Episode 37 Conjunction Fallacy...advanced Hindsight Bias 10-26-23

Sat, Nov 18, 2023 11:41AM • 21:28

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

hindsight, fallacy, hear, longer, opinion, belief, studies, line, tend, inches, maslow, speak, conjunctive, shaped, pyramid, burnout, ptsd, involved, call, develop

Welcome back, folks to Episode 37 of the Running Man self regulation skills and self improvement project podcast with me your host, Dr. Armando Dominguez, PhD in health psychology, a licensed professional counselor and an adjunct professor at a local community college. And the topics we're going to discuss today have to do with how we see things, how we tend to believe things to be. And now in this current time of a lot of political unrest, we're seeing a number of people espousing what it is they considered to be in quotes, the truth, the penultimate truth immutable. And we hear a lot of absolute speak, extremism, this sort of thing. And what I'm going to provide today are just some ideas that kind of help us look at what we do whenever we start believing and seeing things a certain way, our perspective and our opinions, and how they get shaped, often by stress and stressors, and also the social environment, those that were around. So what we're going to start off with is identifying three things. One is what's called the conjunctive fallacy. That is often whenever we have a sense of enjoyment of two things, two ideas. And often, they're not always necessarily true, things tend to look like a certain thing, therefore, we assume them to be and we drawing that assumption with what we would call evidence. And one great example is the study that they did in colleges during the 60s and early 70s, with college students, and they would draw a line of about 12 inches and they had an arrow pointing towards the line, the point of that arrow touching that line on one end and the other, so kind of like the reverse parenthesis with the tails of the arrow pointing out that they would have another 12 inch line that was below it or next to it. And then they would have the arrow pointing inward in the sense that the point was at the line at the end, touching the end of the line of the 12 inch line. But yet, the flares of the arrows, were actually moving towards the center point towards the center on both ends versus pointing outward, like reverse, fairings on an arrow, this sort of thing. But they were both 12 inches, and they would dance the students in and they would have them ask which line was longer. So there was a front load right there that would tell them even though you and I know that it's 12 inches long, the students didn't want they did the studies. And they kind of front loaded them with this expectation which the Confederates or those that were doing the studies with the psychologists that were doing these studies, were trying to find out what the impact of influence would be social influence. And also suggestion telling somebody which one is longer, that is actually front loading this suggestion that there is a shorter line or a longer line for that matter. And often this fallacy, the conjunction fallacy means we join what it is that we see what what we believe to be. And it's not always the way we take it in. And sometimes we may even join with what the popular opinion is, and say, this line is longer. And point and pick and they would have them pick. Often, they would do studies where they would have somebody in there saying this, which one is longer. And sometimes they would even hear those the researchers inflect that the one was longer, the other was longer, just encouraging more of that same belief yet the center lines were still 12 inches of a piece, it just looked slightly different because of the way they shaped the in, in capture the parentheses on each one of those. So the conjunction fallacy was that whenever somebody would say I think this is longer and everyone else would say this is longer. And then one would go and say no, this one is longer or someone say this is the same. There was less social support for one or the other. But the one that was correct was probably the least supported. But by social pressure, they would actually have more people jump on the side of yeses as long as because everyone else said it was longer, which was incorrect because it was still 12 inches and yes, it was a setup. But that actually just kind of identified what that social pressure can do. It can call someone to sway not only opinion, but believe that we're perceiving something physically with their eyes, and weren’t  seeing with their eyes . But yet, because of the verbiage that somebody decided to test, they were able to sway the opinion. So why is this important to self regulation? Well, there are a number of reasons it is important one is that often our opinion can get skewed. And will you ever get upset at something that looks to be true, or sounds true, because somebody says it with great fervor and emotion behind it. And there's intensity? Well, if you ever involve yourself in the gossip mill, yes, you have. And we've all been taken in by including myself, when I was younger, I no longer do that. I don't participate in the rumor gossip mill, it's just not healthy. But there are certain purposes that it serves within an organization, it can actually serve to get good information out, but also to gather information, just as long as it's not harmful to somebody. So within the confines of healthy communication, like somebody's birthday, something like that, it's useful, and it's a helpful tool. So it's not an absolutely dark mark on our organization. But it can be hurtful, whenever it's in the wrong hands of the wrong contact information is encouraged. And this is where the conjunctivitis becomes problematic. Because if something is passed along the lines of, let's say, somebody's group, and they hear something, and then they all start talking about it, and they come to a conclusion, and if there's a stronger character in that group, for instance, and they tend to have a more negative conclusion, but yet, because they're a stronger character, they may actually lead how the group is responding or believing. And someone may not have enough character strength to say that's not true, or maybe even to different defend the person that has been spoken of, harshly badly or in a bad light. And there are some that do. But this is just an example, once again, of what we would call the conjunctive. fallacy, wherever we would take a belief based on maybe an opinion, or, or the way the social scheme would have us believe, and us going along with that, and maybe even believing it, even though maybe the evidence isn't particularly accurate. As far as the two lines, all they would have had to do is to have taken a ruler. And whenever they let them know what the situation was, I'm sure a number of them laughed, and we're embarrassed because Oh, I got it wrong, this sort of thing. Of course, it was a safe environment. But in real life of a conductive balance, it can be problematic, because I may act on something that's faulty, or untrue. That could be damaging, it could be helpful, who knows. But the idea is to know that sometimes those things can bend what it is that we consider factual. And sometimes we may even elevated by emotion, to a level of truth, this is true. And that's how it is. And then we start developing what is called an internal conviction, and internal bias in a certain direction that once we have emotional capital invested when we've got emotional effort, and belief and thought and interaction with others, that's a lot of supportive validation of sorts of something that may not be correct, but that we would see as energy expended, and therefore now it has a bit of a life. And it's hard to disprove. And often people don't like being wrong, and we're really not apt to change our opinions and minds once we start getting emotional about things. So, early on in this podcast, we discussed the fact that many decision we make we make emotionally first before we ever allow ourselves to think about it's not really a truly an allowance, it's a matter of the signal splitting off and go into our higher cortex where we can reason with but if our emotions precede our best cognitive process, does it or does it not? This is completely rhetorical, mighty inflect, or color, or even influence how it is that you're seeing something if you're in a bad mood, is that going to influence how you interpret something? And we do know about the studies that yes, it does. Whether you'd be happy, sad or indifferent, will determine how we not only interpret situations, but rather how we interact with people, and how we behave or act, or act out if we act at all, based on those beliefs and feelings.

