Coming from two backgrounds that enable an inside view of decision making processes, the author's insight into our biases and how to neutralize them is excellent. Annie Duke was working on her PhD. in cognitive psychology at Penn when she got sick and had to quit before defending her thesis. While recovering, she started playing poker under the tutelage of her professional poker-player brother. She made a 20-year career out of poker, winning over $4 million in tournaments, and has written five books. This book is a deep dive into decision making: "All decisions in life are bets."
We make decisions based on what we believe to be true. From that start, she reveals something unexpected: the process for forming a belief -
"How we think we form beliefs:
1. We hear something
2. We think about it and vet it, determining whether it s true or false; only after that
3. We form our belief.
How we actually form beliefs:And, this I found key...
1. We hear something
2. We believe it to be true;
3. Only sometimes, later, if we have the time or the inclination, we think about it and vet it, determining whether it is, in fact, true or false. (p 50)
"Once a belief is lodged, it becomes difficult to dislodge. It takes on a life of its own, leading us to notice and seek out evidence confirming our belief, rarely challenge the validity of confirming evidence, and ignore or work hard to actively discredit information contradicting the belief. ... The way we process new information is driven by the beliefs we hold, strengthening them. Those strengthened beliefs then drive how we process further information, and so on. (p 59)To make matters worse, being smart doesn't help! Research shows that more intelligent people tend to be better at backfilling selective facts to support a false belief when presented with evidence to the contrary.
We also tend to form beliefs that are black or white, good or bad; very polar beliefs. That's like stepping on a medical scale with only two notches, one at 50 pounds and one at 500 pounds...
"If we misrepresent the world at the extremes of right and wrong, with no shades of grey in between, our ability to make good choices -- choices about how we are supposed to be allocating our resources, what kind of decisions we are supposed to be making, and what kind of actions we are supposed to be taking -- will suffer." (p 29)On making decisions with imperfect information (poker vs. chess: luck in poker vs luck not a factor in chess), we need to guesstimate the probabilities (informally usually) of particular outcomes. Estimating probabilities as opposed to 0% or 100% makes it easier to be more objective about the outcome and learn from it.
Too often, when we win, or our decision turns out positive, we attribute the outcome to our own superior skill; when we lose, it's because of our 'bad luck'. We can't learn from the outcomes very well this way. To learn better, learn to pick apart a good outcome and see what influenced it, and for a bad outcome, look to ourselves to see what we could have truly done better. "We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we don't like?" - Jean Cocteau
A good strategy for overcoming this bias is to imagine that the good result we got was achieved by someone else - making it easier to look at critically, or the good outcome someone else got (making us feel bad) was achieved by us - finding things to give them credit for.
Being wrong is hard, but it's built into life. If we can't learn from our own mistakes, we'll repeat them.
And outcomes are feedback - "Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him." - Aldous Huxley.
Interestingly, according to research by Prof. Sonja Lyubomirsky at UC Riverside, our happiness depends on the usual (income, health, supportive relationship, lack of tragedy or trauma) only 15% or less. The rest of our happiness depends on how we are doing comparatively with whomever we compare ourselves with - friends, enemies, celebrities.
"We can learn better and be more open-minded if we work toward a positive narrative driven by engagement in truthseeking and striving toward accuracy and objectivity: giving credit when it's due, admitting when our decisions could have been better, and acknowledging that almost nothing is black and white." (p 105)To change our habits, we must work within Charles Duhigg's habit loop: "To change a habit, you must keep the old cue, and deliver the new reward, but insert a new routine." [update w/Jame's Clear's habits paradigm?]
Duke very strongly recommends a 'truthseeking pod' or group of people who are familiar with what you are deciding about and who know you well. They can be used to bounce your views and opinions off before making a key decision. They can pose as devils' advocate to present counter arguments, and call out when they think you are being biased and not assessing the things you use to support your beliefs critically. But if you are giving advice be careful the person is seeking honest opinion and not reinforcement. That could endanger a positive relationship. So get permission before volunteering truthseeking opinions.
A truthseeking charter blueprint:
1) focus on accuracy over confirmation
2) Accountability for which members have advance notice, and
3) Openness to a diversity of ideas.
To make better decisions:
Actually placing a bet on a decision can force the decisionmaker to be better informed and make a better decision. Research as part of the Reproducibility Project demonstrated that experts engaging in traditional peer review were right 58% of the time, whereas experts who had to bet money on a study's reproducibility predicted correctly 71% of the time. A traditional bet can improve our analysis apparently. Prediction markets are now used by Google, Microsoft, GE, Pfizer and Siemens to improve their outcomes.
One super-simple tip to improving the intake of critical comments is to, as usual, lead with a positive comment, then, instead of using the word "but" to separate the critical comment, use "and". This can keep from putting the receiver on the defensive and shutting out the advice. "And" is an offer to contribute.
Or, ask for temporary permission to speak the truth.. Ask if they want us to just listen to them vent, or do they want our opinion? Sometimes we or they just need to vent, and that's ok. Though it doesn't lead to best decisions.
The tendency for temporal discounting is to attribute more importance to our feelings now (stay up late) than our feelings in the future (have to get up early with a lot less sleep). To counter this, put yourself in your future shoes - at normal bedtime, imagine in detail getting up early, and how you'll feel with 5 vs 8 hours of sleep. Suzy Welch tool: 10-10-10: how would I feel if I made this decision 10 minutes ago? 10 months ago? 10 years ago? Put yourself in your future shoes.
Move regret in front of our decisions. Eat the ice cream? Think about the regret the next day.
We can also enter into a "Ulysses contract". Make an accountable agreement to bind yourself to a specific path, as Ulysses did before sailing past the island of the Sirens. He had his crew bind him to the mast of his ship, and filled their ears with wax to prevent them from hearing the Sirens or his pleas to steer to the fatal island.
Backcasting - Imagine a positive future, and work backwards through all the steps and decisions to get there.
Pre-mortems - Imagine a negative future, and figure out what needs to be done to prevent it.
I highly recommend Thinking in Bets. A great read and very thoughtful approach to decisionmaking in everyday life.
