Behaviouronomics

Human brain is a pattern seeking machine. When we see something that looks like order we usually attribute it to human intelligence and skill. Hot hand fallacy is a proof of how easily we get fooled by randomness.

One of the most embarrassing moments in my childhood days was when my class teacher asked me something about Sachin Tendulkar. I replied, “Who is Sachin Tendulkar?” It was 1992 and I was in 6th standard. The whole class, including the teacher, burst into laughter. That was the day when I started taking active interest in cricket. Of course the motivation was to avoid looking like a fool in a cricket crazy nation.

“Dravid is not in form these days,” claimed one of my friends.

“I hope he comes back in form soon else he will be dropped from the national team,” argued another friend.

I nodded in agreement. I was faking. Because one thing that still baffled me was the idea of a player being “in-form” or “out-of-form.”

“What’s this in-form and out-of-form business?” I asked my best friend. He was the only who I didn’t feel the need to impress with my cricket knowledge.

“Well, if a player plays consistently well for many innings, he’s said to be in good form. Otherwise he’s considered as out of form,” he explained. “An in-form player is always in demand because he’s expected to continue playing well.”

Why does an in-form player play well? The form was based on his past performance so how does that ensure his future performance? Isn’t this form business based on a circular logic?

These were some intelligent questions that I should have asked from my best friend but I wasn’t really very inquisitive as a child so I left it that.
[Read more…] about Behaviouronomics: Hot Hand Fallacy

Before we get started on the discussion today, I would like to invite you to have an intellectual and emotional experience. Take a few seconds and just look at the picture below.

What do you see? You’d probably see a woman who is looking away from you. You’d also notice that she’s wearing a necklace. She also seems to have high cheekbones, long eyelashes and a petite nose. Alright, now I ask you to take your eyes off her and focus on the second picture below –

What do you see now? Another woman? How old would you say she is? What does she look like? What is she wearing? In what kind of roles do you see her?

You probably would describe this woman as beautiful as the first one. You might guess that she’s about 25 years old, very lovely, rather fashionable and with a demure presence. If you were a single man you might even like to ask her out. [Read more…] about Behaviouronomics: Naive Realism

Human beings are generally terrible at predicting their own future emotional states which leads them to overestimate how extreme positive or negative events would affect their long term happiness.

Let’s say there was a way to quantify the mental state of a human being in terms of how happy and content he is feeling at certain moment. Now I invite you to contemplate following two different futures for two persons, given that their present mental state measures 1,000 units each.

The first person has just won US$ 10 million lottery. The second person had a terrible accident and both his legs had to amputated. Can you make a guess about each person’s mental state 1 year down the line after the above two events have happened? In first case would his mental state be less than or more than 1,000? Of course, it would be more than 1,000. Isn’t it? After all he’s a very rich man now.

What about the second case? In fact, most people talk about how devastating it would be. Some people even say they would rather be dead than never be able to walk again. And what would be your prediction about the reading on victim’s mental-state-meter? Isn’t it obvious it would be far less than 1,000? May be even less than zero.

Before we start discussing the answer to this question, take a moment and think about what your brain is doing to generate an answer for above question. You brain is imagining the state of mind of each person i.e. it’s simulating each scenario by putting itself in the situation and doing a rough evaluation about how it will feel. Right?
[Read more…] about Behaviouronomics: Impact Bias

In theory there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is. That’s because, for human mind, insights do not pass well from one field to another.

Picture the following. You are led into a room with a table. On the table are three items: a box of tacks, a book of matches, and a candle. Your job is to attach the candle to the wall so the wax doesn’t drip onto the table. You can take as much time as you need. How do you proceed?

If you are like over 75 percent of the participants in the now-classic study by a psychologist named Karl Duncker, who created this experiment in 1945, you would likely try one of two routes. You might try to tack the candle onto the wall—but you’ll quickly find that method to be futile. Or you might try to light the candle and use the dripping wax to attach it to the wall. Again, you’d fail. The wax is not strong enough to hold the candle, and your contraption will collapse. What now?

No one sees the solution at once. Some people find it after only a minute or two of thought. Others see it after faltering through several unsuccessful attempts. And many others fail to solve it without some outside help.

Here’s a hint – think outside the box. Isn’t that a cliché? Thinking outside the box is a phrase which is being overused, rather over-abused, by a parade of creativity experts since ages.
[Read more…] about Behaviouronomics: Domain Dependence

We humans tend to remember the things we want to remember and forget the things we’d rather forget because our minds are drawn to what feels true, not what’s necessarily so. That means a significant part of human memories are mostly fiction.

Yesterday when I logged into my Facebook account, it showed a picture which I had posted three years ago. In the picture I was celebrating my birthday with colleagues in the office. Although I had completely forgotten about the picture, it brought a smile on my face.

I just couldn’t remember being present when that picture was taken. My brain had conveniently erased that incident from my memory. I am sure it happens with others and Facebook knows it. So they introduced this fascinating feature. Bringing back those lost memories creates a pleasant experience which isn’t much different from the one when you find money in your old pant pockets.

How would it be if we never forgot anything? Why does our brain choose to remember something and forget others? Is there an evolutionary reason behind this behavioural quirk? Let’s explore these questions today.

Total Recall

In 2005, Deb Roy and Rupal Patel, a scientist couple from MIT designed a system called “Total Recall”. It was a set up to record (audio and video) everything in their lives starting from the day they brought home their newborn son. The intention was to discover the patterns in how a child learns language. They installed cameras and microphones in every room and stored all the recordings in a hard disk which was to be transcribed and analysed later. The experiment lasted for 2 years and it did reveal interesting insights about various stages in language development of a child but what made this experiment hugely remarkable was an array of serendipitous discoveries about human brain.
[Read more…] about Behaviouronomics: Imperfect Memory