‘The Psychology of Human Misjudgment by Charles T. Munger PREFACE When I read transcripts of my paychology talks given shout fffeen yeats ago, I sealized that I could now cre te a more logical but mach Joager “tall” inciuding ost of what I bad earlier said. But T immediately «awe fous big disadvantages. ies, the longer “tall,” because it was written out swith more logical completeness, would be more bosing fied confusing to many people than any calor tall. This ‘would happen because I would use idiosyncratic defini tions of psychological tendencies in 2 manner reminis- ‘cent of both psychology textbooks and Raclid. And wha seads cextbooks for in or revisits Buclid? Second, because my formal psychological knowl ‘edge came only from skimming theee psychology text- books abour Steen yeats ago, I know visually nothing about any acidemic psychology later developed. Yet, in fa longer talk containing guestes, I woukd be criticizing uch acidemic psychology. This sort of intrusion into a professional tertory by an amateur would be sure to be resented by professors who would sejoice in Gnding my cexzors and might be prompted to respond to my pub- lished exicism by providing theirs. Why should I care about acw ericism? Well, who Hes new hostility from ‘tticalate entice with en information advantage? TThisd, a longee vetsion of my idese would susely deaw come distpproval from people formerly disposed to like me. Not only would there be stylistic and cub- stantive objections, but alco there would be perceptions fof arrogance in an old man who displayed much diste- gard for conventional wisdom while “popping-off" on a subject in which he hed never taken a course. My old Harvard Law classmate, Ba Rothschid, always called such a popping-off “the shoe button complex,” named forthe condition ofa family friend who spoke in omex- Jar style on all subjects afer becoming dominant in the shoe button business. Routh, T might make a fool of myself: Despite these four very considerable objections, I decided to publish the muchespanded version. Thus, afer many ‘lecades in which T have succeeded mostly by restricting action to jobs and methods in which I was unlikely 10 Fail, Thave now choten a cousse of action in which (1) I have no significant personal benefit to gain, (2) 1 will surely give tome pain to family members and fiends, sad (3) I may make myself sdiculous. Why am I doing his? ‘One reason may be that my aarure makes me in- ine towed diagnosing and taking about errs in con ventional wiedom, And despite years of being smoothed cout by the har mocks that were inevitable for one with ray attitude, I don’t believe life ever knocked all the boy's baashness out ofthe man. ‘A second reason for my decision is my approval of the ane of Diogenes when he asked: “OF wha uses t plage he ever offs eyhody?™ Ty the ad fal von he ange. have flea nove wth my wey of ring ut pyeology be Cause bs boon soe foe esd oy ete de, Twat osteo some etn the esi peices of tite cate: de propo a Joke Bunyan Bk gpm Progeery, Behn Pela, aed yet ems Ployes Bent Bote Banya’ charter, the ight nual sumed “Old Vane for Teh? ml the Tp pata begun valle to hn when e ns 3 the ead of hii “My sword Tava ‘rer "And ke his, td mad iT havea tppraied my sword, proved The dt en oe trey hat any ot ith to py tat sm tbo iy to weld tay fd i wee tho ot Boo Fark co my grt befitting pigs is mons sod mich ces And Ernest Batt Slike tet be could in the same mode when he let behind “low to Ran » Geocey So an a Fer Thigs {Have Learned about Fishing” Wheto or ht Contin to te genres the bet Il oto But Tl epee tat Ihave aw known fe gene Sons of Econ Buffers descendants ad that he ter have encostged my iiaon ofthe aude hve lng btn very tre in soda hk lng azo: Howevey Ione edited in tae Shes ‘Be combo of oor patenting pycology to to undertaadeg, of mipaigment met Ide appeal fom members ofthe mainte elite Insexd tres in pchology was pcty well conned tos group of profesor tho nied ated pobished mos fr ae teres with much natural dimen fom slaon sod (ropa Aod vo, ight after mp te waked aed Fitrnd Lay Schoo, pomenel + mat inornce of peycology. Tote isttione fled ores kno {ifs oft jee Andy of cove thy cold ee gps poychlogy with th other bert mater when {Rey dda imow poycholog ko, He he Nitache charcer wow pod of isle the vont Sve pou ofthe Will aroance of ny” ey Rolo and hay” prchology profesor Teed tt oract anne for 2 conidenble time: And oo dit of oer people, What ae we 0 think for instanceof the Cae conte catgut for yous ted it one peydulogy profesor, se desctbed ata “Proestor of Prychamalieal Side,” ho tight bath "Abn Prchsogy and Dayco seals tease’? "Soon af: leaving Hara Tega a loose to gerd of he mot dynein ps of my pape: Tegal gnoance Toy wil ecb ry long ogo fr eet wicom a ae! ware of en ing notion. Aber that, Iv pie examples, many gute ‘rian intresting to ne, of book paholgy st work tod antidotes ro pyshology sed dysuneson The, “lend by sling snd enoweng sone gee ietsraised by what I have aid. This wll be along alk. ‘When I stated law practice, Thad respect forthe power (oF genetic evolution zed appreciation of man’s many fevolution-hased resemblances to less cognitvely-gifted animals and insects, I was avace that man was a “social animal,” greaty and automatically infuenced by behav- Jor he observed in men azound bir. I also knew that ‘man ved, lke baenyasd animals and monkeys, a limited size dominance hierarchies, wherein be tended 10 re- spect authority and to like and cooperate with his own Inieraschy members while displaying considersble dis- trust and dislike for competing men notin his own hier- axchy. But this generalized, evelotion-based theony strac- tute was inadequate to enable me to cope properly with the cognition 1 encountered, I was soon surrounded by much extreme ieeaionalry, displayed! in patterns and subpatteros. So surrounded, I could see chat T was not joing to cope as well as [wished with life unless I eoold fequite a better theory-stactire on which to kang my Observations and experiences. By then, my exaving for ore theory had 2 long history. Partly, I had abvays loved theory at an aid in puzzle solving aod as a means of satisfying