Thinking Err0rs

Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational BehaviorThrough many stories, Ori and Rom Brafman tell us how we fool ourselves. Some of the topics well known: loss aversion, value attribution, our reluctance to speak up in a group. They are told with fresh, entertaining stories. Other topics are less often covered in the context of thinking errors.

What are the cultural differences in terms of deciding what is fair? One interesting approach is to look at the behavior of the studio audience in local versions of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. A contestant has to choose between four possible answers to a question. If he is not sure which answer to pick, once in the contest he has the option to ask the audience to vote for the right answer. In the US, the audience will try to help. In elitist France, the audience may turn against a contestant. If he looks stupid, the audience will think he does not deserve to win. They will give a wrong answer. In Russia, the audience is useless to the contestant. After generations growing up in an egalitarian regime, the thought of someone getting rich quickly just seems wrong. Why should this guy become wealthy? The audience tends to give wrong answers.

Another interesting topic is why rewards can backfire. Ask a friend to help you move, and he reluctantly does. Ask the same friend the same favor and offer $10, and he will remind you that there are professional movers out there. Why should your friend turn down $10? fMRI studies show two parts of the brain being activated in this scenario. In the absence of a reward the posterior superior temporal sulcus is activated. This is an area involved in social interactions. The authors call it our “altruism center”. If a reward is offered, our “pleasure center”, the nucleus accumbens lights up. The problem is, if the nucleus accumbens is activated, the posterior superior temporal sulcus is not. Our altruistic tendencies are lost. We react to the reward. If it seems insufficient we reject it.

This book is a good read.