Hello again, and welcome back to Happy Hour. A while ago we did an episode on fascinating and extraordinary psychological disorders. Actually apart from psychology, another field that I'm really interested in is logic . In English, you say this is logical, or illogical. Another related word would be rational, or irrationa.

If I ask you, are you a logical and rational person? Most people would say, yes, of course. Why would you ask? The fact is, when we reach a certain age, we form our own views about the world, our own belief system, and we become very sure of it. But are we always logical and rational? There is a concept called cognitive biases, cognitive biases are deviation from rationality in judgment. Cognitive biases are often studied in psychology and behavioral economics. It might sound very complex, but actually if you listen to today's episode, you'll realize cognitive biases exist in our everyday life, and all of us can fall into these logical traps. So in today's episode, we're gonna take a look at some of the most common cognitive biases, and see if you have any of them.

The first bias we're going to talk about today is called survivorship bias. In the age of social media, we see huge success stories everyday - the likes of Li JiaQi or Li ZiQi. These social media influencers who are hugely successful, they make us feel like, hey, we can do it as well. By life streaming, by putting up videos online, we can also be successful. You probably also heard of arguments saying university education is useless, because look at Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg. They all dropped out of universities, and they became huge success. So will I. Actually, this survivorship bias refers to our tendency to focus on the success stories and ignore the accompanying failure. That's because stories of failure are not as sexy as stories of success, so they don't get covered or shared.

We focus on the one success story and conveniently forget that there are thousands or even tens of thousands of failures for every big success in the world. As we consume one story of success after another, we forget the base rates and overestimate the odds of real success. Many startup businesses fail because of this, while in the actual fact, let's face it, most of us are not going to be that huge success story.

The next bias we're gonna look at is called the Dunning-Kruger effect. Have you noticed that people who don't really know a lot, they seem to be really, really sure about what they believe in. On the contrary, people who actually know more, they are more cautious. That's because when you know only a little about something, you see it simplistically. So with this bias, you tend to believe that things are easier than they actually are.

For instance, over the years I've been studying language, there are lots of people saying to me that: you don't have a major; you don't have a focus, because language is so easy. Anyone can do it, it's what we use every day, isn't it?

So the Dunning-Kruger effect is a type of cognitive bias in which people believe that they are smarter and more capable than they really are. People who don't know much think that they are very sure of the world think they know everything while people who actually know more, they become more aware of what they don't know.

But if you think knowing more means that you can escape cognitive biases, you are much mistaken. Because actually knowing more about the world can also be a problem. The next bias we're going to talk about is called curse of knowledge. The curse of knowledge is a cognitive bias that occurs when an individual, while he is communicating with others, assumes that others have the same background to understand what he's saying.

For example, in a classroom setting, teachers might have difficulty trying to teach beginners because they cannot put themselves in the position of the student. Same with parents who are checking up on their kids' homework and cannot understand why their kids are being so stupid. The curse of knowledge simply means when you know a lot, you forget that other people don't have the same level of knowledge. As a result, the communication will not be very effective.

One of the best examples that I can think of is Sheldon in the Big Bang theory, when he was trying to explain things to people like Penny, who has no scientific background, he often finds it really frustrating. This is a typical case of the curse of knowledge.

Something similar to the curse of knowledge is hindsight bias. This refers to the situation where after an event has occurred, many people would say things like, “I knew this was going to happen” or “I should have done this”. Hindsight bias may cause distortions of our memories of what we knew and believed before an event occurred. And this would give us overconfidence about our ability to predict the outcomes of future events. Examples of hindsight bias can be seen in the writings of historians describing outcomes of battles, doctors recalling clinical trials, or even gossip about failed relationships. It could actually just be hindsight bias.

But now you might ask, why are we so sure about ourselves? Where do we get our confidence? The reason why we're so sure about what we believe in could also be a bias. This is called confirmation bias. Because it's human nature that we love to agree with people who agree with us, this is why we only visit web sites or read news that express our own opinions, why we mostly hang around people who have similar views and tastes. But that doesn't mean your views are right. It simply means we like to be with people who share our views. And we tend not to like people, groups or news sources that make us doubt our own views. This is also why the older we get, the more confirmation bias we have, the more difficult it is for us to be truly open-minded.

Over the years as a language teacher, I've heard so many Chinese learners say things like, as we know, or as you know. This is yet another bias is called false consensus bias. People generally have a surprising tendency to overestimate how much other people agree with their own beliefs. Especially if you're surrounded by people who share your views, you tend to think the whole world thinks like you do, which is very often not the case.

But you might say, well, you can believe what you want to believe in. But when the reality Challenge our opinions, how come we don't question ourselves when we face failures and challenges to our opinions in real life. This is because of yet another bias called self-serving bias .

Have you ever been in the situation? When you do well on a project, you probably assume it's because you worked hard or you're smart. But when things turn out badly, you're more likely to blame it on the teacher, on your boss, on the situation. Then congratulations! You might have this self-serving bias. This bias will distort our thinking. We tend to give ourselves more credit for success, but we tend to blame other factors for our failures. The reason why we have this bias is because it helps protect our self-esteem, our confidence. Most people have this bias to some extent.

The last bias we're going to talk about today is, again, a common one. So something related to this is called the halo effect. Researchers have found that students tend to rate good looking teachers as smarter, kinder, and funnier than less attractive teachers. And also if a CEO of a company is attractive, then people generally have more confidence in the company itself. This tendency for our initial impression of a person to influence what we think of them overall is known as the halo effect.

So when we first look at a person, if we like the way they look, then we tend to assume that they are good in other aspects as well. And this doesn't only include physical appearance, but also other positive characteristics as well. So if you think that your friend is falling in love with someone who is attractive but bad in every other way, this might be the reason. Actually, this particular bias can have a powerful impact in the real world. For example, job applicants perceived as attractive and likable are often viewed as more competent, smart, and qualified for the job.

So those are some of the common cognitive biases we have in everyday life and the way we think. Maybe some of you would say, I have quite a few of these biases. There's absolutely no need to feel bad about yourself for having these biases. It is so common for people to step into these logical traps, sometimes just to make us feel better about ourselves.

This episode also shows that truly logical and rational thinking is much more difficult than people think. Learning a bit about these biases can help us keep a clear head, when it comes to a discussion, a debate, or even when facing a scam.

Plus, it allows us to have a clearer understanding of others and ourselves, challenging our existing opinions and helping us realize that there are still so much to learn in the world.

So in the beginning of the New Year, let's end with the famous quote from Steve Jobs. Stay hungry, stay foolish. I hope you enjoyed today's show. I can't wait to see some of your comments. I'll see you next time. Bye.

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