Pitfalls of mental shortcuts

{child_byline}By Steve Trotter{/child_byline}

Pitfalls of mental shortcuts

{child_byline}By Steve Trotter{/child_byline}

Pitfalls of mental shortcuts

{child_byline}By Steve Trotter{/child_byline}

It has many names. Sometimes we call it “intuition.” Other times it’s a “set of the mind.” Or “cognitive bias.” And, while each of those labels mean something not quite the same as the others, they are each a shortcut we take when we think.

We see something, a crowd of people with each head tipped back, all eyes focused upwards. Our shortcut immediately says “there’s something up in the sky! Maybe it’s a bird or a plane — or might it be Superman?”

We might not notice that the crowd is standing outside a chiropractic clinic. Perhaps the answer our shortcut didn’t consider is that all those people had a stiff neck, that looking upward was the least painful stance and each had an appointment at the clinic they stood near. No bird. No plane. No Superman.

Our shortcut delivered us to the wrong place, the wrong conclusion.

A mental shortcut jumps from A to G without considering B, C, D, E or F. We see people with their head tipped back and make assumptions. “B” might ask: Are they staring upward because they want to or because they have to? “C” might ask: Where are they standing? Outside a chiropractor’s office? What might that mean? “D” would reflect on possibilities: Bird? Perhaps, but it would need to be something special, like an eagle or red tailed hawk or a flock of geese. Plane? Perhaps, but not just any old plane. Superman? Nope: that’s an old TV program starring George Reeves. “E” would wonder if that group of up-gazers might be part of an elaborate hoax, seeing if they could trick others—me or you—into gazing upward too. “F” would say: You’ve got important things to take care of, errands to run. Get a move on and let those folks stare into the sky. It’s not your lookout; ignore them all. “G” misses all that analysis and questioning and considering and provides the shortcut: People are looking into the sky. I don’t know why, but I’ll look too so I can know what’s happening.

Oops. That shortcut took us in the wrong direction. We ended in a wrong place. Shortcuts, mental or otherwise, often do that. Ever trust your GPS only to discover that the road it selected, a shorter route by far, didn’t quite work? It directed you to a closed road that forced you to turn around with no alternate route. No shortcut; that’s a dead end.

Mental shortcuts can sometimes work, providing a good answer to a question, situation or problem. Sometimes. Not always.

In “The Gift of Fear,” Gavin de Becker argues that we should most always trust our intuition to protect us from harm. With multiple examples he demonstrates that our minds pick up a lot unconsciously and those unconscious observations tell us important things that could keep us from harm. “Trust your intuition,” de Becker repeatedly says.

I grew up with a father who was a racist. Oddly, he would never buy a Japanese car but did buy Volkswagens. He navigated B-17 bombers over Italy and North Africa in World War II. He fought the Italians and Germans, not the Japanese. Go figure.

He hated people of color and referred to anyone who wasn’t white using ugly, destructive, cruel terms always in a disdainful, scornful, judgmental tone.

He spoke disparagingly of folks from Europe who migrated to the U.S. and had ugly terms for them, as well. Jews were in for his insults and hatred too.

There were few people who weren’t white in my part of Seattle as I was getting older. It wasn’t until I started university that I started meeting Blacks and Asians and Hispanic folks. My shortcuts about people was formed in my home. My shortcut told me that Blacks were inferior and Hispanics were lazy and Asians were borderline.

Within a few weeks of my freshman year I realized that dear old dad, a Boeing engineer back when Boeing built good airplanes, was both bigoted and wrong.

I met people whose skin was a different shade from my own and soon learned that our differences ended there. Our differences were skin deep. Our fears and dreams, our plans and struggles and backgrounds and ideas had no color at all and we shared far more than we didn’t. My shortcut was stupid. Wrong. Almost something evil, certainly something ugly.

Fortunately I discovered it soon enough and allowed my thinking to change to match the evidence in front of me. Ram, from India, graduated from Cal Tech and went on to work for Bell Labs as a computer guru. If all I saw was his darker shade of skin I’d never know that. I would miss discovering his delightful sense of humor. I would miss out on his loyalty and care. All because of a shortcut my father taught me, a shortcut that was a dead end.

So with Ben, a Black student I met at the church I attended near campus. He was, in the words of a family expression, “As funny as a rubber crutch.” No, he was hilarious. He was bright, too, scary smart. Warm and generous to a fault. If I had leaned into my father’s bigotry I wouldn’t have given Ben the time of day.

Here’s another shortcut, this one firmly in the category of a cognitive bias. It’s called the “confirmation bias.” It means We tend to believe things that confirm what we already believe; we tend to not consider information that doesn’t confirm what we already believe.

Confirmation bias is dangerous. It means anything new that doesn’t fit our preconceptions, our existing ideas, anything appearing to be contrary, is discarded without consideration.

I hope you’re saying to yourself “But that’s rampant in our culture right now! It’s everywhere!”

Indeed it is. On all parts of the political spectrum, confirmation bias is working away, keeping us from hearing others, or having to deal with factual evidence, or having to think much at all. Many Americans have formed conclusions without considering whether that conclusion has any basis in reality, in anything that can be measured or tested or verified.

Many Americans hold those conclusions without examining them and, when information comes along that questions a conclusion, confirmation bias tells us to ignore it or toss it and double down on our already-formed belief.

That’s a short cut that keeps us from thinking, from asking questions, from considering anything outside our own circle, our own ideas, our own theories. Not to put too fine a point on it: Confirmation bias spells disaster.

Whew! Who knew that those odd shortcuts in our thinking could be so powerful, could sway so many, could result in actual harm? Who knew? Well, at least to some small degree, WE now know.

Taken any shortcuts lately? How’d that work out?

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