8 Mental Errors Quietly Controlling Your Decisions and Thoughts Without Consent
How to Become a More Rational and Thoughtful Being
Ask the average person why they made a certain decision, and they’ll give you an elaborate breakdown of their thought process.
What they don’t understand is they’re not in as much control of what’s going on in their head as they think.
We, as a species, are naturally victims of our own minds.
The problem is many of us are unaware of this fact.
Most people go through their entire lives completely oblivious to the thinking errors and mental shortcuts influencing their daily thoughts and actions.
While it’s impossible to turn off or completely remove these thinking errors, being one of the few who acknowledges your mind can and will play tricks on you will go a long way to making you a more rational and thoughtful being.
With that said…
Here’s a list of 8 mental errors silently influencing your decision-making and thought processes without consent.
#1 The spotlight effect
I hated getting the late train when I worked in the city…
Everyone would try to squeeze on, leaving hardly any room to breathe.
I typically took the earlier train to avoid the congestion, but there were a few instances I sucked it up to get a few extra minutes in bed.
There’s one particular day I’d never forget…
I’d been out with the lads the night before and accidentally turned off my alarm instead of pressing the snooze button.
I could have sworn I blinked, and 30 minutes had gone by.
This left me with 23 minutes to get ready and catch the latest train to make it to work on time.
As you can imagine, I breezed through everything. Fortunately, I made it.
It was not until the final station I realized something was wrong…
I could feel a breeze between my legs as I went up the escalator.
I touched the spot where I felt the breeze, and it was nothing but skin.
My jeans were ripped.
From then on, I felt judged by everyone who looked at me.
When I got to work, I pulled one of my friends to the side and asked him if he could see the hole between my legs.
He insisted he couldn’t, but the damage was done…
I vowed never to catch the late train again to ensure I didn’t have to see anyone who may have got a glimpse.
This, my friend, is called the spotlight effect.
The spotlight effect describes a cognitive bias in which people tend to believe others are paying more attention to them than they actually are.
When I realized my jeans had split, I thought everyone was judging me.
In reality, people just tend to have a judgemental face when they walk around London.
Nobody could see my split, but I felt like it was the center of attention.
A similar thing happens when you go to a different country, and it’s clear you’re not from there, or when you go to the gym for the first time.
You feel like everyone's eyes are on you.
While in some cases, it may be true, more often than not, people don’t care about what you’ve got going on as much as you think…
They’re more concerned with their own spotlight effect.
To reduce this cognitive bias, you must reframe your negative thoughts.
Acknowledge people don’t care as much as you think.
#2 The anchoring effect
In his book, “Predictably Irrational,” Dan Ariely shared a study in which he sought to determine whether a group of MBA students from MIT would be influenced about the price of an item by the last two digits of their social security number.
The experiment was conducted by asking the students how much they would pay for two types of wine, a design book, chocolates, a cordless keyboard, and a cordless mouse.
Students were then instructed to write the last two digits of their social security number at the top of the page and then write them again as a price next to each item.
For example, if the last two digits of a student's social security number were 55, they would write this number at the top of the page and then write $55 next to each item.
Once this was completed, the students were asked to indicate for each item, “Yes” if they would pay the price they’d written or “No” if they wouldn’t.
In the final step, the students were instructed to write down the maximum amount they would be willing to pay for each item.
According to Ariely’s findings, the last two digits of the student’s social security numbers influenced the amount they were willing to pay.
Students with the largest last two digits in their social security number (e.g., 80–99) were willing to pay more for items than students with the lowest last two digits (e.g., 01–19).
Here’s the most interesting part of the experiment…
When the students were asked whether they thought their social security numbers influenced the price they would pay for items, they said, “No.”
They were all victims of the anchoring effect.
The anchoring effect is a common cognitive bias that describes our tendency to rely heavily on the first piece of information we’re presented.
It’s a common tactic deployed by salespeople and employers to get what they bargained for.
For instance, a salesperson may quote a ridiculously high price for an item and allow you to negotiate the price down to make you feel like you’re getting the better end of the stick.
In reality, the price you negotiated down to is the actual amount they were looking to sell the item for or more than they expected.
The truth is we’ll always be victims to the anchoring effect cos you can’t turn it off…
The best you can do to reduce its influence over you is to have your own predetermined anchors before you willingly pay for an item.
#3 Cognitive dissonance
Whenever I meet people who know I was part of a cult, they always ask me the same few questions…
One of them is, “Why do people still go when everything has been exposed?”
