#cognitiveerrors

[bianca-alexander88]

No subjective feeling of certainty can be an objective criterion for the desired truth. — Hugo Münsterberg (1908)

It is dangerous to assume that because someone is confident, they must therefore be correct; the correlation between confidence and accuracy (in the context of eyewitness identifications, for example) is roughly a sad 0.29.

In fact, the Dunning-Kruger effect describes a cognitive bias in which people overestimate their intelligence and capability; people with the lowest scores in various tests of abilities (grammar, humour, logic, etc) tend to overestimate their abilities by the largest percentile. In other words, the person who knows nothing thinks they know everything, because they quite literally lack the very skills necessary to recognize their own ignorance. 

Or, as Charles Darwin put it, “Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.”

[innerconnoisseurexpert]

Are you thoughts rational or irrational? comment below which of these (cognitive errors)👇do you use in your every day language? 1)Black and White thinking (everything is great or awful) 2) Overgeneralisation (Why this happens to me? Everyone is so mean to me) 3)Mental Filtering (seeing negative rather than positive, being pessimistic) 4) Disqualifying the positive (every time when the person gets positive feedback or a review thinks that it is not deserved or just a good luck) 5)Jumping to conclusions-Mind reading (believes that he knows what the other person is thinking) These are only 5 of the cognitive errors(irrational thinking) habits which influence the quality of your life, your relationships, your friendships, your family and work situations. It affects how you think about yourself, others, love, family, relationships and life in general See the next post tomorrow for more about #cognitive errors #psychologist #psycotherapy #coaching #mindfulness #lifeskills #lifechanging #braintrain #positivethinking #cognitiveerrors #keshasblog #educating #summermood☀️ #sharingpositivevibes #instadaily #instapost (at Universe) https://www.instagram.com/p/CPlUl66D_p9/?utm_medium=tumblr

[bianca-alexander88]

Cognitive dissonance is defined as the uncomfortable tension people experience when our actions do not correspond with our attitudes; in other words, when people behave in a way that does not align with their values, we experience an unpleasant anxiety concerning the discrepancy. Cognitive dissonance can also occur when we hold conflicting attitudes or beliefs. We are most likely to experience dissonance when we have done or said something that makes us feel stupid, embarrassed or immoral.

The values and attitudes that we hold most strongly are deeply important to how we see ourselves, which results in our interpretation of inconsistency as a threat to the stability of our self-concept. Dissonance is uncomfortable enough to motivate us to re-establish an acceptable level of consistency. It is fascinating to note that when people are experiencing cognitive dissonance, brain scans reveal that areas of the brain responsible for reasoning shut down while the emotional circuitry of the brain is highly active upon the re-establishment of consonance.

Since behaviours cannot be undone and dissonance frequently demands that people instead change their thoughts, feelings or beliefs. People are capable of doing all sorts of “mental gymnastics” to justify their behaviour and thereby resolve their discomfort. The more permanent and less reversible an action and its consequences are, the greater our need to reduce the resulting dissonance. According to cognitive dissonance theory, there are several ways we can resolve dissonance. We can change our attitudes to become more consistent with our behaviour, change our perception of our behaviour, add consonant cognition or extenuating justifications, minimize the significance of the conflict or reduce the perceived choice by emphasizing the factor of inevitability or non-responsibility. 

For example, a smoker who is consciously aware of the proven health risks of nicotine will experience cognitive dissonance because of the inconsistency between their actions (smoking) and their awareness (that smoking kills). As a result, they might comfort themselves by calling into mind their grandmother who lived to 103 years to convince themselves that their “good genes” will make them immune to the consequences of their addiction. 

We are more willing to change our attitudes when the issue at hand is not important to us. However, when we have a deeply held belief or attitude, we are more motivated to change our behaviour or justify the incongruent behaviour with additional rationalizations. When we make a decision, we relieve ourselves of any resulting dissonance by emphasizing the worthiness of our choice and denigrating unchosen alternatives. Our inability to accept the discomfort of cognitive dissonance can fundamentally shift our value systems and cause us to change our behaviour, for better or worse, in the future. 

