Fallacies and Biases pt.2

In my second-ever post, I talked about 3 logical fallacies, common thinking errors, and mental biases that we often find ourselves affected by on a day-to-day.

This is part 2 to this ongoing series.

In this edition, I’m gonna be covering:

1. Cognitive Dissonance

2. Spotlight Effect

3. The Choice Paradox

Let’s get straaaaight to it.

Cognitive Dissonance

This is one that every single one of us has done/are doing. And most of us are even conscious about it, yet we do it anyway.

When people can’t get what they want, they tell themselves it’s not what they wanted anyway.

This is Cognitive Dissonance, the idea of incompatible beliefs.

People think that all rich people are evil and greedy, but wanna be rich themselves.

You see my point?

Here’s a little tale from Aesop’s Fables about a fox who wanted sour grapes.

This is where the term ‘sour grapes’ comes from.

The fox had three options:

1. Get to the grapes

2. Admit that he wasn’t smart/skilled enough to get the grapes (Hurts ego)

3. Re-interpret the situation differently (Never wanted the grapes anyway)

When the fox chose option three, it chose to have two beliefs that were in conflict with one another. This is a classic example of cognitive dissonance.

When you get rejected from a job, instead of accepting the fact that the selected candidate was probably better than you, you decide to say stuff like:

‘Oh I didn’t want this job anyway, it was just a backup option.’

‘He was probably friends with the interviewer, it was all luck.’

When we can’t get what we want, we often tell ourselves it’s not what we wanted anyways.

Next time when you catch yourself stuck between two beliefs, ask yourself,

Is this new belief because I need to explain away my first belief?

Spotlight Effect

The constant train of thought that everyone around is watching every single thing you do or say.

You are walking into class 10 minutes late. You feel everyone’s eyes are on you.

It’s your first day in the gym, you feel everyone is watching you.

You spill some water on your pants, and you feel embarrassed cuz you think everyone at office is gonna notice!

The spotlight effect is very common—all of us are self-conscious, sometimes even to an extreme level.

But I have only one thing to say about this.

Everyone is too busy noticing themselves, they don’t got time to be noticing you.

So walk and talk however the fuck you want.

The Choice Paradox

Too many choices lead to feeling we have no choices at all.

More options means decision fatigue and anxiety of making the correct choice, or even not making a choice at all!

Studies show that in a study conducted in a supermarket, there were two free sample stalls: One had 3 different flavours of ice-cream, and the other had 15.

The results showed that way more people end up buying one of the ice-creams from the first stall compared to the second, where people had a hard time deciding which one to get ‘cause they liked more than one flavour.

This even led to some people from the second stall walking away ‘cause they couldn’t make a choice!

Sometimes, less is more.

Thank you for taking the time out of your day to read this. Your time is valuable, and you spending it on reading my dials is something I appreciate.

So, thank you.

If you would like to see more of this type of content, but a much shorter version (with a cool thumbnail every week!), check out my Instagram here.

We are officially halfway through the year. Don’t feel stressed about the fact that you might have wasted 6 months of your life.

Understand that you have 6 more.

Have the best week ahead. 🧿