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5 Ways Your Mind Can Trick You



Fallacies exist in every way, shape, or form, including the cognitive, which is the type we're focusing on today. They shouldn't be confused with logical fallacies, which you can either use to fool your opponents or avoid it to be a more legitimate debater, rather, these are tricks that your mind plays on you.

The mind is designed to make decisions as quickly as possible with the input that we have available. These mental shortcuts can be handy, especially in dire situations, but sometimes our mind just can't cope with different issues such as some overabundance of input, social pressure, or emotions. It's the same as stereotyping. Your mind needs to act quickly, but this can come at the expense of the best results from time to time.  Here are a few ways your mind can trick you. 

5: Confirmation bias




If you have some ideology or worldview, it's more than likely that you've fallen for this fallacy before. Facts are facts. Sometimes we can't get ahold of them all, but two plus two is four and that's always going to be the case. That doesn't mean we don't interpret them. 

Confirmation bias means that you'll generally prefer information that will confirm your beliefs, as well as ignore that which contradicts them. The United States, with both sides of the political spectrum defending their two candidates who have their own faults, while completely ignoring those faults, is an excellent example. 

4: Self-serving bias


"Thank God that the first twin survived, but damn you, doctor, for having let the other one die." That's the sort of sentimentality that this bias serves, but it's applied at an individual level, so when bad things happen, you'll blame others, but when good things happen you'll attribute it to yourself. You won blackjack because you're good at counting, but you lost that other hand because the damn dealer rigged the game.

There's what you can and can't control, and though sometimes you can come out on top due to your own merits, there are in fact many things that can propel you to greatness that are beyond you. That's not a bad thing, though, that's life. The same goes for failure. 

3: Actor-observer bias




This is the polar opposite of the last fallacy. You attribute your own actions to external causes but you believe that everybody else does exactly what they mean to do. You've got a bad lung because your parents weren't ever fit, but Jimmy can't run from one end of the street to the other because he's been smoking since high school. 

You may want to keep this in mind whenever you're out on the road because most cases of rage come from believing that the jackass in front of you is swerving or driving slow on purpose when there could be many more reasons that he's driving like a prick. He might be late, sick, or otherwise unaware of your presence. 

2: Anchoring bias


A handy tool for any good negotiator, this means that you'll be anchored to the first piece of information you get as a reference. If I tell you that my old beat up Honda goes for 13,000 dollars, then you'll think that I'm giving you a sweet deal when I sell it to you at 11,000, when the average price could very well be 10,000. This goes beyond business, though, and you can use it for any situation in which you need to be persuasive. 

1: Optimism bias




This is the mentality that you get whenever you enter a contest, go gambling, or play the lottery. You believe that things will go better for you than for anybody else, which can be too much optimism for your own good every once in a while. How long will you live? How smart will your children be? How successful will you be? If it were up to any of us, better than anybody else, but the reality is that averages exist for a reason; most people are around that point. 

If you're not going to check yourself with your doctor, you stop wearing your seatbelt, neglect your savings, or sabotage yourself in any other way, then beware, and build good habits again, because nobody's safe from misfortune. 

Whenever you make a split-second decision, stop and think why you did so, and what factored into it. Chances are that at a second thought, you'll find that your logic had some sort of error and it'll be better to reevaluate your choices. Don't let your mind trick you, and you'll be better off for it. 
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