The 3 Unknown Thinking Errors
... that distort our perception of reality
When we look at, think of and talk about reality around us, we tend to simplify our experience.
There are three ways in which we do that without realizing it. They’re important and often useful. But sometimes, they’re dramatically misleading.
We think of the world as a collection of binary, discrete and isolated phenomena.
Here are a few examples from different areas of life.
↓
⚫️ Binary Thinking
Which will win, Bitcoin or the US Dollar? (Finance)
Is this person good or bad? (Ethics)
Is this strategy better or worse? (Management)
📊 Discrete Thinking
What are the preferences of these consumers? (Economics)
What’s her highest level of education? (Education)
Do we need a Junior or Senior level for this? (HR)
📎 Isolated Thinking
Which of these user problems should we focus on? (Product Development)
Does capitalism cause global inequality? (Globalism)
I just can’t handle stress so well. (Personal Life)
Let’s look at each example in a more nuanced, more difficult, but way more informative way.
↓
🔘 Probabilistic Thinking
Instead of thinking about extreme either-or outcomes, we can try to give weights to different outcome variations.
(Finance) There’s a chance that Bitcoin will vanish and a chance that the US Dollar will vanish, but an even bigger chance that both will co-exist with different degrees of importance.
(Ethics) This person has a high likelihood to do things we regard as bad given most contexts they are in.
(Management) This strategy has a high likelihood to perform better in most scenarios we think of but in this one single scenario it will very likely perform drastically worse.
📈 Continuous Thinking
Instead of looking at stepwise changes, we can try to understand granular and continuous nuances between explicit categories we use.
(Economics) If asked, the consumer might say ‘X’, but in reality, it is only a slight preference which could change over time given their personal situation or mood, even on a daily basis.
(Education) She has a Bachelor’s degree but left college just before completing her Master’s thesis because she got a job offer and felt bored by university things. She also educated herself on a bunch of highly relevant topics that weren’t part of her official curriculum.
(HR) For this role, we need someone who is extremely good at this particular design skill and they also need to be somewhat experienced enough with project management. The rest is not so important at the moment.
🖇 Interconnected Thinking
Instead of looking at problems, opportunities and any other factors in life in isolation, we can try to understand how they are connected to others and produce effects based on those connections.
(Product Development) Focusing on user problem ‘P’ and finding the best solution for it might not be useful because the reality of the user is such that four other problems have to be tackled to a sufficient degree so that a solution for ‘P’ can really create any value.
(Globalism) Capitalism might create inequality if it is deployed without accounting for basic human flaws such as greed and discounting of other people’s problems. It might contribute to extreme wealth differences, but only as long as people keep prioritizing their own personal benefit above all else and as long as politics can be influenced with money.
(Personal Life) Maybe I can’t handle stress only if it occurs when I am tired and physically exhausted. It might not be the stress itself that I can’t handle, but how it interacts with my deeply rooted fear of failure. Could I overcome it, I might be able to handle all kinds of stress very differently.
Often, simplifications are useful and necessary. But sometimes, nuance matters.
It’s a superpower to know when to resort to binary, discrete and isolated thinking, and when to make an extra effort to avoid exactly that.