While cognitive dissonance theory argues that the uncomfortable nature of dissonance is what motivates people to change their attitudes to align with their behaviour, self-perception theory questions whether the experience of dissonance is  a necessary piece of the puzzle when it comes to explaining the process of attitude change. Self-perception theory contends that people come to conclusions about themselves the same way that they do about others: by observing their own overt behaviours. This is especially likely when assessing ambiguously held attitudes. If the situational factors at hand provide adequate justification for their behaviour, people assume their behaviour was the result of external factors; conversely, if the situational factors are not sufficient, people assume their behaviour results from internal factors. People with poor self-knowledge are more likely to attribute internal factors for their behaviour. Regarding a change in attitude, self-perception theory suggests that the attitudes that people hold which are weak and ambiguous (which are plenty) may be changed or shifted without any sense of inconsistency or dissonance. Essentially, because we are not deeply invested in every attitude we hold, we can freely change and shift our perspective to suit the moment or situation without necessarily experiencing discomfort. 

[bianca-alexander88]

The ‘illusory truth effect’ refers the tendency to believe any information to be correct/accurate after repeated exposure. It’s the result of a flaw in human cognitive processing that goes like this… 

When we’re repeatedly exposed to the same information (even if it’s meaningless, false or we’re unaware that we’ve seen it before), it gradually becomes easier for our brains to process. Repeated exposure to a stimulus increases our ‘processing fluency,’ meaning our brain can process the stimulus more efficiently. This is referred to ‘familiarity’ & the human brain LOVES familiarity. The less effort we have to consciously expend to process something, the more positively we will feel about that thing. We’re even more likely to accept simple, easy to understand concepts as “more true” than complex, nuanced concepts. 

The ‘mere exposure effect’ describes the human tendency to feel more positively about things we’ve encountered before (even if only briefly or unconsciously). Again: we prefer what is already familiar to us! This effect tends to be strongest concerning statements about subjects in which we fancy ourselves knowledgable. The irony is that studies show participants with the lowest scores & worst performances, in any subject matter, tend to be the most egregious over estimators of their own abilities/comprehension. Not having a skill or understanding means you’re unable to recognize said lack. 

So (follow me here) those of us who know THE LEAST about a subject will think we know THE MOST, because we don’t even know enough to recognize the scope of our ignorance & therefore, because they mistake ourselves as experts on said subject, we’re most vulnerable to both the mere exposure & illusory truth effect, because we’ll swallow repeated statements about said subject (even if we’re falsehoods) as correct/accurate… all because it feels cozy, familiar & self-affirming. Let that soak in for a moment. 

[bianca-alexander88]

In these uncertain times, please be mindful that there is an enormous amount of misinformation floating around. Remember to rely on credible information from legitimate sources & accredited experts rather than misleading internet trolls in tin foil hats. When sifting through the bullshit, it helps to be aware of the cognitive errors & mental biases the human mind is naturally prone to make when dealing with information & making judgments: 

1️⃣ Confirmation Bias: Our tendency to search for information which confirms our current theory & disregard any contradictory evidence; not bothering to seek out information that contradicts our ideas/beliefs. 

2️⃣  Belief Perseverance: Holding onto our beliefs when facing contrary evidence, ignoring evidence that proves our beliefs are wrong & interpreting information in a way that fits our beliefs. 

3️⃣ Overconfidence: Due to our innate self-serving bias, we overestimate the accuracy of our own estimates, predictions & knowledge. We tend to be more confident than correct. 

4️⃣ Availability Heuristic: Estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory; if instances come readily to mind (perhaps based on their vividness), we presume such events are common. 

5️⃣ Intuition: There is tremendous value in learning how to trust your “gut feelings” — but (hard truth) your feelings are irrelevant when it comes to the validity of scientific research & medical expertise. Now is the time for careful, rational reasoning.