I initially wanted to put off writing about this fallacy, but I cannot avoid it. Psychologists use this term to describe the decision to ignore dangerous or negative information by “burying” one’s head in the sand—like an ostrich—and hoping it would disappear. The…
Oops! Despite trying to understand more than 60 cognitive biases by writing about them, I just realized that I have yet to share anything about the “classic”—the Sunk Cost Fallacy. And although I have written about its sister biases Loss and Regret Aversion, they alone leave gaps…
I can literally envision all you regular readers rolling your eyes at yet another “brainy” post and thinking: “Tacomob, haven’t you written more than enough about the brain already? Isn’t there some other topic on your mind?” Of course there is, and that’s why I am…
Do you believe in a just world? Most of us do. Simply because we assume that bad things will befall bad people, and good things, to good people. The bad news is that it doesn’t always play out that way and also that the world…
I would like to write about the end, yours and mine to be specific. I recently read that due to medical and technical advances, the first person to attain the age of a hundred and fifty has already been born. Are you that person? Well, I suppose…
Have you ever had—while driving—that extraordinary experience where anyone driving slower than you is an idiot, while anyone driving faster is a maniac? That, my dear reader, is an example of the Correspondence Bias in full-blown action. Generally, this bias refers to the tendency…
Ageing, that is. Humans have two things in common: We have a biased brain, and we grow older. Unfortunately, the fear of ageing these days is rampant, because we fear what we will become. My Claim “Being old is much better than…
Here is a bit of philosophy to assist in rapidly finding someone (else) to blame : “Huey, Dewey and Louie. You stand accused of a grievous crime. What do you have to say for yourselves?” “Yes, I did it,” said Huey. “But it…
Have you ever asked yourself this: How can I control myself when I feel the irresistible need to break my rules about how to invest in the stock market? That question pertains to the “hot-cold-empathy gap”, where we say to ourselves in a calm…
Yes, that’s right, you have read the header correctly. Because if you know something, you can’t appreciate what it’s like not to know it. And this is when better-informed people encounter problems thinking about problems from the perspective of their less-informed…