SEEKING WISDOM NOTES

PSYCHOLOGICAL REASONS FOR MISTAKES

1. MERE ASSOCIATION
a. Advertisements
b. Stereotypes

2. REWARD AND PUNISHMENT

3. SELF-INTEREST AND INCENTIVES

a. People do what they perceive is in their best interest and are biased by incentives.
b. Ask “What are the interests? Who benefits?”
c. People’s interests are not only financial.

4. SELF-SERVING TENDENCIES AND OPTIMISM

a. Optimism is good but when it comes to important decisions, realism is better.
b. We overestimate the degree of control we have over events and underestimate chance.
c. Incentive-caused bias
d. Focus on what can go wrong and the consequences. Build some margin of safety in
decisions.

5. SELF-DECEPTION AND DENIAL

6. CONSISTENCY
a. Traps of consistencies
b. Low-ball technique
c. Labeling technique
d. Foot-in-the-door technique

7. DEPRIVAL SYNDROME

8. STATUS QUO AND DO-NOTHING SYNDROME

a. “Predicting rain doesn’t count; building ark does.”
b. Remember what you want to achieve.
c. “Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the
thing you have to do when it ought to be done whether you like it or not.”

9. IMPATIENCE
a. Less patience when rewards are immediate.
b. Short-term suffering may lead to long-term pleasure.
10. ENVY AND JEALOUSY
a. As long as you achieve your goals, it shouldn’t matter if someone else does better.
11. CONTRAST AND COMPARISON

12. ANCHORING

13. VIVIDNESS AND RECENCY

14. OMISSION AND ABSTRACT BLINDESS

15. RECIPROCATION
a. Set the correct example.

16. LIKING AND SOCIAL ACCEPTANCE

a. “How much time he gains who does not look to see what his neighbor says or does or
thinks.”

17. SOCIAL PROOF

a. “But everybody else is doing it. “

18. AUTHORITY
a. Blind obedience is sometimes a way to rationalize dumb actions.

19. SENSEMAKING

20. REASON-RESPECTING

21. BELIEVE FIRST AND DOUBT LATER

a. Believing in something false can sometimes come with a benefit.

22. MEMORY LIMITATIONS

a. We learn better in a positive mood.

23. DO-SOMETHING SYNDROME

a. Do what is right than to simply do something.
b. “There is no reason to do a good job with something you shouldn’t do in the first place.
 24. SAY-SOMETHING SYNDROME
a. Awareness of ignorance is the beginning of wisdom.
b. “He that would live in peace and at ease, must not speak all he knows, nor judge all he
sees.”

25. EMOTIONS
a. “A wise man controls his temper. He knows that anger causes mistakes.”
b. Cooling-off periods”

26. STRESS
a. Less control = More stress = Short-term decisions, More vulnerable to disease
b. Stress depends on our interpretation and attitude.

27. PAIN, CHEMICALS, AND DISEASES

28. MULTIPLE TENDENCIES

CONTEXTUAL INFLUENCES

“How often misused words generate misleading thoughts.”