Our thought processes are not always the clearest. They are not always the most rational. Psychologists have identified over 100 of these thinking biases. This blog looks at just nine of these, which seem particularly relevant to the world of both education and sport, and uses ideas on how best to get rid of them.
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Confirmation Bias – this refers to the idea that people pay a lot more attention to people or ideas that they had previously agreed with. A great example of this is illustrated in Daniel T. Willingham’s exceptional book, ‘When Can You depend on The Experts’. He details a fascinating study in which half a class of students were told that their supply teacher was ‘rather cold, industrious, critical, functional and determined’. The other half were told the exact same sentence, except the words ‘rather cold’ were replaced with ‘very warm’.
Students who had expected to be taught by a warm teacher rated the supply teacher as nicer and funnier. In other words, what they saw and interpreted backed up their previous belief.
How to get rid of This? have a diverse range of people to talk to. This range of personalities can help avoid group-think and help minimise confirmation bias.
The Halo effect – this describes how your overall impression of someone is influenced by either one part of their character or your first opinion of them. For example, if a student Camiseta Urawa Red Diamonds gets an A on their first essay, or an athlete scores on their debut, it is easy to assume that they are high achieving/potential individuals, and Camiseta Copa Mundial de Fútbol so as a result would expect them to achieve similar success in the future. However, this is a sample size of 1. There is not enough information to make a reliable prediction.
This short video clip of Derren brown gives an example of the halo effect in action, in social situations:
How to get rid of This? remember that first impressions may not be the most accurate. try not to have too fixed an opinion too early on and see things not just as black or white, dreadful or amazing, successful or unsuccessful.
The Hawthorne effect – This is named after an experiment at The Hawthorne factory in America. keen to find out how their staff could be a lot more productive, the owners of the aspect observed them. When they were being watched, productivity increased. When they were no longer being observed, productivity returned to normal rates. This has some interesting implications, as it is tough to give someone feedback on how they are doing, if your mere presence alters how they go about doing their work.
How to get rid of it? Take a long term approach. One off observations are probably fairly useless. Where possible, make these as discrete and subtle as possible, to minimise the impact of your presence there.
Negativity Bias – Let’s do a quick experiment: I think you are a kind person but I also think some of your suggestions are stupid. If I was to ask you which part of the sentence you would be likely to remember in a months time, chances are it would be the negative part. This is because we have learnt to play close attention to the negative things. This probably has evolutionary backgrounds where being aware of negative and harmful things helped keep us safe.
How to get rid of This? Take time to actively search out and reflect on the good things that have happened. It is unlikely that everything is all bad. You can read a lot more about challenging these sort of unhelpful thoughts in this blog here.
The Bandwagon Effect: This describes how you are a lot more likely to believe in an idea if lots of other people already believe it. For example, people are far a lot more likely to re-use their hotel towel if they think 75% of other guests do so as well. This is a reason why some road signs indicate what percentage of the population drive at the recommended speed limit, and not how lots of drive over it.
How to get rid of This? If in doubt, try listening to your gut. If you are not sure if you are being swayed by the crowd, ask yourself ‘what would your opinion be if you didn’t know any individual else’s?’
The Dunning Kruger Effect: This thinking bias is potentially the most discouraging of them all. It Camiseta SS Lazio describes how unskilled people tend to overestimate their ability, whereas experts doubt themselves. Researchers David Dunning and Justin Kruger were inspired by the story of an inept bank robber who believed the covering his face in lemon juice would make him undetectable to the banks CCTV cameras.
Their subsequent study found that those who score in the lower bracket for their ability to tell funny jokes, use of grammar and ability to think logically consistently rated themselves in a much higher category.
How to get rid of This? Take any individual who makes definitive 100% statements with a pinch of salt. experts are often comfortable talking about what they don’t know or the limitations of their work.
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