my morkey-like eatiosity. And, pet. Thad found thae theory-structare was a supespower in helping ‘one get what one wanted. As I had extly discovered in school wherein I had excelled without labor, guided by theory, while many others, without mastery of theory, Tailed despite monstrous effot. Better theory, I thought. had slwaye worked for me and, if now avaiable, could niake me acqute capital and independence faster and Deiter assist everything I loved. And so T slowly devel ‘oped ty own ayttem of psychology. more or less in the seléhelp style of Ben Fraaldia acd with the detesmina- tion displayed in che sefrain of the nursery story: “Then Tl doit myself ssid che litle ed hen” Twas gready helped in my quest by two tums of ‘mind. First, [had long looked for insight by inversion in the intense manner counseled by the great algebrist, Jacobi “Inver, alwys invest” T sought good judgment ‘mostly by collecting instances of bad judgment, then. poadesing ways to avaid such outcomes. Second, I be- ame so avid collector of instances of bad judgment that I psd no attention to boundaies between profes sional texrories. Afer all, why should I search for some tiny, important, hard-to-find new stupidity in my own Fie when some large, important, easy-to find stupidity was jst over the fence in the other fellow’ professional tersitony? Besides, I could already see that real-world problems didn’ nesly le within teitorial boundacies "They jumped right across. And I was as dubious of any approach that, when (wo things were inexticably inter- twined and interconnected, would ty and think about fone thing but aot the othes. I was aftaid, if T tied any such testicted approach, thar T would end up, io the jmmortal words of Joha L. Lewis, “with no besin at al, just a neck that had haired over.” Pore curiosity, somewhat later, mate me wonder how and why destrvtive cults were often able, over 8 Single long weekend, to tin many tolesably normal people into brsiawashed zombies and thereafter keep them in that state indefinitely. T resolved that 1 would ‘eventually find a good answer to this enlt question if L ‘could do so by general reading and much masing 1 also got curious about social insects. Ie fascinated sme that both the fertile female honeybee and the fertile female haevester ant could snultiplytheie quite diferent ‘notmal life expectancies by exactly twenty by engaging in one gangbang ia the sky. The extreme success of the ants also fascinated me-how a few behavioral algorithms ‘caused such extreme evolutionary success grounded in ‘extremes of cooperation within the breeding colony and, almost always, extremes of lethal hostly toward ants ‘rside the breeding colony; even ants of the same spe- ‘Motivated as I was, by midlife I should probably have tamed to psychology textbooks, but I didn't, dis- playing my share of the outcome predicted by the Ger rman folk saving: "We are too #001 old and too late smart” However, as [later found out, 1 may have bee Icey to avoid for so long the academic peychology that ‘vas then Inid out in most textbooks. These would not thea have guided me well with respect to cults and were often written ab if the authors were collecting psychol ‘ogy expesiments at a boy collets butterles-with a pas sion for more butterflies and more contact with fellow collectors and Ltle exaving Cor synthesis in what is al ready possessed. When I finally gor to the psychology texts, [was reminded of the observation of Jacob Vine, the great economist, chat many an academic is ike che tmafle hound, an afimal so tzined and bred for one nastow purpose that its no good at anything ese. Iwas also appalled by hundzeds of pages of extremely nonsci- entific rmsing about comparative weights of nature and ‘nurture in human outcomes. And I found that introduc tory psychology text, by and Iago, didn’t deal appropz ately with a fundamental issue: Psychological tendencies tend to be both numerous and inseparably intertwined, now and foveves, a they interplay in life. Yet the com- ‘plex parsing out of effects from intertwined tendencies ‘vas usually avoided by che writers of the elementary tests, Possibly the authors did aot wish, dhrough com- plexity to repel entsy of new devotees to their discipline. ‘And, possibly the enute of their inadequacy was the one ‘given by Samuel Johnsoa in response to a woman who Inquleed as to what accounted for his dictionary’ misde finition of the word “pastern.” “Puce ignorance,” Jol: son replied. And, finaly, the text writers showed bite fnverest in describing standard antidotes to standard peychology-driven folly, and they thus avoided most sscussion of exitly what most interested me. ‘Bat academic psychology has some very important _metits alongside its defects. [ leaned this eventual, inthe course of gene! reading, from book, Iyfen, aimed at a popular audience, by a distinguished psychol- ey professor, Robert Cialdini, at Adizona State, a very big university. Caldini had mide himself into 2 soper- tenured “Regents’ Professor" at a very young age by devising, deseabing, snd explaining a vast group of Clever expesiments in which man manipulated man to his detsiment, With all of this made possible by man’s intsinsic thinking Daw. immediately seat copies of Cialdin?’s book to all ‘my childeen. T also gave Cialdini a share of Berkshire stock [Cliss A] to thank hirm for what he had done for te aad the publi, Incidentally, the sale by Cialdini of hhandteds of thousands of copies of « book aboat social psychology was a huge fest, considering that Cialdint tida’t claim that he wns going t9 impzove your sex life cormake you any money. Past of Cinkdini’s large book:-buying audience came because, like me, it wanted to learn how to become lest ‘often ticked by salesmen and ciscumstances. However, 48 an outcome not sought by Cialdini, who is a pro- foundly ethical man, a huge number of his books were bought by saleemen who wanted to learn how to be- come more effective in misleading customers. Please remember this perverse outcome when my discussion ‘comes to iacentive-caused bias as a consequence of the ‘perpower of incentives. ‘With the push given by Cialni’s book, I