It starts early, at school, in fact. A student, who scored the best grade on an assignment, is the one who instantly becomes a “teacher’s pet”. And there are couple of benefits of that position. If such a student is 5 minutes late to class, it’s not a big deal. A teacher will find it …
Category: Cognitive Bias
Echo chamber prevents you from hearing others
The echo chamber effect is described as blocking out information we do not like. This term comes from the acoustic echo chamber and how sounds vibrate and bounce in a closed space. We put some information to a chamber and then it is amplified or reinforced by communication and repetition within a closed group. And …
Anchoring bias during Black Friday: How numbers affect our decisions
Black Friday – a period of time when you’re being bombarded in every possible way by tons of various ads. From huge billboards to smartphones. Everywhere you go you see how much you can gain. But you need to hurry up. Those offers are precisely timeboxed, meaning that prices will be much higher right after …
Impostor syndrome among women
Have you ever thought the following about yourself: “I’m definitely not as skilled as other people think” or ”I’m just a fake pretending to be an expert”? Did it cross your mind that the truth would come out and you’d be identified as an impostor? If you had such doubts even for a second, you undoubtedly experienced …
It’s not me, it’s you! Why do people blame others for their failures?
Although we’d like to think we’re always rational and accurate in our attributions, we tend to distort certain situations to make ourselves feel better. It’s pleasurable to paint yourself in a positive light and it’s pretty hard to admit to a mistake. Especially when your reputation or, dare I say, your salary, is on the …
Why do we ignore facts?
A simple question: is wine healthy? Yet your answer may not be so simple. It will not be based purely on facts but also on your personal point of view. If you love sipping wine, your brain will start to look for arguments to prove that wine is actually good for your health. You will …
How to overcome the Dunning-Kruger effect?
You must have read my previous article: what stops incompetent people from feeling embarassed describing how the Kruger-Dunning effect makes people confident enough to express their opinions on a particular subject even if they are not experts in that field. They actually do it even if they have no idea what they are talking about. …
What stops incompetent people from feeling embarrassed?
Let me introduce you to Karen and Paul. They’re confident but not exactly the best performers at work. They believe they’ve got superhero powers but nobody really appreciates that. I bet you’ve met similar people during the course of your career. People who were incompetent and unable to recognize their incompetence. Now it’s high time …