Daniel Kahneman, author of the best-seller, Fast and Slow, tells us that we are biologically wired to construct stories out of imperfect evidence. Our job involves making the best story possible out of the data that we choose to regard, whether it is complete or maybe even when it comes from a biased perspective. If the information about a particular criminal fits our stereotype, it reinforces that view. Newspapers that ‘give their readers what they want’ are also sponsors of laziness.
The Nobel prize winning psychologist goes on to explain that we simply prefer not to make an effort and avoid it where we can. "It's not necessarily that we don't like to work, but when there are two ways of doing the same thing - one easy, one hard, we naturally gravitate to the easy way, that's the right answer," he says. "So the bias toward finding the easy way, means that sometimes we pick the easy way and we get to the wrong answer."
He advocates daily decision tracking as a useful tool… if you come to an important decision, map out the inputs and you’ll be surprised how often your decision is based on incomplete data.
The Nobel prize winning psychologist goes on to explain that we simply prefer not to make an effort and avoid it where we can. "It's not necessarily that we don't like to work, but when there are two ways of doing the same thing - one easy, one hard, we naturally gravitate to the easy way, that's the right answer," he says. "So the bias toward finding the easy way, means that sometimes we pick the easy way and we get to the wrong answer."
He advocates daily decision tracking as a useful tool… if you come to an important decision, map out the inputs and you’ll be surprised how often your decision is based on incomplete data.
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