Editor’s note: This article was first published in October 2013, so it quotes Daniel Kahneman in the present tense; Kahneman died in 2024.
Being aware of many of the traps our own mind sets for us can help us move forward in any area of life, to the point of making us smarter people, with all the good that brings, because we are not as smart as we sometimes think. That may be down to some of the mistakes our brain makes, also known as cognitive biases.
(Read also: 7 psychological traps that hold back your success)
1. We surround ourselves with information and people that match our beliefs
Without realising it, we like people who think the way we do. We have a view of the world, or of a particular subject, and so we are more likely to become friends with someone who shares that view, just as we ignore and dismiss anything that threatens our view of the world.
Technically, we surround ourselves with people and information that confirm what we already think. Fundamentally, this kind of habit is what turns people into sheep and limits their ability to learn.
Of course, we aren’t this foolish on purpose. It is our brain at work, in something similar to the frequency illusion.
What the frequency illusion is
It is a sign of how our brain can create a false belief by presenting us with facts that are false. For example, if you buy a new car, when you walk down the street you will start seeing the same model everywhere. In the same way, a pregnant woman starts seeing pregnant women all over the place. Both may think there are now more of those cars and more pregnant women, although there are probably just as many as before. It is your brain that now highlights information related to you and your situation.
Confirmation bias
This is another trick of the mind that we have mentioned before when talking about investing. While in the frequency illusion our brain acts passively, in this case our mind acts more actively.
Because of our beliefs, the mind will reject any information that contradicts them while accepting everything that tells us what we want to hear. For example, if I believe a market is bullish, I won’t listen to anyone who thinks it is bearish, because their arguments contradict mine.
When it comes to politics and religion, confirmation bias would be dangerous, to say the least. It is a case of scientific interest, given that what sets us apart is having something called a “brain”, which we sometimes use much as a monkey would.
2. The swimmer’s body illusion
Our brain has taught us to focus on the here and now, and to look for a reason to explain why we can’t do something that someone else can. This is what Rolf Dobelli called the swimmer’s body illusion: many people believe that professional swimmers are excellent swimmers because they have the perfect body for swimming.
In other words, we think those swimmers were born with a body made for swimming, and that this is why they have succeeded.
The reality is quite different: those bodies have been forged through thousands upon thousands of hours of swimming, effort and sacrifice, something anyone who wants to be a swimmer has to go through.
The same thing happens when we talk about success in business and give hundreds of examples of successful entrepreneurs and millionaires. Many readers’ brains immediately conclude that it was luck or that they come from wealthy families, but very few have stopped to analyse the Forbes list, which shows that, apart from a few, most of them come from poor families and inherited nothing.
Nor has anyone seen how many failures many of these millionaires have behind them. Everyone sees the swimmer today, but nobody remembers the skinny or chubby kid who first took up swimming.
3. Worrying about things we don’t have, have lost or never had
Money, time and effort are things that, once spent, can never be recovered. If you spend €1,000 at a casino, you will never get that €1,000 back. You may earn much more money, but what you have lost today is gone for ever. The same goes for time and effort.
The psychologist Daniel Kahneman says that the human mind is wired to feel a loss much more strongly than a gain, which is why people act irrationally, driven by their emotions about loss, without realising what they are doing.
Many people stay with their partners purely out of fear of loss. Many businesses don’t close for fear of losing what has already been invested, without realising that they keep piling up more losses.
What’s more, many people have never had money in their lives, and that is precisely what they long for. How can you miss something you have never had?
When people say you don’t realise what you have until you lose it, if we take that message out of its romantic context, it has a psychological basis: we pay more attention to losses.
An example: imagine you go to the cinema. You pay €7 for the ticket and discover that the film is lousy. Most people stay and watch it, because they have already paid for it (fear of loss). Only a few, having already lost their €7 on the ticket, are not willing to lose their time as well, and decide to walk out. In the end, everyone has lost the money, but some also choose to sit through something they really don’t want to watch.
See also: How to psych yourself up to do something you hate
Read part 2: more ways your mind betrays you
Further reading
- Rich and famous people who succeeded after living on the streets
- If you want to succeed, stop going to the bathroom, by Michael Bloomberg
- 9 truths about life and business
Featured image: Isiwal/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 4.0, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
