Biases, Fallacies, And Tribalism -- OH MY!

Where work and society kinda break apart.

Let’s take these one at a time, then bring them back together.

Availability bias

I will use Greg Satell (coming up on a future podcast episode of mine, actually!) and others here. Start with this link:

There’s a natural human tendency to overweight information that is most available to us. For example, reading statistics about automobile fatalities will do little to affect our driving behavior. However, when we pass a fatal accident on the road, we will naturally slow down and be more cautious. Direct observation feels real. Statistics don’t.

Psychologists call this tendency availability bias and it is amazingly common, even in professional settings where you would expect more deliberative decision making. Researchers have found that it even affects how investors react to analysts reports, how corporations invest in research and how jurors evaluate witness testimony. Other studies find that availability bias even affects medical judgments.

Got it.

Proof by example fallacy

I will take this one from Mark Manson’s Monday newsletter: