10 Thinking Mistakes Our Brain Makes Every Single Day
Image: Shutterstock
Even when you’re asleep, your brain never stops working. It still makes plenty of decisions for you and gets busy trying to create new memories as well as consolidate the old ones (1), (2). Now that’s a lot of work!
Naturally, working as hard as your brain does, you can expect it to make certain boo-boos sometimes. It’s a tough, rest-free life for your brain! The effect of this shows though. Sometimes, your brain makes certain errors of judgment, carrying them out every day in fact!
Here are 10 blunders every brain makes almost every day:
1. Being Afraid To Make A Choice
Majority of the people would rather have fewer choices to deal with than endless options. A study shows that when faced with too many options, the brain’s ability to make decisions is paralyzed. This paradox has been demonstrated aptly by the jam experiment where only 3% people bought a jar when given too many options. On the other hand, when given limited options, 30% people made a purchase (1).
2. Encouraging The Confirmation Bias
According to researchers, people will wholeheartedly believe something as long as it adheres to their own assumptions (2). Having this kind of bias is wrong as it prevents us from being objective and accepting the reality. That’s why you see articles on social media that cater to what you’d like to see, rather than what’s actually happening.
3. Focusing On Just One Aspect
Known as the ‘focusing effect,’ the brain is most likely to rely on past experiences to make a decision in the present, ignoring all of the other factors that might play a major role in influencing that particular decision (3). Studies back this up, with one stating that participants viewed people living in California to be happier due to the sunny climate, not taking into account other parameters that affect happiness (4).
4. Depending On Others’ Perceptions
Psychologists Rosenthal and Jacobson called it the ‘Pygmalion Effect.’ What this means is that you are likely to perform better if people have high expectations from you. Their study revealed that students did better on their tests when their teachers not only created a positive atmosphere but even expected more from them (5).
5. Suppressing Your Opinion In A Group
The fear of giving rise to a conflict is so strong that we end up supporting a bad decision in a group instead of voicing our opinion. This phenomenon is known as ‘groupthink’ and it occurs even when intelligent people are a part of the group that’s making the decision concerned (6)!
6. Having The Swimmer’s Body Illusion
Most people believe that swimming and training hard can help them achieve a swimmer’s body; however, in reality, that is not the case (7). Swimmers actually naturally have the kind of body they do, and they just support it by training for it extensively. It’s the same logic where people think that going to a big university can make them smart, whereas top universities only select smart students.
7. Seeing Patterns In Everything
It’s human tendency to witness patterns in objects such as animal shapes in the cloud, faces in the moon, and what not. The funny thing is these patterns don’t really exist, so why do we see them? The illusion that you’re seeing a pattern you know in another object takes place in the temporal lobe of your brain (8). The temporal lobe is responsible for the senses. So, it’s not surprising you end up seeing things.
8. Or Seeing Something Everywhere
Suppose you saw a red Ferrari on TV. Now, when you step out of the house, you’ll start seeing it everywhere! This is known as ‘frequency illusion,’ and it takes place when you glean new information and notice it everywhere you go. It can be attributed to your ability to pay selective attention (9).
9. Giving In To Operant Conditioning
‘Operant conditioning’ can be defined as the expectation that specific actions will always lead to their resultant consequences (10). Say, for example, you press the buttons on the remote to change channels and it always works. But what happens when the battery in it dies? Your brain refuses to accept that is the case, pressing the button a few more times to carry out its function before it can eventually accept the reality.
10. Being Afraid Of The New
Fear of the new can be directly equated with the loss of the present. Referred to as ‘loss aversion,’ some people are afraid of trying out new and rewarding experiences because the pain of losing what they have is too much for them to bear (11). That’s why some people don’t leave their familiar houses or cities despite knowing their life would improve elsewhere.
Don’t get worked up at making these mistakes. Knowing that you make them is the first step to rectifying them. So, stop yourself the next you think you’re making a blunder!
