On psychological biases

Some of the psychological biases to be aware of

Failure to consider alternative hypotheses

The president must be either good or evil. They are either with us or against us. You are a good father or a bad father. All these are common frames of mind but these are fallacious and are examples of false dichotomy human bias. You fail to consider alternative hypotheses that a president could be good in some dimensions but bad in others. That you can be a good father but still do mistakes in raising your child.

This is a common mode of human mistakes that experience helps you to reduce. As a child you see trees swinging and the wind blowing concluding that trees make the wind blow. It’s easy to miss the un-intuitive hypothesis that the wind may blow due to something which we can’t see and that leads to trees swinging.

As an adult too I make such mistakes often. I see my girlfriend texting less after taking up a new job and believing that she found someone interesting in the new job, failing to consider other hypotheses that she might be spending her time preparing for a surprise party for my birthday. With a clear mind, you often realize that alternative hypotheses together are much more probable than the hypothesis your first believed.

It’s not just about assigning a wrong probability to the hypothesis. Failure to consider other hypotheses also leads to confirmation bias. In the above example, I would think back and realize that she was indeed talking to someone away from my earshot a few times, reinforcing my belief. Had I considered other scenarios, I would’ve likely found other evidence against my belief.

Failure to consider hypotheses also makes you prone to adjusting your hypothesis to conform to new observations. Continuing with the previous example, if I see that she suddenly resumed texting normally, I’d think “she’s trying to bluff”, and my original belief ironically would be reinforced, because you double count the evidence. Once to change your hypothesis, then use it to confirm your belief (my theory explains the behavior!)

A map is not the territory

Organ replacement science and technology have become advanced enough to transplant everything short of the brain. But in the future, we may be able to transplant the brain too or even a part of it. If my brain is exchanged with that of another human being, most will agree that the being which has my brain would qualify to be called Aman, instead of the second one, even though most of my organs are absent. But what if only the right half of the brain is exchanged, which one would be called Aman?

This isn’t merely a philosophical brain teaser. Every day we face difficult situations which require us to answer similar questions. You think you’re very good at chess but then you lose and say “I thought I was good at chess, maybe I never was”.

In both cases, you forget that the map is not the territory.

Determining which one among the two beings with the right halves of the brains switched is you is a question similar to the famous thought experiment “Ship of Theseus.” And the failure is to believe that either something is Aman or it isn’t, but reality comes up with a being that is partially you and partially not. Instead of continuing to believe that you are a whole self-contained organism with an identity, which is your model of reality, you should consider the alternative hypothesis that there can be a being that is partially you.

If you thought you are good at chess based on your past wins, it is just a model of reality. Instead of seeing reality as it is and accepting that you are probably not invincible and you aren’t a total loser, you resort to believing either you are good or you are not.

How can a person be good and still break your heart?

Another example is finding your partner lied to you and claiming they still love you. You say, “a person who loves me won’t lie to me.” This sounds intuitively true and you may believe it strongly, but unfortunately, the map is not the territory. You may fail to see the reality that majority of the humans lie to their partners even when they are fully devoted and faithful. Continuing to believe your model that someone who lies to you can’t love you, maybe worse for your well-being than if you were to see the reality for what it is, and not what you believe it to be.

Karma is a model

Karma is something many people believe in. Why shouldn’t it be true? How else can there be a just universe without a mechanism to punish those you do wrong?

Sadly universe is not designed for humans to have a just society. The universe doesn’t seem to be designed for any purpose at all based on the evidence so far.

You can continue believing in Karma, hoping that you will get the good things you deserve for your good actions. You may also see it in action many times, all the while ignoring the cases where Karma didn’t pay back, not adjusting your model.

There is always something which is “true”. I agree. But the mistake is to believe a “hypothesis” is the “truth” instead of what it is – a falsifiable model.

What’s unnatural is also natural.

You see a video of a cow eating a baby chicken and say, “That’s impossible. I refuse to believe it because it’s unnatural”.

What we think is “natural” is just our construct. Just because we believe something is unnatural doesn’t mean something “evil” must be behind it. It’s failing to see what is true instead of what we believe is true.

If it walks like a duck if it quacks like a duck and if it looks like a duck, it’s likely a duck

You hate a political party but it came to the power. The government solves hunger, you say “they must be falsifying the data”. You see that your neighborhood has become cleaner, “it’s the people who have done it.” You see that the happiness index has gone up, “they are conspiring”.

To you, the political party you hate can’t ever be good even if it walks like a good government, talks like a good government, and you see all the good effects. You fail to adjust your map to the territory and to increase your internal probability that it likely IS a good government.

In a few decades if you see a computer program that talks like a conscious being,s act like a conscious being and responds like a conscious being, don’t fail to change your thinking if you believe a computer can’t be conscious.

Doublethink - good or bad?

The human mind has an amazing ability to hold two opposing beliefs simultaneously. Handled badly, this leads to cognitive dissonance and may lead to poor well-being.

Many people believe both Bible and evolution theory is correct (often employing selection bias to harmonize their beliefs, but sometimes not even that!) Once upon a time, I believed I am not an introvert and that I just don’t find it necessary to talk to people or don’t meet the right people. When confronted by my friend on my belief, the reality hit and I was distraught. However, the awareness helped me to shape my social behavior for the better later on.

You can, however, leverage doublethink to bring positive changes.

Researchers found that “positive thinking” – thinking about positive outcomes when working towards a goal, a well-known and extensively preached technique, does little good and may harm long your efforts in long term. Whereas, the people who visualize all the worst things that can happen are slightly more prepared to handle bad situations, and tend to achieve more. Even so, the people who visualize both the worst outcomes and the benefits critically have the best shot at achieving what they want.

Hope is a powerful motivator. Big hurdles in history were overcome by the people who hoped and believed despite all the evidence against success. Rational people, who have only evidence to base their belief, how can they hope? The solution is to employ doublethink and believe we can achieve the impossible.