Cognitive dissonance plays a huge role.
You see… Before you’re fully accepted into a cult, there’s a drawn-out indoctrination process where your old identity is completely destroyed, and a new one is constructed with the beliefs, values, and ideas pushed by the cult leader.
Once a member fully embraces their new identity in the cult, it’s pretty hard to turn them against it.
I always tell people I was aware of all the crazy stuff going on in the cult when I was there, but I reasoned with myself that the church was supposed to be a hospital, meaning a few bad eggs were bound to exist, and I couldn't let it interrupt my walk with Christ — “The best I could do is pray for them,” I’d tell myself.
Cognitive dissonance would make you convince yourself something you know is immoral is actually okay.
More specifically…
Cognitive dissonance is a mental conflict that occurs when an individual suffers from contradictory values, attitudes, or perspectives about the same thing.
This is why it’s hard for people to leave once they’ve been established in a cult…
When confronted with facts contradicting their beliefs, values, and ideas, it creates psychological discomfort and uneasiness that must be addressed.
In their mind, the only way to resolve this uneasiness is to block out what they believe to be the source of the conflict.
This often means cutting off contact with everything outside of the cult and drawing closer to those inside.
They justify doing this by saying, “People on the outside just don’t get it.”
Janja Lalich, an expert in cultural studies, mentioned in a TED-Ed video that “Compromise makes it more painful to admit you’ve been deceived.”
But this isn’t the only scenario in which cognitive dissonance can be observed…
You can see cognitive dissonance anywhere two beliefs held by one person are at loggerheads.
For example, you may wanna be rich, but you may also believe rich people are greedy and evil.
The dissonance leads to discomfort, stress, and anxiety — if left in this state of mental conflict long enough, the dissonance would lead to depression.
When you notice you’re experiencing cognitive dissonance, you must make every effort to identify the two competing beliefs you have and then determine the actions you can take to change your mindset or eliminate the dissonance.
This is how I escaped the cult…
When I was in a state of cognitive dissonance, I didn’t succumb to the beliefs, values, and ideas the church taught me.
Instead, I got curious and started reading a bunch of “secular” books and speaking to successful people who didn’t attend the church.
Slowly but surely, my outlook on life changed, and one day, I realized that I didn’t need to go back.
#4 The Halo effect
Several studies have shown that being attractive gives you an edge in society.
Not only do you earn more, people wanna help you.
In 2017, researchers wanted to take this a step further…
They wanted to learn whether attractiveness is also a proxy for unobserved productivity.
To answer their question, they compared the impact of attractiveness on grades in college courses where instructors could directly observe the students' appearance and courses where instructors could not.
The results showed that appearance matters.
Students who were deemed more attractive were graded significantly lower in online classes wherein the instructors couldn’t observe their physical appearance.
This phenomenon is called The Halo effect.
It refers to the tendency we have to adopt an overall positive impression of a person, product, or brand based on a single characteristic.
You can often observe this mind trap when you first start dating someone…
Initially, you’re both on your best behavior as you seek to impress one another.
This develops a halo of positive thoughts around the other person.
As time passes, small traits you dislike pop up, but they often go unnoticed due to the positive emotions and initial information you gathered about the person — basically, the halo effect blinds you to the red flags and negatives.
Note the Halo effect is most influential during the honeymoon phase of a relationship.
You can also fall victim to the halo effect based on first impressions.
For example…
I went to Havard University.
With this limited and false information, your brain would likely construct a complete story about my character (e.g., you’d probably think I’m smart).
Thus, the way to reduce the impact of the halo effect is to gather more data and evidence about whatever it is you’re evaluating.
If you rely on first impressions or a single attribute, you’ll lose.
Always look for multiple indicators of strength, weakness, and potential to get a more holistic view before passing judgment.
#5 Monte Carlo fallacy
Let’s say I flip a coin four times, and it lands on heads on the first three occasions…
Are you calling heads or tails on the fourth flip?
If you’re anything like most people, you’d probably bet on tails even though there’s a 50/50 chance for both.
The reason this happens is we tend to believe there’s some balancing force in the universe, but in reality, there’s not.
A coin doesn’t know what it landed on the last time it was flipped.
This mind trap is known as the Monte Carlo or the Gamblers fallacy.
It’s the erroneous belief a random event is less or more likely to happen based on the results of a previous series of events.