soon skimmed through dcee much used textbooks covering introdc- tory psychology. T also pondeced considerably while caving synthesis and taking into account all my peevi- ‘ous training aad experience. The result was Munger’s partial surnmary of the non-patient-treating, son-natare vs. nuttare weighing pexts of aondevelopmental psy cology. This matedal wis stolen from its various dis- coverets (most of whose ames I did not even try to learn), offen with new descriptions and tiles elected so fr Monger’s notion of what makes recall exsy for ‘Munger, then revised to male Munger’s use easy a8 he seeks to avoid errors Twill stat my curry with 2 general observation that helps explain what follows. This observation is grounded in what we know about socal insects. The Limitations inherent in evolution’s development of the rervoussystem calls that control behavior are beauti- filly demonstrated by these insects, which often have a mere 100,000 or to cell je their entize nervous systems, ‘compared to man’s multiple bilions of cells ia his brain lore. Each aot, lke each human, is composed ofa living physical stracace plus belaviorl algosthms in its nexve cells. In che ant’ eat, the behavioral algorithms are few fn number and almost nicely genetic in origin. The ant Teams a litle behavior fiom experiences, but mostly it ‘metely responds to tea ot #0 stimuli with « few simple responses programmed into its nervous system by its ‘genes, sometimes wall round and round watil hey per- toh Tr seams obvious, to me at least, that the human brain must often operate counterproductively just like the ans, from unavoidable oversimpliciry in its mental alt stall in trying to solve problems eoxe difficult than those faced by ants thar don't have to de- sign aisplancs. Naturally, the simple ant behavior system hat ex tucme limitations because of its limited aerve system repertoise. For instance, one type of ant, when it smell ‘ pheromone given off by a dead ant’s body inthe hive, Jmmediatey retponds by cooperating with other ants in carrying the dead body out of the hive And Harvard's reat E.O. Wilson performed one of the best psjchol- ‘ony experiments ever done when he painted dead-ant pheromone on a live ant. Quite naturally; the other ants fdragged this useful ve ant out of the hive even though je Ticked and otherwise protested threughout the entice process. Such i the bain ofthe ant. It has a simple pro- ‘gam of responses that generally work out all ight, but ‘which aze impradently used by zoe in many eases. “Another type of ant demonstrates that the limited bain of ants can be misled by ciccumstances as well 25 by clever manipulation from other ereatures. The brain of this ant contains a simple behavioral program that dlisects the ant, when walking, to follow the ant ahead, tnd when theee ante stamble ito walking in a big cicle ‘The perception syetem of man cleusly demonstrates just, such an unfornunate outcome. Man is exlly fooled, ei- ther bythe cleverly though out manipulation of man, by circumstances occurring by accident, or by very effective ‘manipulation practices thst man has sturnbled into dor ing “practice evolution” and kept in place because they ‘work so well. One suck outcome is caused by @ quanturn effect in human perception. If siimulus is kept below a cermin level, it does not get through. And, for this rea- son, a snagiian was able to make the Starue of Liberty cGsappear afer 2 cestain amount of magician lingo ex- presed in the dark The audience was not aware that it twas sicting on a platform that was rotating <0 slowly, bhelow man’s sensory threshold, that ao one could fel the acceleration implicit in the considerable rotation. ‘When a sumounding curtain was then opened in the pice on the platform where the Stame had eatier ap peared, it seemed to have disappeared. ‘And even when pereption does get through to ‘man’s bin, it ie often misweigheed, because whar is ogsteted in perception ie in shockingness of apparent conttast, oot the standard scientific units chat make pos: tlble scieace and good engineering against often-wrong effects from generally useful tendencies in his percep tion and cognition. ‘A magician demonstrates this sort of contrast based ‘ecot in your nervous system when he removes your ‘wrispwatch without your feeling it. As be docs this, he applies pressure of touch on your wrist that you would‘sense if it was the only pressure of tonch you were ex PPesiencing, But he has concusrentiy applied other in Tense pressuie of couch on your body, but not om your west, “swamping” the wrist pressure by creating a high- ‘contiast touch pressure elsewhere. This high conmase {ales the waist pressure below perception. ‘Some psychology professors like to demonstte the inedequacy of contrastbased perception by having students put one hand in a bucket of hot water and one Ihand in a bucket of cold water. They are then suddeaby asked fo remove both hands end place them in a single bucket of toom eemperature water. Now, with both hhands in the samme water, one hand feel as if bas just been put in cold water and the other hand fecls as iit thas just been placed in hot water. When one thus sees perception so easly fooled by mere contrast, where a Simple temperarace gauge would make no ecor, and realles that cognition osimice perception in being mis- led by mere contzast, he is well on the way toward un derstanding, not only how magicians fool one, but also LR 2. Liking/Loving Tendency 3, Disliking/Hating Tendency 4, Doubt-Avoidance Tendency 5. Inconsistency-Avoidance Tendency 6. Curiosity Tendency 7. Kantian Fairness Tendency 8. Envy/Jealousy Tendency 9. Reeiprocation Tendency 10. Influence-from-Mere Association Tendency 11 Simple, Pain-Avoiding Psychological Denial 12, Excessive Self-Regard Tendency 13. Overoptimism Tendency 14, Deprival Superreaction Tendency 45, Social-Proof Tendency 16. Contrast-Misteaction Tendency 17, Steess-Influence Tendency 18. Availability-Misweighing Tendency 19, Use-It-of-Lose-It Tendency 20. Drug-Misinfluence Tendency 21, Senescence-Misinfluence Tendency 22. Authority-Misinfluence Tendency 23. Twaddle Tendency 24, Reason-Respecting Tendency 28. Loll: