Thinking 101 summary

Imagine you’re given three numbers in a sequence and told that the sequence follows a rule that you must determine. You then have to give another set of three numbers that follow what you believe that rule to be.

All clear? Good. Then let’s try this one out.

Imagine if you’d enrolled your young child in ice-skating lessons and then saw little to no skill improvement over three years. Around the same time you started the skating classes, you also let them give soccer a go. Then at a match, you noticed your child was actively running away from the ball when it was kicked toward them.

You’d probably think, “My child is just not into sports.” The author certainly did when she experienced these situations with her son. Yet in high school, he discovered cross-country running and became captain of the team.

Many studies support the idea that people give more mental real estate to negative events than positive ones. Others show how our fear of losing something can keep us from even considering possible gains, at least up to a point. Even the emotional attachment of ownership clouds our judgment in what is known as the endowment effect.

In one study, researchers gave a group of people a choice between a mug or a chocolate bar as a gift, and the group split about fifty-fifty in which they chose. A second group received a mug each as a gift to keep. They then had the option of swapping the mug for a chocolate bar – only 11 percent took that offer. You might wonder if there was something special about the mug over the chocolate bar, but when the gift was reversed for a second group, only 10 percent wanted to exchange their chocolate for the mug. In the latter two groups, an overwhelming number of people didn’t want to part with something simply because they considered it to be theirs.

Biased interpretation is the root of the confirmation bias we discussed previously. It’s when we rely on our existing beliefs so much that we even take new, conflicting data and shape it to fit the story we’re telling ourselves instead of being objective.

For example, when the author was pregnant with her first child, she happened to read an article in Nature about how babies exposed to any light while sleeping were found to be five times more likely to develop nearsightedness. With that, she crossed night-light off her nursery shopping list.

The research on how poorly people pick up nuances in tone may frighten you. In one study, friends paired off, with each writing a series of single-sentence emails which they then sent to one another. Some of the sentences were sarcastic. Others were serious. The recipients then had to determine which were which. The results? Their perceptions were accurate only half the time. While these sets of friends perceived the messages accurately when delivered verbally, other studies on ambiguity in verbal communication show significant confusion, even among people who knew one another well.

We have misunderstandings all the time, even with the best intentions and with people we know well. That’s because, despite a desire to see others’ perspectives, research shows we’re really bad at it. When we assume too much familiarity in our communications, things quickly go awry.

If someone offered you $340 now or $350 in six months, which would you choose? If you’re like most people, you’ll go for the $340 now. What if we up that offer to $390 in six months versus $340 now? Even then, most people would go for the immediate reward instead of the promise of $50 more later.

These are typical tests and results that show how we so easily blow off delayed gratification, even in instances where it makes more sense rationally to wait. Take the second question, where many people justify taking the lower amount now by reasoning they could invest the money to make more than the $50 increase. Or, they say some major event between now and six months could prevent them from getting the money. But no market investment in a normal economy has a higher rate of return than the promised increase over that time, and most other events also are unlikely. Yet research proves we still cling to that reasoning, at least when the differences are relatively small.