I fell victim to it a lot during multiple-choice exams at school…
I’d notice an awkward feeling when I marked a series of answers with the same letter — “They can’t all be B, surely,” I’d think to myself.
To further drive home the impact of the Monte Carlo fallacy, a study titled Decision Making Under the Gambler’s Fallacy: Evidence from Asylum Judges, Loan Officers, and Baseball Umpires was conducted to determine how this mind trap impacted decision-making.
The researchers remarked the following:
We find consistent evidence of negative autocorrelation in decision-making that is unrelated to the merits of the cases considered in three separate high-stakes field settings: refugee asylum court decisions, loan application reviews, and Major League Baseball umpire pitch calls.
The evidence is most consistent with the law of small numbers and the gambler’s fallacy — people underestimating the likelihood of sequential streaks occurring by chance — leading to negatively autocorrelated decisions that result in errors.
The negative autocorrelation is stronger among more moderate and less experienced decision makers, following longer streaks of decisions in one direction, when the current and previous cases share similar characteristics or occur close in time, and when decision makers face weaker incentives for accuracy
To avoid the Monte Carlo fallacy, you must become aware of the independent and interdependent events happening around you.
Always ask yourself, “Is it possible that the previous results could affect the outcome of this result?”
#6 Confirmation bias
Most writers can relate to this bias…
You have an existing belief about something you wanna talk about in a blog post.
During your research, all of the studies you’re searching for are points to back up your existing belief, further reinforcing it.
Whenever you come across evidence that doesn’t support what you believe, you discard it.
I’ve even fallen victim to this bias in my dating life…
I went on a date with a lady and was totally convinced she was into me cos she’d look me in my eyes while we were talking, and she agreed to go on the date.
It was only when I looked back at the conversation after a few months that I realized the woman was giving me signs she hadn’t been interested all along.
For instance, she took 5+ hours to reply to my messages, gave one-word answers, and only gave into going on a second date cos I replied to a message she put on her status saying “Bored,” with “Let’s go to The Waterfront and grab something to eat with some shisha.”
This phenomenon is known as confirmation bias.
It’s the tendency to interpret new information as confirmation of one’s existing beliefs or theories.
The way to reduce confirmation bias is to seek out information that disconfirms your beliefs.
Finding information that proves you’re wrong is one of the best ways to determine whether you’re right.
If only I’d taken the time to acknowledge the fact the woman I was talking to was giving me dead and delayed responses, I would’ve saved myself £130 and 2 hours.
#7 The contrast effect
The contrast effect is a cognitive bias that distorts our perception of something when we judge it compared to something else.
Instead of assessing the items individually, we view them relative to one another.
For example, the other day, I was on the Mercedes Benz website building out my dream car for inspiration…
The car cost £174,665, and a friend heard me remark, “I want it in graphite metallic, which is an extra £4,000.”
Immediately, he pulled me up, “Bro, you’re saying it like £4,000 is chicken change.”
He was right. £4,000 is a lot of money, but in the context it was presented, it wasn't…
This is the contrast effect in motion.
It’s easier to think of something as large, expensive, or attractive when it’s placed next to something small, inexpensive, or ugly.
There’s not much you can do to stop the contrast effect from doing its thing.
But you can catch yourself when you notice it happening and decide whether you wanna follow through with it.
#8 The frequency illusion
Have you ever noticed once you’ve acknowledged something new, like a car or a new word, you start encountering it more often?
For example, when I purchased my first car, a Peugeot 207, I couldn’t help but notice everyone driving the same car.
This is the result of the frequency illusion.
The frequency illusion is a cognitive bias where people who notice something new begin to encounter it more frequently.
In reality, it’s not that there’s more of the new thing you’ve encountered…
It’s just your awareness about the novel thing has increased, which creates the illusion it’s appearing more often.
In truth, there’s not much you can do about the frequency illusion.
You just have to accept the thing you’re encountering more often has always been there, but you just weren’t paying attention.
Final thoughts
You’re not as in control of your thoughts and decisions as you might think.
There’s numerous mind traps and thinking errors constantly guiding you without your consent.
In all honesty, there’s not much you can do to stop them…
Your best bet is to become more aware you’re not the one steering the ship 24/7 and identify when these mental errors take over so you can curb their influence.
This step alone would make you much more thoughtful and rational than the average human who wanders through life without a clue they’re a victim of their own mind.
Thanks for reading!
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