one. Wherever possible, try to convert the growth rate to something linear with a time frame.

The Barnum effect

It may be surprising to you, the viewer, that I know you. You have a great need to be loved and admired by other people. Sometimes you have serious doubts about whether you have made the right decision. You pride yourself as an independent thinker. Sometimes you are extroverted, kind, sociable, while at other times you are introverted, cautious, reserved. Did I come close to giving you an accurate description of your personality? In 1948, Bertram Forer conducted an experiment in which people were given the same text of general statements found in astrological magazines. He then told each participant that he had personally written a statement just for them. 86% felt that the text was an accurate description of their personality. This is the Barnum effect, when we easily attribute our personality to vague and general statements, even if they may apply to a wide range of people. The next time you go "Omg that's me" while reading your horoscope or taking an online quiz about what kind of spirit animal you are, just remember that people are easily fooled by horoscopes, palm reading and psychics because of the Barnum effect.

Although some writing errors are possible due to translation or other factors, I believe the gist is conveyed in an understandable manner. I hope this lesson helps you on your way to control.