how life will fol one, Tis can occur, through deliberate Ihaman manipulation or otherwise, if one doesa’t tke certain precautions. ‘Man's often wrong but generally useful prychologi- cil tendencies aze quite aurserous and qoite diferent. “The natural consequence ofthis profusion of tendencies is the grand gonesal principle of socal psychology: cop nition is ordinarily sitaation-dependent so that eiffeent situations often cause different conchsions, even when the same person i thinking in the same general subject area, With this introductory isteuction from ants, mag tans, and the grand general principle of social psychol- ‘ogy; wll next simply number and list pyychology-based tendencies that, while generally usefil, often mislead Discussion of etros from each tendency wil come later, ‘together with description of some antidotes to estos, followed by some general discussion. Heze are the ten- ences: 11d and Punishment Supertesponse Tendency walooza Tendency ~ The Tendency to Get Extreme Confluences of Psychological ‘Tendencies Acting in Favor of a Particular Outcome41, Reward and Punishment Superresponse Tendency 1 place this tendency frst in may discussion because al- most everyone thinks he fly recognizes how important Incentives and disincentives are in changing, cognition and behavior But this is aot often so. For instance, 1 think Pve been i the top fve percent of ry age cohort slinost all my adale le in undecstanding the power of incentives, and yet [ve allways underestimated that power. Never year pases but [get some surprise that Dashes a litle futher my appreciation of incentive st pexpowes ‘One of my favorite cases about the power of incen- tives is the Feder Express case. The integrity of the Federal Exprete system ceqoizes that sll packages be shifted sapidly among aiplanes in one centeal aisport ‘each aight. And the system has no integty foe the cus tomecs if the aight work shift can't accomplish is as signment fast. And Federal Express had one hell of a time geting the nighe shift ro do dhe sigh thing, They twied moeal swasion, They tied everyting in the world ‘without luck And, finally, somebody got the happy thooght that i was foolish to pay the night shit by the hour when what the employer wanted was not maxi- rized billable hous of employee service but faul-fce, rapid performance of a particule tsk. Maybe, this per- son though, if they paid the eenployees per shift and let all cight shife employees go hore when all the planes ‘were loaded, the system would work betes. And, lo and ‘bchol, har solution worked aly inthe history of Xeros, Joe Wilson, who was thea in the government, had a sila experience. He had to go back to Xerox because he coulda't understand ‘why its new machine was selling so pootly in relation to ite older and infeior machine. When he got back 10 ‘Xerox, he fovnd out that the commission arrangement ‘wit the salesmen gave a large and perverse incentive to posh the infeior machine on customets, who deserved & Detter ses "And then there isthe case of Mark Twain's cat tha, alee « bad experience with a hot stove, never again sat fa hot stove, ora cold stove either. ‘We shoal alzo heed the gencral lesson implicit in the injunction of Bea Franklin in Poor Rhart’s Ala ‘nok “Tf you would persuade, appeal to inteest and not to reason” This maxim is a wise guide to a great and simple precaution in life: Neve, ever, think about sorne- thing elie when you should be thinking about the power of incentives. Tonce sew a very smart house counsel for 4 major investment bao lose his job, wth no moe fale, because he ignored the lesson in this maxim of Franklin. This counsel failed to persuade his client be- case he told hit his moral duty as correct conceived by the counsel, without also telling the client in vivid terms chat be was very likly to be clobbered to smither- cens if he dda’t behave as his counsel recommended ‘Asa tel, both eien and counse! lot their carees. ‘We should alo remember how a foolish and willful Jgoorance of the superpower of zeuasds caused Soviet, commonists (0 ger theit Gnal result as described by ove employee: “They pretend to pay us and we pretend to ‘work? Peshaps the most important rule in management Js “Get the incentives eight.” But there is some limit eo desieable emphasis on incentive superpower. One case of excess emphasis ‘happened at Harvard, where B. F. Skinner, a psychology professor, Snally made himself ridiculous. At one ttne, ‘Skinner may have bees che best-known psychology pro fessor in the worl. He pasty deserved his peak repute tion because his extly experiments using rats and pi _geons were ingenious, snd his eesults wore both counter Intuitive and imporant. With incentives, he could cause more behavior change, culminating in conditioned ee- exes in his rats and pigeons, than he could in any other ‘way. He made obvious the extreme stupidity, in dealing with children or employees, of rewarding behavior one ida't want moce of Using food rewards, be even caused sttong superstitions, peedesigaed by himself, in his pigeons. He demonstited aguin and again a great recutting, geacraized behaviosal algoriths is. natuce: “Repeat behavioe that works” He also demonstrated that prompt rewacds worked rauch better than delayed rewasds in changing and maintaining behavior And, ‘once his tats and pigeons had conditioned reflexes, caused by food sownrds, he found what withdrawal pat tem of rewards kept the teleive bebavior longest in plice: random distbution. With this result, Skinner thought he had prety well explained man’s misgambling compulsion whereunder he often foolishly proceeds 10 rin, Bus, a8 we shall hter see when we discuss other psychological tendencies that contribute to misgambling ‘compulsion, he was only parly sight. Later, Skinner lost most of his personal reputation by overchiming for incentive superpower to the point of thinking he could create « human wtopia with it and by displaying barely ‘ay recogtition of the power ofthe rest of psychology. He thus behaved like one of Jacob Vinee's truffle hounds as he ted to explain evceything with incentive cffects, Nonetheless, Skinner was right in his main idea