decision science Archives - Doctor Paradox

decision science

August 10, 2023

Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive dissonance is a psychological concept that can be understood as the mental discomfort or tension a person experiences when holding two or more contradictory beliefs, values, or attitudes simultaneously. The concept was first introduced by psychologist Leon Festinger in 1957.

The term refers to the internal conflict that arises when a person’s beliefs or values clash with new information or actions. This conflict leads to an uncomfortable feeling — motivating the individual to reduce the dissonance by either changing their beliefs, acquiring new information, or minimizing the importance of the inconsistency.

Examples of cognitive dissonance

Smoking and Health Awareness: A person who smokes but is aware of the health risks associated with smoking may experience cognitive dissonance. They may try to reduce this discomfort by downplaying the risks, avoiding information about smoking’s dangers, or quitting smoking altogether.
Environmental Concern and Behavior: Someone who is concerned about the environment but continues to use plastic bags may feel a similar tension. They might resolve this by justifying their behavior (“It’s just one bag”) or by making a change to reusable bags.

Mechanisms to reduce cognitive dissonance

People employ various strategies to reduce the discomfort caused by cognitive dissonance:

Changing Beliefs or Behavior: This involves altering one’s beliefs or actions to align with the conflicting information, such as quitting smoking in the first example.
Seeking Supportive Information: People may seek out information or opinions that support their existing beliefs, thereby reducing the conflict.
Minimizing Importance: By downplaying the significance of the conflicting belief or action, individuals can reduce the discomfort they feel.

Impact on Decision Making

Cognitive dissonance plays a significant role in decision-making processes. When faced with a choice, people often experience dissonance after making a decision, wondering if they made the right choice. This can lead to a phenomenon known as “post-decision dissonance,” where individuals overemphasize the positive aspects of their choice and downplay the negatives to feel more comfortable with their decision.

Cognitive dissonance summary

Cognitive dissonance is a complex but relatable psychological phenomenon that affects many aspects of our daily lives. It’s the mental tug-of-war that occurs when our beliefs, values, or actions are in conflict. Understanding this concept can provide insight into human behavior and decision-making, shedding light on why people sometimes act in ways that seem irrational or contrary to their stated beliefs.

By recognizing cognitive dissonance in ourselves and others, we can better navigate the complexities of human thought and behavior, fostering empathy and self-awareness. Whether it’s making a significant life decision or understanding why we feel a certain way about a minor inconsistency, cognitive dissonance is a valuable lens through which we can explore the human psyche.

April 9, 2023

Tunnel Vision

Tunnel vision is both an actual physical condition, and a metaphor for a myopic type of thinking. In the former, people who experience tunnel vision have a loss of peripheral vision that results in a constricted, circular field of vision akin to looking through a tunnel. In the cognitive metaphor, tunnel vision refers to a resistance to considering alternative points of view or potential solutions to a problem. Whether due to conviction in one’s position or mental laziness in exploring other options, tunnel vision can be dangerous and lead to deleterious outcomes.

Motivated reasoning is a closely related concept to tunnel vision, in that both phenomena feature someone being predisposed to a specific belief or outcome. In both there is a tendency to back a certain course of action even before evidence is available or fully examined, and to continue to hold that position regardless of any new evidence that may come in that challenges the preferred narrative. Tunnel vision can lead to bad decisions, because focus is being placed on a favored outcome while ignoring potentially much better solutions or courses of action.

Key aspects of tunnel vision

Limited perspective: Tunnel vision in decision-making occurs when people fail to consider the bigger picture or explore alternative viewpoints. They may become fixated on a specific goal, approach, or outcome, which prevents them from recognizing other potentially more effective or beneficial options.
Confirmation bias: This cognitive bias occurs when people selectively focus on information that supports their pre-existing beliefs or assumptions, while disregarding or downplaying evidence that contradicts them. This biased thinking reinforces tunnel vision and leads to poor decision-making. Related to: motivated reasoning.
Groupthink: In group settings, tunnel vision can be amplified by groupthink, a psychological phenomenon where members of a group prioritize conformity and harmony over critical evaluation and independent thinking. This can result in a narrow-minded consensus that overlooks important information and alternative perspectives.
Emotional factors: Strong emotions, such as fear, stress, or overconfidence, can also contribute to tunnel vision in decision-making. These emotions may cloud judgment, cause people to fixate on specific aspects of a situation, and prevent them from thinking objectively and rationally.
Inability to adapt: Tunnel vision can lead to rigidity and an inability to adapt to changing circumstances. Decision-makers may stubbornly cling to their initial plans or beliefs, even when faced with new information or challenges that call for a different approach.

How to avoid tunnel vision

To mitigate tunnel vision in decision-making, it’s essential to cultivate self-awareness, engage in critical thinking, and actively seek out diverse perspectives and alternative solutions. By challenging assumptions, being open to new information, and considering a broader range of factors, individuals and groups can make more informed and effective decisions.

Get a second opinion
Have a brainstorming session to evaluate other points of view
Take a break for a while and come back to the problem or issue again after some time away from it
Do thought experiment exercises where you put yourself in someone else’s shoes and try to imagine how they would solve the problem, or what decision they might make given their own interests and beliefs.

More about how we think:

Think Better ↗

Mental models are a kind of strategic building blocks we can use to make sense of the world around us.

Mental Self-Defense ↗

You may not know it yet but you’ve been drafted into a war. A conflict of cognitive warfare, in which the battlefield is your mind.

30 Common Psychological Biases ↗

These systematic errors in our thinking and logic affect our everyday choices, behaviors, and evaluations of others.

April 17, 2021

Efficiency isn’t everything

There are many things in life you don’t want to rush through; many experiences you wish to linger. The American cult of efficiency is a kind of over-optimization, and over-fitting of a line that delusionally demands up and to the right every single day, every single quarter, every single time.

The benefits of stopping to smell the flowers have been extolled by sages and philosophers throughout the ages. In all of recorded human history lies some form of the mantra, “haste unto death” — for it is true. We rush headlong off the cliff after all the lemmings ahead of us. We can’t help ourselves — eternal moths to eternal flames.

The slow life

From the cuisine to jurisprudence, from behavior economics to psychological well-being, moving more slowly has numerous well-established benefits. Efficiency should never be the only goal, in any domain or at all times. As James Madison strongly agreed with, “moderation in all things” is the mathematically optimal way to approach life, justice, and governing. Influenced by the Marquis du Condorcet, the invention of statistics, and a distaste for extremism in all forms, The Founders were prescient regarding the later theory of the wisdom of the crowds. They sought to temper the passions of the crowds via checks and balances in our system of governance.

“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice,” said Martin Luther King, Jr. That the veracity of the quote remains unsettled is unsettling, like strange fruit swinging in the southern breeze. Yet the “quick justice” barbaric efficiency of slavery, the Confederacy, Jim Crow, superpredators, and mowing down unarmed Black men for traffic violations to name a few, are no examples of fairness. Faster isn’t always better, especially when it comes to justice. It takes time to gather facts, talk to witnesses, piece together the crimes and document them in an airtight way, brokering no doubt in the mind of a single jurist.