Brain Fart: Discover Your Flawed Logic, Failures in Common Sense and Intuition, and Irrational Behavior - How to Think Less Stupid

by Peter Hollins

Overcoming the master: The hero wants to defeat the bad in the world, creating a clash of good versus evil. Rags to riches: The hero gains power and riches, loses it, and finds that happiness existed in them all along. The quest: The hero wants to retrieve some sort of object at all costs. Voyage and return: The hero takes a voyage and returns a happier and more fulfilled person. Comedy: The hero battles confusing and sometimes silly adversaries to become a better person. Tragedy: The hero possesses a fatal flaw and the story documents their fall from grace. Rebirth: Tragedy befalls a hero, which forces them to adapt and rise from the ashes.

Confirmation Bias

Confirmation bias occurs when you have a preference on what you would like to believe. If you want something to be true, you will seek out information that makes it true.

Risk Tolerance

Risk is an interesting concept that tends to divide people into one of two camps. When we talk about risk, you are either risk-averse, or you have an appetite for risk.

Trust

The more we trust the source of information of a risk, the less dangerous we perceive a risk to be.

Conversely, the less we trust the source, the more dangerous we perceive a risk to be.

Origin This factor in risk perception is the ultimate double standard. If we create a risk, we tend to brush it off and perceive it as minor. However, if someone else creates the same risk, we tend to perceive it as major and significant because we don’t have control over it.

Control If you feel that you have control over the end outcome, you will feel there is less risk involved. However, if you are forced to be a bystander to a risk, you will perceive it as inherently more dangerous.

Nature We perceive risks and dangers from nature to be relatively minor and harmless, but put us in front of a man-made risk factor, and we are immediately hesitant.

Awareness We only have a certain amount of attention we can devote to risks each day, week, and even year. We have a higher perception of risk for that which we are more aware of — that which dominates the news or social cycle of the day or week.

Uncertainty When we know a general risk, but are uncertain on the rest of the details — who, what, when, where, and why — we perceive a risk to be significant.

Scope Scope refers to just how much damage will occur if the risk comes to fruition. The greater we perceive the scope of the damage to be, the greater the risk is.

Hard to Understand This is related to the uncertainty risk perception factor. The less we understand something, the more risky it appears to be.

What is dread? The dictionary definition doesn’t do it justice, but for instance, a risk that would invoke dread is being eaten alive by a combination of ants and rats. You likely just made a disgusted face and shuddered, and that’s what dread can do to you. It seizes control of your imagination and creates a visceral reaction, which makes you perceive greater risk because you just want to avoid that outcome at all costs. Unpleasant things make us perceive greater risk.

Familiarity Threats that are new, novel, or previously unfamiliar are perceived to be more dangerous than familiar threats. Simply evaluate the following sentences and make a quick

judgment call as to which is more intimidating: This is an entirely new type of disease. It’s unlike anything we’ve ever seen. This is a disease we have encountered three times in the past decade. We have seen it before.

Personal Impact If there is a threat which has no possibility of affecting you, then you probably feel very little risk associated with it. In fact, it might not even feel like a threat to you at all.

Fun Factor If something is fun and involves pleasure, then there will appear to be less risk involved. In reality, the risk remains the same, but we are distracted by the prospect of fun.

Age Affected This is the last of Ropeik’s risk perception factors, and it is perhaps the simplest: If a threat appears to affect children, it is seen as more dangerous. Presumably, this is because children are more fragile and protected, so if it can affect them, then it can sure touch us all.

First Impressions

Anchoring is a psychological effect that occurs based on first impressions. The chapter opened with a clear example of anchoring — the car’s sticker price was $20,000, so you felt compelled to stay close to that range. Consciously, you felt $20,000 was close to the true value and couldn’t deviate too far from it. Subconsciously, the initial price anchored you to that relative price point.

Priming is how most advertising purports to work: on a subconscious level. Often, we watch television or movies and scoff at how stupid a commercial is. None of us think advertising works on us because they never make us suddenly sprout preferences for specific brands or products.

Self-Defense

But you just might recognize some defense mechanisms put forth by Anna Freud: Denial Intellectualization Rationalization Projection Displacement Reaction formation Regression Repression Sublimation

Intellectualization is when you deal with negativity or threats to your self-esteem by pushing emotion aside and using logic to make yourself feel better.

Rationalization is when you explain away something negative.

Brain Farting

Neuroscientists have investigated the phenomenon of suddenly losing your train of thought, and they have discovered that roughly 30 seconds before your brain fart, there is a decrease in blood flow to the portion of your brain that is involved in focus and attention.

there’s also a specific type of brain fart known as tip of the tongue (TOT). This occurs when you know what you wanted to say, but your mind suddenly runs blank, or you walk into a room and realize you have no idea what why you did so.