Frontiers Friday #39. Unintended Consequence (Part II)
Thanks to my local bookstore, I just got my hands on the latest book Noise by Daniel Kahneman, Oliver Sibony and Cass Susstein (co-author of the famed Nudge). I was hooked from the first 2 pages. I hope to talk more about this in the future once I've wrapped my head around it.
In brief, given my prior understanding from interviews with Kahneman (and the first few pages), the premise of the book is not just about how bias (i.e., systematic deviation) affects our decision making, but also noise (i.e., random scatter). In other words, experts in the same domain seem to fail at reliably agreeing on their professional judgment!
Noise reminded me of something that my colleagues and I wrote about in The Write to Recovery (available for free!)
"In a two-part documentary produced by BBC, How Mad Are You? the producers gathered 10 volunteers to be part of a week-long controversial experiment. 5 out of 10 volunteers had been previously diagnosed with a mental illness, including major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, obsessive- compulsive disorder, social anxiety and an eating disorder (anorexia). Three mental health professionals (a psychiatrist, psychiatric nurse and a psychologist) observed them over the course of the week, and used their clinical diagnostic expertise to spot the 5 who were so-called “mentally unwell.” Lo and behold, the 3 professionals were able to accurately diagnose only 2 out of the 5 volunteers with mental health distress, and they misdiagnosed 3 of the healthy participants.
Ok. Onward with this week's Part II of Unintended Consequence (see Part I if you missed it).
- From My Desk: The Cobra Effect
Instead of solving a problem, you end up amplifying the existing concern or worse, creating a new one. Thus, the law of unintended consequence was born. (Also known as the “Cobra effect”).
- The Paradox of Focusing on the Therapist
We need more outrospection than introspection.
- Book: Against Empathy
Developmental Psychologist proposes that empathy is a leading motivator of inequality and immorality in society (I know, this sounds bizarre).
Key Grafs:
- empathy shines the light on a narrow area and ignores the rest
- Empathy is innumerate. We empathize with one girl... Put her brother and 10 others in the same situation, your empathy for that girl drops
- Listen: The Backfire Effect
From the You are Not So Smart Podcast, this 3-part series on the backfire effect is so interesting!
When a strong-yet-erroneous, belief is challenged, yes, you might experience some temporary weakening of your convictions, some softening of your certainty, but most people rebound from that and not only reassert their original belief at its original strength, but go beyond that and dig in their heels, deepening their resolve over the long run.
- Words Worth Contemplating:
"You waste years by not being able to waste hours."
~ Long-time collaborator of Daniel Kahneman, the late Amos Tversky.
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