How caveman fears make us do stupid things

We act even when we lack information

Many mistakes are caused by our ability to make quick decisions when there is very little information. This is a damn useful thing that probably saved the lives of our ancestors more than once.

We often use the take the best ignore the rest algorithm to make quick decisions. Its essence is as follows. You have two options to choose from. First you need to determine if you know anything about them. If there is no information at all, choose at random. If you only know about one thing, choose it. If you know both, find a sign in your memory by which you can compare them. If one wins, choose him. If not, keep looking.

Let's look at an example. You are standing at a bus stop at night, a young man in a tracksuit is squatting not far from you. You recognized his clothes and posture and left on the first bus that came along, without waiting for the most comfortable one. However, you have not analyzed all possible options. Maybe it was an athlete whose back muscles were so clogged that it was difficult for him to stand. But we all understand that this is unlikely and your decision was probably correct.

This method works great when the speed of decision making is more important than its accuracy. But the habit of thinking this way can get in the way.

The take the best, ignore the rest leads us to make a lot of mistakes:

to grab familiar goods, even if they are worse and more expensive than many others;
buy the first apartment you come across, because the repair in it is better than in the old one;
consider a person as a whole a goat because he was in a bad mood and he did something wrong;
to judge people by their appearance.

In the story of the gopnik, there is another reason why you did just that - the cost of a mistake. If you were wrong and it was an athlete, the cost of a mistake is a couple of stops walked. If, nevertheless, it was a gopnik, the price is money, phone and health, and this is much more important than the extra distance.

This is another mechanism that often leads us to make the wrong decisions.

We compare the consequences of a mistake and choose the lesser evil

Example 1. About ancient people

“You succeed,” said Kapustin, “that only those with a long penis and treason survive.

- In our region it is unambiguous, comrade general.

Victor Pelevin "The extreme battle of the Chekists with the Freemasons"

In primitive times, the cost of human error was almost always death or the absence of offspring. When the stakes are so high, it doesn't matter if you're right or wrong, the main thing is to survive and pass on your genes.

If you mistake the bark of a tree for the skin of a tiger, the price of the mistake is a few extra calories wasted on useless running. But if you confuse the skin of a tiger with the bark of a tree, your life will be the price. That is why we are so nervous.

There is a structure in the brain - the amygdala, or amygdala, which makes quick decisions and makes us twitch at the slightest sign of danger, even if it is an imaginary threat. In some cases, the amygdala works in a detrimental way: it exaggerates the danger, causes irrational fears, increases anxiety and, in general, does not allow us to relax and live in peace. But getting nervous is better than dying.

Example 2. About men and women

The cost of error also affects sexual behavior. Men tend to overestimate the sexual interest of women and often see flirting and hints where there is none. Again, it's all about the cost of the mistake.

If a man does not understand that a woman is interested in him, he risks not passing on his genes. If he overestimated the interest and got a refusal - well, it's just a refusal.

In women, the mistake manifests itself in something else. They underestimate the seriousness of male intentions: "He only wants sex … I don't know if he really wants a relationship." For a woman, the number of sexual partners does not really matter, but a man's ability to stay with her after conception in order to feed and protect children is crucial for the survival of the offspring.

If a woman overestimates her interest and her partner leaves her alone, she risks spending a lot of time and resources on offspring that will not survive. If she underestimates the interest and does not get pregnant - well, another time.

Example 3. About strangers

The same principle works when evaluating strangers. People tend to think of members of another group as less kind and more dangerous. Moreover, in the dark, this feature increases. In one experiment, people in a dark laboratory talked more about the violent tendencies of other races than those who spoke in good light. And here again it is a matter of the cost of the error. It can be fatal to underestimate the hostility of people from a foreign tribe, especially if the contact occurs at night, when it is not really clear where they are, how many of them, and what they want.

Many distortions are explained at the cost of a mistake: antipathy to food, after which it became bad once; dislike for sick people, even if they are not contagious; a sound illusion where the fading sound seems closer than the fading sound. In these distortions, the consequences of a wrong choice are poisoning, infection, attack and death, death, death.

Thinking traps can be avoided

We try to reduce anxiety, correctly assess the intentions of partners, overcome antipathy towards people with disabilities, and overcome many other errors of perception. And we succeed.

Before deciding to buy or invest in money, we can overcome the desire to immediately choose the familiar, study the available information and make the right choice. Before you label strangers, talk to them and form an unbiased opinion.

You will not change the mechanisms of survival, but you will be able to notice the pitfalls of thinking in time and, if you have enough time to decide, draw the right conclusions.