Another type of mindset or bias that we develop is one is called hindsight. We always joke about having 2020 hindsight and had we been able to see that first boy, I would have done something else or done something different and the strength of hindsight is affected so darn clear, but unfortunately, it's in the wrong space in our timeline of acting, it seems. But also, this is something that when you are interacting with folks, often you will hear things along the lines of Well, I knew it all along, even though they may not have endorsed or said remarked something along the lines of correct. They were saying, Well, I felt that that was my first instinct. And often we tend to over trust our intuition in the sense of how we feel. But often we've talked about how we can't always verbalize the gut feel that we have. At the survival level, yes, trust your intuition when you're out and about in the environment. But when it comes to intellectual tasks, often our intuition can be helpful, but it can also get in the way. But what we hear people say things like, Well, I knew it all along well, why did you give the right answers my question, but most of us can't, that we can't make that jump from the internal intuitive to the higher cognitive, we make a decision and we become declarative and say, This is it. Very few of us have that gain or skill. But something to think about. Whenever we hear things like, Well, I knew it all. I felt it was right, or what that was my first answer, but I chained to help you know, those things happen. And I'm not totally decrying that because not only believe, but I know that the intuitive our body does take care of us in a totally trusted Yes. But there are times when it comes to interacting with people that there are errors that occur as a result of such things. And often whenever we're working with things that whenever I was doing doctoral work, I know that I've spoken to a number of people when I told them what my dissertation was going to be about. And all the people that he cried this, we're not doing the work that I was doing. They weren't immersed in doctoral level of work. So I probably shouldn't have listened too much to their opinion, not that they aren't good people. But they gave an opinion from their point of view. If I were in your shoes, this would be an inconvenience perspective. And I gathered that after the fact that whenever I told them, yes, I'm doing a study involving acute care workers that struggle with PTSD and burnout. But I was also studying what would be considered direct, indirect and vicarious trauma exposure, relative to burnout and PTSD and these acute care words. And I would often hear, Oh, that's been done before it's been done before. Well, actually, it has not been done not in that way. I want to sit a little bit and I was very specific. And they all came from the Oh, I know this. And I know this is like, Well, that's nice that you know about it. But they didn't know exactly what I was doing, or knew the ones that were the detail that I was getting into, that was differentiating the dissertation I was doing in something along the lines of burnout that has huge amounts of research, for PTSD for that matter that has a large amount of research to, but yet, it was, oh, I notice. They have this sense of I already know or knew that everybody knows this. And that is what we call advanced hindsight. And I would like to say that they were thinking with their backside, but that would be really unkind. But I tend to laugh a little bit because I completed that, and then it's good. They worked out and I found some of what I was needing to look for. And that's cool. I certainly harbor note a little bit of gave me a learning experience about advance hindsight. Some people are very advanced in their hindsight, because they tend to assume that they know more than what they do. And that is also a conductive fallacy assuming that you know more than you do. Often, we may run into people. And I'm going to take Maslow's hierarchy, pyramid of self actualization as an example. Most of us know this, if you've been involved in any kind of psychology with the last 80 years. But Maslow's self actualization peak of the pyramid is something that I find rather fascinating. But I also know that it's a it's a dynamic thing. Once you get all your biological needs met, your social needs met all these things, you move up the ladder, and then whenever things are in order, you gain you acquire, and you self realize, but it's not concrete, self realization, it's something that indicates growth. What the pyramid does, it kind of boxes in the idea of what the pyramid is about? And there is a level above that. And this isn't my original idea. But the late Dr. Glen Morris, whom I've mentioned before in this podcast and his writings, he mentioned and I tend to agree that there is a level of both self actualization in Maslow's hierarchy. That indicates that if you really enjoyed the process, that there's something about getting someone else to develop and get to the point you got, or maybe get better or exceed and being a martial artist for 38 years, almost 40 years now. Realize that I'm a better coach now. And I don't like taking damage as much as I used to. But I like teaching people because I realized that the things that I didn't have, I want to give the new generation, because I want them to develop better and faster. And so that way they can grow the art nuanced the art that that way it doesn't die. And those are important things. And there is a great joy in being able to see someone replicate. But not only that, but to see them replicate and advance and create with a greater degree of skill than maybe I had at that age. And that's exciting to me, I harbor no ill will, because they're better than me, I'm not jealous, I'd love to see it flourish. That way, I love to see people flourish. So I enjoy teaching. And one of the things too about Maslow's hierarchy is that once you go above that, and you mentor people and get them to go above, there's a great degree of self satisfaction. And those are important things to see. So that way, you can get some of the payoff from the things that you know, and not just keep it to yourself, and I got here, because that's kind of a selfish competitive thing. Versus I got here now what can I do to help others that inverts the pyramid, so to speak into like a funnel, and it's a broadcast growth. And that means that it goes out in all directions, which is an absolutely cool thing. Now, another thing having to do this fallacy, and also hindsight, is that right now, we're hearing a lot of people that are expert in government things, and the conflict that's going on right now that many people are talking about, and that it's eaten up our news time right now. But one thing that we have to remember is that we're seeing things involving humans, and all of these things we can get so involved in and we start losing our perspective. And we're very quick to, to go to one side or the other without looking more deeply into the facts. And this is why I'm bringing up the hindsight and the illusory correlations, where we see relationships or patterns, when maybe there aren't any. If we're under stress, we're more apt to believe things to be certain way. And we're more apt to use less of our reasoning, to make sense of things. And we may be more quick to jump to a conclusion and stick to it to develop a conviction, especially when things seem to be told to us that they're moving incredibly fast. And it's incredibly dangerous. And there's stress, and there's death, and there's damage and this sort of stuff. When we get into the emotional state, he would have, it's a little we have marginalize our capacity to think, with a greatest degree of rationale and reasoning. And right now is whenever we needed most. So that way, we can continue to be kind to each other, and to help each other by supporting each other by giving the greatest degree of understanding and patience, whenever we're thinking about things. And know that not everybody involved in what's going on right now is in agreement. Often people are pressured, and they have to act within a certain realm because of pressure, or they would lose great

