26 So You Think You Can Think!  A Primer

So You Think You Can Think!

In a fascinating book called The Undoing Project, author Michael Lewis writes about prediction, decision-making and bias, among other topics.1

Following is a summary of some observations he makes, and also are some insights from Robert Cialdini2 about importance and the sequencing of an argument. We have left out many of the details in the summary so we can make a point. When you have finished reading this summary, we will ask you to access two very different online publications and apply your learning from the Primer.

The Summary

In a story about the rules of prediction Michael Lewis describes how two giants of thinking, Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, explored prediction, decision-making and bias. They used their knowledge of military action, patterns in health care and mortality, psychology, economics and human behaviour generally, to investigate how we make decisions.

They learned many things and made some confounding discoveries. For example, they note that in many cases humans will ignore basic facts and statistics and instead rely on a small number of heuristics, rules of thumb, to make judgements. Sometimes these are reasonable and sometimes they can lead to disaster.

They also tested the impact of predictive abilities and the likelihood of accuracy, by asking subjects to make predictions and decisions based on three versions of a scenario.

The basic scenario explored which profession a high school student [Tom W] was likely to choose based on a small set of personality traits and the percentage of students who entered various courses.

The first scenario contained limited personality details and provided some basic facts. Subjects who read the scenario were mostly consistent and reasonably accurate in their evaluation of the characteristics and suggested the course which in fact was most likely to be chosen.

This was the ‘similarity assessment’. That is, the subjects made judgements on the characteristics of the profession that seemed most like the student.

Insight #1: Similarity Group. Objective data. ‘Seems like’ judgement.

The second scenario contained the same overall description plus a paragraph that noted a psychologist had made the personality assessment. The paragraph contained information that questioned the reliability of the psychologist and also said that the assessment had been made some time ago.

This was the ‘predictive assessment’. That is, the subjects make judgements on the characteristics of the profession and were also given other details that potentially added uncertainty to the assessment.

Subjects who read the scenario were mostly consistent and reasonably accurate in their evaluation of the characteristics and predicted the course which in fact was most likely to be chosen. That is, they were more certain about their judgement. The subjects ignored the basic facts and went with their instinct.

Insight #2: Prediction Group. Objective data. Additional information. ‘Prediction’ judgement.

Another version of the experiment was designed to see what would happen if irrelevant information was provided. In this version of the experiment there were two versions of a paragraph describing someone’s age, marital status, capabilities and likeability. They were also told that the person was chosen from a group of 100 people, 70 of whom were engineers and 30 were lawyers. The subjects were asked to predict the profession of the person.

Almost all predicted the person was more likely to be an engineer.

A second group of subjects was given the exact same scenario, with one difference. Now the person was given a name, with some details about the person’s life but nothing about their profession.

The prediction: equal likelihood of an engineer or lawyer.

Insight #3: Irrational Group. Objective data. Irrelevant information. Irrational prediction.

The conclusion by Kahneman and Tversky: People respond differently when given no specific evidence and when given worthless evidence. When no specific evidence is given, the prior probabilities are properly utilised; when worthless specific evidence is given, prior probabilities are ignored. i3

[Hafi: can you create a highlight piece of this next piece

Lewis wraps up by writing that the very factors that can cause people to become more confident in their predictions also can led those predictions to be less accurate.

Another renowned author and researcher, Robert Cialdini, helps us to understand importance and its support concept, sequence.4 Again we go back to insights from Daniel Kahneman, although this time, without Amos Tversky. Professor Cialdini tells a story about a long lecture by Kahneman that was summed up by the title of the lecture: Nothing in life is as important as you think it is while you are thinking about it.

We simplify this to mean that what is made out to be important, is important, and by preloading a message with importance, it is treated as such. This relies on the response to sequence and focus. Exaggerated focus on a highlighted message can lead to overestimation of its significance and importance. Reality shows, gossip sites and sometimes lunch breaks with colleagues, rely on these factors.

Insight #4: Focused Attention Group. Sequenced Limited data. Exaggerated significance.

Now that you have worked your way through these insights here is an opportunity to test your knowledge.

___________________________________________________________________________________

Activity.

Here are two completely different online publications for you to access, The Cove https://cove.army.gov.au/ and Buzzfeed https://www.buzzfeed.com/. The two publications employ very different approaches to using facts, details, importance cues and sequence, with different goals.

With these concepts in mind, access the two publications. Read at least one article from each. Notice the very different styles.

Look for examples of:

Objective details that allow you to draw your own conclusions

Objective details that are also surrounded by related, relevant content

Details that are surrounded by ‘spurious’ or irrelevant content that is there to distract

Examples of intentional importance and sequencing to exaggerate attention

What did the author/s set out to get you to focus on?

What would you say is the overall purpose of the two publications?

____________________________________________________________________

This primer activity encouraged you to think about thinking and also to think about the role that facts, details, importance and sequencing make to an argument.

There are many other processes, situations and contexts that help us to think logically and critically and to be able to communicate effectively. There are traps that can we fall into as thinkers, and there are tricks we can learn and use to distract and lead others in their thinking!