Incentives are superpowers. ‘The outcome of his basic ‘experiments wil ekvaye remain in high tepute in the anals of expesimental science. And his method of ‘monomaniacal zeliance on cowards, for many decides after his death, id more good than anything else in im- proving autistic children, ‘When I was at Harvard Law School, the professors sometimes talked about an overfocused, Skinnerlke ‘professor at Yale Law School. They used 10 sa: “Poor fold Eddie Blanchard, he thinks declaratory judgments will cate cancer” Well, that’s che way Skinner gor with his very exzeme emphasis on incentive superpower. I alvays call che “Johnoy-one-noce” tum of mind that eventually diminished Skinner's reputation the mat witha-hammer tendency, after the folk saying: “To‘man with only @ hammer every problem looks pretty ‘much ke a nail” Man-witha-hammee tendency does ‘not exempt smart people like Blanchard and Skinner. ‘And it won't exempr yoa if you don’t watch out. I will return 1o man-widha-hammee tendency at various times in this tall becase, fortunately, chere ae effective ansi- otes that reduce the ravages of what pretty much a ined the personal reputation of dhe brilliant Skinner. ‘One af the mort important consequences of incen~ tive superpower is what I eall “incentive caused bias” A rman has an acculturated nature making him a peetty ‘decent fellow, and yet, driven both conscioasly and sub- consciously by incentives, he dfs into immosal behav- jor in otder ro get what he wants, 2 result he facilitates by rationalising his bad behavior, like che salesmen at ‘Xerox who harmed customers in order to maximize thee sales commissions, ‘ete, my eatly education involved a surgeon veho coves the years sent bushel baskets fall of norm gall ‘laddets down to the pathology lab in the leading hospi- tal in Lincoln, Nebraska, my grandfather's rown. And, ‘with that permissive quality conteol for which commmu- ‘ity hospitals ate famous, many years after this surgeon. should've been remawved fzor the medical staff, he was. (One of the doctors who participated in the removal was f family frend, and U asked him: “Did this surgeon think, “Here's a wy for me to exercise my talent” ~ this guy was very silled technically ~ “and make a high living by doing a few maimings and murders every year in the cousse of routine faud?” And my fiend ea: swered: “Hell no, Chazlie, He thought cht the gal lad ‘der was the soutce ofall medical evi, and, if you really loved your patients, you could’ get thet organ out p- ‘ely enough” Now that’s an extzeme case, but in lesser strength, the cognitive daft of that surgeon is present in every profession and in every human being. And it causes ‘petfocy texrible behavior. Consider the presentations of Ipcokers selling commercial real estate and businesses [Pve never seen one that T thought was even wsthin hal- ing distence of objective sath. Ia my long life, T have never seen & management consultants report that dida't tnd with the same advice: “This problem needs more ‘manegement consulting services" Widespread incentive ‘caused biae requires thar one should often distrust, ot take with a gain of sal, the advice of one's professional advisor, even if eis an engineer. The general antidotes here are 1) especially fear professional advice when it is espe- ally good for the advisor; 2) Jeara and use the basic elements of your advisor's trade as you deal with your advisor, and 3) double check, disbelieve, of replace much of what ‘you're tld, ro the degree that seems approprite af ter objective thought ‘The power of incentives to cause sationalized, tertile bbehavioe is also demonstrated by Defense Department procurement history. After the Defense Deparment had much tuly awa experience with misbehaving contcac- tors motivated under contracts paying on a cort-phira- percentage-of cost basis, the reaction of our sepublic ‘was to make it a ccme for « contracting ofice in the Defense Department to siga such a contriet, and not only a edime, but a felony. And, by the way, although the government was sight to create this new felony, much ofthe way the rest ‘of the world is run, including the operation of many law firms tad a lot of other firms, is stil under what is, in casence, «cost plus-a-percentage-of-cost reward system ‘And haman nature, bedeviled by incentve-caused bias, causes alot of ghasly abuse under these standard incen- tive pate of the world And many of the people who ate behaving terribly you would be glad ro have marsied into your family, compared to what youre otherwise ely ta get ‘Now there are huge implications fiom the fact that the human mind is put together this way. One implica ‘ion is that people who create things like cash zegstexs, which make dishonest behavior hard to accomplish, ace some ofthe effective stints of our civilization because, az Skinner so well knew, bad bebavior is intensely habit Forming when itis eweeded. "And 20 the cach register was ¢ great moral instr ment wher it was ctemted, And, by the way, Patterson, the great evangelist of che cash register, knew that feom his own expesience. He had a litle store, and his em- ployees were stealing him blind, so thac he never made ‘any money. Then people told him 2 couple of cash reg fsters, and his store wear to profit immediately, He ‘prompdy clored the store and went ico the eash register business, creating what became the mighty National Cash Register Company, one of the gloues ofits time. “Repeat behavior that works” isa behaviosal guide thac ceally succeeded for Patterson, after he applied one ‘added swist, And xo did high mosal cognition. An eccen- ttc, inveterate do-gooder (except when destroying eom- petitors, all of which he regarded as would-be patent thieves), Patterson, like Casnepie, pretty well gave away all his money to charity before he died, aways pointing fot that “shtouds have ao pockets.” So great was the Contribution of Patterson's each register to civilization, and co effectively did he improve the cash sepster and spread its uze, cat in the end, he probably deserved the ‘epitaph chosen for the Roman poet Homes: “I did not ‘completely die” ‘The stzong tendency of employees 10 rationalize