The 4th thing, and among the most compelling, is a tendency to make a story out of what we see and then believe it. This has lots of names - if youve heard someone say correlation does not equal causality youve heard of it. An article came out in the Vancouver Sun awhile ago that talked about a car accident that caused no damage to either vehicle, but spilled milk inside of the vehicle that was hit. Give it a look - its right here:. ow.ly/t3ADs So whats the story here? The headline Crying over spilled milk suggests that ICBC is supporting a totally frivolous tool who just wants to get their car replaced. Its a compelling story and, frankly, fits with the narrative that a lot of people carry that ICBC is an evil, soul-sucking bureaucracy. Generally, at this point, peoples confidence that ICBC is evil and wrong is pretty high. Check in, ask yourself that question. Is that enough for you to believe the story, though? System 1 has already created an impression of it, generally without conscious (system 2) intervention. Did you immediately try to think of negative examples, or things that might disprove the story that writing off a vehicle because of spilled milk is absurd? Consider that cleaning rancid milk fat out of your upholstery could be impossible, and your car would smell like the inside of a broken, month-old dairy case potentially forever. If it spilled on a hot day, it could be even worse. Consider that ICBC would not voluntarily write off a whole truck frivolously exactly because theyre a bureaucracy. The ICBC person quoted in the article even mentions that it happens all the time and that You can’t get smells out of cars. The first impression from that article is a good example of a narrative bias at work. The first compelling story we hear tends to strongly shape our opinion. Its possible to correct for that with a little bit of conscious effort, which is one way of describing (you guessed it) practical mindfulness. Not just a clever name.
Posted on: Wed, 29 Jan 2014 06:49:21 +0000
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