In this week’s brew:
A Primer on Human Nature & Judgement by Neelendra Nath
Visual Thought of the Week featuring creative shared by @RMantri
The Network State - a twitter thread by Balaji Srinivasan
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A Primer on Human Nature & Judgement
We judge, that is our thing. Judgments keep us alive. Well, most of the time.
Nature is a harsh place and anything that should not survive, ends up not surviving. The survival of every living being depends upon instinctive judgments that they make every living moment. In a way, it is our first line of defence.
Before we head further, first let’s get the fundamentals sorted. What is the difference between judgement and decision making? There are many ways of defining and differentiating between them. I typically go with the one which distinguish them based on conscious effort that goes in to the two. Decision making is a conscious process of rationally comparing two or more alternatives and selecting one of them. Whereas, judgments are often involuntary and instinctive identification of people, thing or situation in various baskets of favourable or unfavourable classifications.
Having a sound judgment leads to making good decisions.
Given that the judgements are often instinctive and involuntary, we made them without consciously considering the subject and hence, our ‘nature’ impacts them greatly. Bad judgements do lead to making bad decisions, so it is quite critical that we do not let the weakest and worst aspects of the human nature be in control of our judgments. And, to be able to do that it is important that we understand what those weak traits are.
Here are a set of human nature or traits, which can cloud our judgements.
Ability to feel Jealous or Envious
It is in the human nature to feel jealous or envious of the people who have gotten more of what we want. Ideally when we come across someone who has already achieved what we wish for, sound judgment would be to emulate them or seek guidance from them. But, when clouded by envy or jealousy, we tend to judge them extremely negatively and undermine their methods. That bad judgment, clouded by jealousy, actually adversely affect our ability to replicate the same success for ourselves.
Extension of Likes/Dislikes
It is a very natural human tendency to think favourably of people in every aspect, because we deeply like one thing about them. People who are fan of a sportsperson, extend that liking in to believing that they could do no wrong otherwise as well. Similarly dislike of one trait of an individual can lead in to judging them negatively about everything that they do. People’s adoration or condemnation of public figure often follow this pattern.
Social Proof
The instinct to seek safety in number is deeply coded in our genes. This instinct creates a sense of cooperation in us which dictates that we either believe or do things that would gain approval of the social group that we are a part of. This can lead us to making extremely foolish judgements just because the group is making them.
Narrative Instinct
Storytelling is very fundamental to social evolution of humans. We have a very natural instinct to construct narratives, and seek explanations of events in our environment in forms of the narrative. Which means we are more likely to judge a situation favourably, if it has been brought in front of us in a coherent and well put narrative. From religion to media to advertisers, all try to manipulate our judgement by exploiting this instinct.
Availability Bias
Brain is a massive machine which is frequently capturing and processing information. To keep itself going, the brain creates a lot of energy – saving methods, and one of which is the availability heuristics. It essentially means that it tends to prioritise information which are salient, important, frequent and recent. Given that judgements are often instinctive, we tend to base them on these four kind of easily available information in the brain. An outcome of this heuristic is seen in our anchoring and sunk cost tendencies.
Stereotyping
Stereotyping also comes from a mental heuristic. One of the method of creating shortcuts to easily recollect information in the brain is creating large categories and broadly generalization. In our early hunter – gatherer life this must have worked as an effective method to stay alive. One didn’t need to be killed by every feline before deciding each of them were dangerous. But in modern times, such broad categorization can lead us away from more nuance judgement on individuals.
Base Rate Insensitivity
Base Rate technically speaking describes the odds in terms of prior probabilities. Humans are extremely bad at understanding or considering them. The insensitivity towards base rate is the reason why many people believe that a bad thing which they have known has happened before will not happen with them. Lack of the base rate sensitivity is also something which leads to real poor judgment in financial markets.
First Conclusion Bias
Pointed out by Charlie Munger, it is a human tendency to get attached to the first satisfying idea or conjecture that we get exposed to. It is again an energy saving mechanism for the brain to stop asking questions the minute even slightly acceptable conclusion is offered. This tendency leads to many bad judgments.
Commitment Bias & Fundamental Attribution Error
Humans have a strong tendency to keep prior commitments or display certain level of consistency in their behaviour. As humans evolved to form large groups, trust became the currency for cohesion. In that context, displaying consistency of thought, belief and behaviour helped build trust. But this tendency can also result in a sequence of continued bad judgment because we once got set on that path.
From the other side, we at times can also tend to overestimate the consistency of behaviour in others and thus mis-judge them. This false judgment of their consistent behaviour in the future is fundamental attribution error.
Confirmation Bias
It is in human tendency to believe what we wish to be true. It is a deeply ingrained mental habit to look for confirmation instead of violation. This bring us comfort and is energy saving for the brain. Thus we are more likely to judge a situation or person in a manner which confirms our bias.
Denial
Denial is a very effective coping mechanism – some animals like Ostrich, physically act it out ( the whole head in the sand thing), while others like human play it out in the brain. Denial is a very strong tendency which can turn us completely blind to reason and thus result in a string of bad judgements.
This by no means is an exhaustive list of everything that is an impediment to our ability to have sound judgments. Most of them actually on a very primal level might have worked in favour of the individual making those judgments in more natural environment in early evolutionary time for humans. But given that we now live in an extremely complex cooperative societal structure, they tend to interfere with the social and cultural values we expect the word to operate with.
These tendencies are a part of our nature, so of course, we cannot completely do away with them. But, knowing how they affect, can help us to take a pause when we are making quick judgements and reflect if we are being blindsided by our own selves.
WEEKLY ROUNDUP
Visual Thought of the Week
A Twitter thread on The Network State by Balaji Srinivasan
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A Primer on Human Nature & Judgement