bed conduct in order to get revards eequres many anti~ ote in addition to the good cash contol promoted by Patteson. Pethape the most important of these anti= dotes ie use of sound accounting theory and practice. "This was eeldom beter demoasteated chan at Westing- ‘house, which had a subsidiary that made loans having no ‘connection to the rest of Westinghouse’s businesses ‘The officers of Westinghouse, peshaps influenced by‘envy of General Blectc, wanted to expand profits fem Tosa to ontsidere, Under Westinghowse's secounting prsctice, provisions for forure credit losses on these Tans depended largely on the past credit experience of its Iending subsidiary, which mainly made loans unlikely tocause massive losses. Now there are two special classes of loans that anally cause much wouble for leaders. The frst is ninety-five percent-of-value construction loans to any kind of sal estate developer, and the second is any kind cof constriction Joan on a hotel. So, eaturlls, sf one ‘were willing to loan approximately niacty-fve percent of the zeal cost toa developer constructing a hotel, the loan would bear a much higher-than-noemal incerest rate because the credit lose danger would be much higher than normal. So, sousd accounting for Westinghouse in ‘making a big, new mace of ninety-five percent-oF-alue ‘construction loans to hotel developers would have been te report almost 20 profit, or even 2 loss, on each loan ‘uot, year Inter, the loan Became clearly worth par. But ‘Westinghouse instead plunged into bigsdime construc- tion leading on hotels, using accounting chat made its Jending officers look good because it showed extremely high starting income from loans that were very inferior to the loans ftom which the company had suffered stall ccedit losses in the past. This tersible accounting was allowed by both international and outside accouatants for Westinghouse as they displayed the conduet pre dicted by the sefman: “Whose bread T eat, his soog I Sng” “The result was billions of dollars of lostes. Who ‘yas at fauk? The guy fom the sefsigerator division, oF some simdar division, who as lending offcce was sud- enly in charge of loans to hotel developers: Or the ac- countants and other senior people who colerited a pearly intane incentive structure almost sure to trigger incentive caused bias in 2 lending officer: My answer puts most blame on the secountaats and other senior people who ereated the accounting system. These peo- ple became the equivalent of an armored eat cash catry- ing service that siddenly decided co dispense with vehi- cles and have unarmed midgets hand-cacy its custom tes’ cash through slums in open bushel baskers. Twish T could tall you that this sort of thing 20 longer happens, but this is not so. After Westinghouse blew up, General Elects’s Kidder Peabody subsidiary put 2 ally computer program in place that allowed a bond ttader to show immense fledonal profits, And fice that, much accounting became even worse, pechaps reaching its eadir at Enron. So incentive-caused bias is « huge, important thing, with highly important antidotes, ike the cash register and a sound accounting system. But when I came years ‘ago to the psychology texts, I found that, while they ‘were about one thousand pages long, there ve as litle therein that dealt with inceative-csused bins and a0 ‘mention of Patterson or sound accounting systems. Somehow incentive-caused bias and its antidotes prety ‘well escaped the stindurd survey courses in peychology, ‘even though incentive-caused bis had long been dis- played prominently in mach of the worl!’ grea leet fute, aud antidotes to it had long existed in standard boasiness routines. In the end, T concluded cha when something was obvious in life but not easly demonst ble in certain kinds of easy, eepeatable seademic expee- ‘ments, the truffle hounds of poychology very often missed it. In some cases, other disciplines showed mone inter. ‘est in peychologial tendencies than did psychology, at least as explicated in psychology textbooks. For instance, ‘economist, speaking from the employer's poiat of view, Ihave long bad a name for che natural revuls of iecen- tive-caused bizs: “agency cast” As the name implies, the economists have typically known that, just as gra is always Tost to cats, employers akways Iose to employees who improperly thinle of themselves first, Employee installed antidotes include: 1) tough internal audit ystems, 2) severe public punishment for identified miscreants, as wellas 3) misbchavior preventing routines and such machines as cash registry From the employee's point of view, incentve-coused bias quite naturally causes opposing abuse from the em. ployer: the eweatshop, the unsafe work place, ete. And thexe bad results for employees have antidotes not only 1) pressure from unions, but also ia 2) government action, such as wage and hour laws, ‘worlplace safey rules, measures fostering union tion, and workers’ compensation systems Given the opposing peychology-induced stcains that raturlly occur in employment becauce of incentive ‘caused bias on both sides of the relationship, it is no ‘wonder the Chinese are so mach into Yin and Yang. ‘The inevitable ubiquity of incentive-caused bias has ‘vast, generalized consequences. For instance, a sales force living only on commissions wil be much haréer to keep moral than one under less pressure from the com. pensation ansangement On the other hand, « purely ‘commissioned sales force may well be more efficient per dollar spent. Theselore, difficult decisions involving tiade-offe are common in creating compensation a rangements in the sales fonction. "The extreme success of free-market capitalism as an economic system owes much to its prevention of many ‘of bad effects from incentive-caused bias, Most expitaist, ‘owners in a vast web of free masker economic activity are elected for ability by surviving in a brutal competi- tion with other owners and have a steong incentive 10 prevent all waste ia operations within cheir owneship. ‘After all, they live on the dlfference besween their com> petitive prices and their overall costs and their bus resect will perish if costs exceed