numbers of things involving life, family, and other things. So in light of that, I just wanted to add these bits of information having to do with not only hindsight, how we tend to be apt to see things and believe things, only after the fact clarity is wonderful once we know all the facts, of course, but also the conjunctive bias wherever we start having a development of a fallacious belief, because things seem a certain way or because the social norm seems to say that this is the line, this is the truth. Whenever we were thinking about what happened with this pandemic issue, that was a big problem, because many people were very sorely divided that were even within the same families. Should I do this should I not. And it seems like, you know, the information that was given was either hidden, or it was put out there and people didn't pay attention. They were on both sides of the fence there. But it was a huge impact. But if we look deeper, we might find things that we don't want to hear or see. But the more important thing in the practical sense. I'm hoping everybody's okay, we all lost people then cluding myself, is that the important thing is that we continue to go and keep our minds clear. And that we work towards being able to communicate well minimize our stress, and encourage the growth of rational and reasonable thinking and doing and that we continue to make safe every day and trust our nature because we're not here by accident. At least that is my belief. And I certainly enjoy talking to each and every one of you and I'm hoping to hear back from you. And if you want to share this podcast with people please do follow like and share. Are there people out there that you think could benefit? Please share it with them? If you think that they wouldn't benefit, Tom anyway, that would be very generous. It's like Santa Claus during Christmas. Be generous and give gifts away. But if you have any questions or just want to reach out Say hello to me, please do at the email running man get skills project at Gmail, I would love to hear from you. Also, if you have any suggestions or any questions about the material that we've covered up until this time, please let me know. I certainly have enjoyed visiting with you. And I just wanted to touch on a couple of life topics today that are useful in how we shaped not only our thoughts, but our reasoning, and also realizing that sometimes, and it often happens more than sometimes the social environment that people were around can also pressures and lead us in a way that we may shape our beliefs. And it's a hard chart sometimes to be able to maintain the truth as it were, versus just swallow the line and say, Okay, this is just easier because I'm accepted and it'll give me a hard time. So encourage I will tell you, take care without the wall, speak some walk well