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You Are Not So Smart
http://youarenotsosmart.com/You Are Not So Smart is a blog devoted to self delusion and irrational thinking. There’s a lot of research out there suggesting you have no idea why you act or think the way you do. It feels awful to accept such things, so you create narratives to explain your own feelings and behavior. Rationalizing, redacting and reinterpreting alters your memories, making something you experienced a few hours ago get replayed with new details you fabricated. Each time you remember, you rebuild the memory, and in essence it gets less and less reliable. Memories from years ago become so tainted by your concept of self and all those narratives about why you think and feel the way you do, you end up standing on a mountain of falsified data – which keeps you sane.
Tags: psychology, blog, science, blogs, humor, interesting, sociology, bias, daily, cognition Saved by: admin
Confirmation Bias « You Are Not So Smart
Be careful. People like to be told what they already know. Remember that. They get uncomfortable when you tell them new things. New things…well, new things aren’t what they expect. They like to know that, say, a dog will bite a man. That is what dogs do. They don’t want to know that man bites a dog, because the world is not supposed to happen like that. What people think they want is news, but what they really crave is olds. Not news but olds, telling people that what they think they already know is true. Scientists looking to prove a hypothesis must avoid designing experiments with little wiggle room for alternate outcomes. The study suggests even in your memories you fall prey to confirmation bias, recalling those things which support your beliefs, forgetting those things which debunk them. The exercise is intended to show how you tend to come up with a hypothesis and then work to prove it right instead of working to prove it wrong. Once satisfied, you stop searching.
http://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/06/23/confirmation-bias/
Tags: psychology, memory, bias, marketing, persuasion, fallacies, philosophy, research, testing, toread Saved by: admin
Be careful. People like to be told what they already know. Remember that. They get uncomfortable when you tell them new things. New things…well, new things aren’t what they expect. They like to know that, say, a dog will bite a man. That is what dogs do. They don’t want to know that man bites a dog, because the world is not supposed to happen like that. What people think they want is news, but what they really crave is olds. Not news but olds, telling people that what they think they already know is true. Scientists looking to prove a hypothesis must avoid designing experiments with little wiggle room for alternate outcomes. The study suggests even in your memories you fall prey to confirmation bias, recalling those things which support your beliefs, forgetting those things which debunk them. The exercise is intended to show how you tend to come up with a hypothesis and then work to prove it right instead of working to prove it wrong. Once satisfied, you stop searching.
http://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/06/23/confirmation-bias/
Tags: psychology, memory, bias, marketing, persuasion, fallacies, philosophy, research, testing, toread Saved by: admin
Procrastination « You Are Not So Smart
"With Netflix, the choice of what to watch right now and what to watch later is like candy bars versus carrot sticks. "... "kids who were able to overcome their desire for short-term reward in favor of a better outcome later weren’t smarter than the other kids, nor were they less gluttonous. They just had a better grasp of how to trick themselves into doing what was best for them. Thinking about thinking, this is the key. In the struggle between should versus want, some people have figured out something crucial – want never goes away. ... Evolutionarily it makes sense to always go for the sure bet now. 'almost everyone has problems with procrastination, those who recognize and admit their weakness are in a better position to utilize available tools for precommitment and by doing so, help themselves overcome it. ... productivity is a game of cat and mouse versus a childish primal human predilection for pleasure and novelty'" ... GOOD STUFF
http://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/10/27/procrastination/
Tags: procrastination, psychology, productivity, brain, article, howto, lifehacks, metacognition, behavior, science Saved by: admin
"With Netflix, the choice of what to watch right now and what to watch later is like candy bars versus carrot sticks. "... "kids who were able to overcome their desire for short-term reward in favor of a better outcome later weren’t smarter than the other kids, nor were they less gluttonous. They just had a better grasp of how to trick themselves into doing what was best for them. Thinking about thinking, this is the key. In the struggle between should versus want, some people have figured out something crucial – want never goes away. ... Evolutionarily it makes sense to always go for the sure bet now. 'almost everyone has problems with procrastination, those who recognize and admit their weakness are in a better position to utilize available tools for precommitment and by doing so, help themselves overcome it. ... productivity is a game of cat and mouse versus a childish primal human predilection for pleasure and novelty'" ... GOOD STUFF
http://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/10/27/procrastination/
Tags: procrastination, psychology, productivity, brain, article, howto, lifehacks, metacognition, behavior, science Saved by: admin