sales. Replace such‘owners by salaried employees of the state and you will rnocmally get a substantial reduction in overall efcieacy tas eich employee who replaces an owner is subject ro Incentive-caused bias as he determines winat service he will give ia exchange for his salary and howr much he will Feld to pees pressuze from many fellow employees who do not desire his creation of any strong performance sodel ‘Another generalized consequence of incentive caused bias is that man tends to “game” all human sys- tems, often displaying great ingenuity in wrongly serving himself at the expense of ochers. Antigaming features, therefore, consinute a huge and necessary part of almost all system design, Also needed in eystom design is an admonition: dread, and avoid as much you can, cewacd ng people for what can be eaeily faked. Yee our legisla tors and judges, usualy including many lawyers educated jn eminent universities, often ignote this injunction. And sociey consequent pays a hoge price in the deterior tion of behavior snd efficiency, ze well asthe incurrence of unfair costs and wealth transfers. If edveation were Improved, with paychological sealisy becoming, better taught and assimilated, beter system design might well come out of our legislatures nd cours. ‘OF cousse, money is now the main reward that eives habits. A monkey can be tained to seele and work for an intinsclly worthless token, as if it were a bax ans, if te token is routinely exchangeable fora banana. So it is also with humans working for money ~ only mote $0, because human money is exchangeable for many desired things in addition to food, and one oxdi- rari gains stats fiom cither holding oF spending it. ‘Moreover, a sich person will often, trough habit, work. ff connive enezgetically for mote money long after he has almost no real need for more. Averaged cut, money is a muinspring of modern civilization, baving lite precedent in the behavior of ronluman enimals. Money rewatds ae also intertwined with other forms of reward. For instance, ome people use money to buy status and ‘thers use status to get money, while etl others sort of ‘do both tings a the saene time. “Although money i the main driver among rewards, iis not the only reward that works. People also change theit bebavioe and cognition for sex, friendship, com- panionship, advancement in stars, and other nonimone- tary items, “Granay’s Rule” provides another example of xe- ward superpower, so extreme in its effects that it mast be mentioned here You can successfully manipulate your own behavior with this rule, even if you are asing fs rewitds items that you already possess! Indeed, coo- sultant PhD. psychologists often urge business organi- zations to improve their reward systems by teaching executives to use “Granny's Rule” to govern their own ally bebavioe. Granny's Rule, to be specific isthe re- ‘quiternent that childzen eat cher catsors before they get dessert. And the business version requises thar exeeu- tives force themselves daily to fist do their unpleasant and necessary tesks before rewarding themselves by ‘proceeding to chic pleasant tasks, Giveo reward soper power, this practice is nice and sound, Moreover, the tule can also be used in the nonbusiness part of life. The emphasis on daily se of thi practice ig aot accidental ‘The consultants well know, after the teaching of Skin- nef, that prompt rewads werk bes. Panishiments, of course, also strongly inflence behavior and cognition, although or so flexibly and ‘wonderfully as sewards. For instance, illegal price fixing ‘wae faiely common ia America when is was customarily pinished by modest fines. Thea, afer 2 few prominent business executives were removed from their eminent positions and sent to federal prisons, price-fixing behav lor was greaty reduced ‘Miltary and caval organizations have very often been extreme in using ponishment to change behavior, probably hecause they needed to cause extreme behav for. Around the time of Caesar, there was 2 European tube that, when the assembly hora blew, always killed the last wartior to reach his assigned place, and no one enjoyed fighting this tibe, And George’ Washington hanged farm-boy deserters forty feet high as an example to others who might contemplate desertion 2, Liking/Loving Tendency ‘A newly hatched baby goose is programmed, theouglh the economy of it geneue progsat, 10 “love” and fol- low the Bet crete that i ace to it, which Is almost always its mother. But, if the mother goose is not pre Sent right after the hatching, and a man is there insted, the gocling will “love” and follow the man, who be- comes a sot of substitute mother. ‘Somewhat dimly, « ney arsived human i “boen to like and love” wader the normal and abocnal tig sgecing outcomes for is kind. Perhaps the strongest in ‘bom tendency to love ~ ready o be tiggeced ie thtt oF the human mother for its child. On the other and, the simile “chid-oving” behavior of a mouse can be elim: inated by the deleon of a single gene, which suggests there is sine sort of tiggesing gene in 8 mother mouse aswell asin gosling, ‘Bach child, ike a gosing wil almost surly come to like and love, nor only as daiven by its senual rare, but also in social groups aot limited to its genetic or adop tive “family.” Carzent extemes of romantic love almost sorely did aot occur in man’s remote past. Our early Ihoman ancestors weee surely more like apes triggered into mating in pretty mundane fasion. ‘And what will 2 man naturally come 10 Hee and love, apa fom hie patent, spouse and child? Well, he will ike and love being lked and loved. And so many a Conrtship competition wil be won by 8 person dsplay~ ing exceptional devosion, snd man wall generally sve, lifelong, forthe affecon and approval of many people ot related t0 him.‘One very practical consequence of Liking/Loving Tendency is that it acts as a conditioning device that snakes the like ot lover tends 1) to ignore fault of, and comply with wishes of, the ‘object of his affection, 2) to favor people, products and actions merely ass0- ciated with the abject of his affection (as we shall fee when we get ta “nfluence-from-Mere- Association Tendency” and 3) to distort other fzcts 10 facilitare love. "Tote are large socal policy implications in the amaz- ingly good consequences that ondinaxly come from peopl likely to tigger extremes of love and admiration boosting each other in a feedback mode. For instance it is obviously desisable to attract a lot of lovable, admiza- ble people into the teaching professioa. The pheaome- ‘non of liking and loving ceusing admiration slso works in reverse, Admitation also causes or intensifies liking of love. With this “feedback mode” in place, the conse ‘quences are offen extreme, sometimes even causing de- [berate elf-desteucion to help what is loved. Tiling ot loving, intertwined with admiration in a feedback mode, oftes bas wast practical consequences in areas far removed from sexual attachments. For in- ‘tance, a man who is ¢o constracted that he loves adi fable persons and ideas with « special itensity has a huge advantage in life. "This blessing came to both But- fete and empeelf in large measure, sometimes from the same persons and ideas. One common, beneficial exam ple for us both was Warsen’s uncle, Fred Buffet, who Cheetfly di the endless grocery-store work that War- ren and I ended up admiring from a safe distance. Even ‘now, after Ihave known so many other people, I doubt if ris possible to be a nicer man than Fred Buffett wos, and he changed me for the better. 3. Disliking/Hating Tendency In a pattern obverse to Liking/Loving Tendency, the newly arrived homaa is also “born to dike and hate fs wiggeed by normal and abnosmal triggering fores in is life. Ies the same with most apes and moakeys. ‘Ae a result, the long history of man contains alist continuous wat. For instince, most American Indian tales wasted incessantly, and some tibes would occa sionally bring capives ome to women so thet all could join in the an of torturing captives to death. Even with the spread of region, and the advent of advanced ci Zation, mach modera war remains prety savage. But we dso get what we observe ia present-day Switzerland sod the United States, wherein the clever politcal atrange- ments of man “channel” the hatreds and cslkings of individuals and groups into nonlethal patterns inching elections. ‘But che dilikings and hatreds never go away com- pletely. Bom into snan, these diving tendencies zemain fteong, Thos, we get maxims like the one from England: "Dolls i the art of marshalling hatred.” And we sso {gecthe exreme populatiry of very neptive pola ad- ‘erking inthe United State. "Atte failylvel, we often see one sibling hat his ther siblings and lngate with ther endl ihe ean affoud it. Indeed, Warzen Buffett has repentedly ex plained to me that “a major difference between sich 20d oor people is that che sch people cin spend hei lves Suing ther relatives” My Sith’ Iw pracioe in Orca Sea fil of such ineafaily hazed. And when T gor to the Harvtd Law School and its professor taught me property law” with no mention of sibling rivalry in the fly business, I appaized the School ssa petty unre- alistic place that wore “blinders” like the milk-wagon horses of yore. My current gues i dat sing shvaley has ave yt made it fro property Inw as taught at Har vad Dishiking/Hating Tendency also act 48a condtion- Jing device hat makes the daller/ate tend to: 1)» ignore visues inthe object of dik, 2) lke people, products, ad actions merely asset ted with the objec of is dice, and 3) distort oxi facts to fcr hazed, Distortion ofthat Kind ie often so externe tha miscog- nition s shockingly large. Whea the world Trade Center ‘vas. destroyed many Muslims immediately coacioded thatthe Hindus dit while many Arabs concladed that the Jens did it. Such factual distoctions offen make me- dation between opponent locked in hatred either dif tlt of imposuible Medatons berween Iss snd Pal ‘stints are difficuls beeanse fics ia one side's history overlap very litle with facts fom the oer sie’. 4, Doubt-Avoidance Tendency ‘The brain of man is paogrimmed with 2 tendency 19 quickly remove doubt by seaching some decision. It is tisy 0 see how evaltion Would make animals, over the cons, dif towaid euch ghick elimination of doubt. AE feral, the one thing thats susely counterproductive for prey animal tat i theeatened by a predators to take Tong time in deciding what to do. And so man’s Doubt ‘Avoidance Tendency is quite consistent with the history ‘of his ancient, ponbuman ancestors. So pronounced is the tendency in man to quickly semove doubt by reaching some decision that bavios to counter the tendency i required from judges and jurors. Here, delay before decision making is forced. ‘And one is required 10 30 comport himself, prior to conclusion time, 0 that he is weasing a “mask” of ob jectvty. And the “mask” works to help seal objectivity tong, 28 we shall see when we next consider man's It consistency-Avoidaace Tendency. Of course, once one has recognized that ean hata strong Doubt Avoidance Tendency, itis loge to be: lieve tha at least some leaps of religions fit axe great boosted by this tendency. Even if ones satisied that his ‘ovm faith comes fom sevelation, one sill must account for the inconsistent faiths of others. And man's Doubt“Avoidance Tendency is most surely a big past of the ‘What siggere Doubt-Avoidance Tendency? Well, fn unthteatened man, thinking of nothing in particular, is not being prompted to remove doubr through rushing to some decision. As we shall se later when we get ro Social Proof Tendency and Stress-Influence Tendency, ‘what usually triggers Doubt-Avoidance Tendency 1s rome combination of purzlement and stess. Both of these factore naturally oceut in facing religious issues. “Thus, che manual sate of most men isin some form of doube-removing religious faith, 8. Inconsistency-Avoidance Tendency “The beain of man conserves programming space by be- ing rekictant to change, which is a form of inconsistency avoidance, We see thi in all human habits, constructive tnd destrctve. Fewr people can lista lot of bad habits that chy have eliminated, and some people cannot iden- tify even one ofthese, Instead, practically everyone has a great many bad habits he has long maintained despite ther being known as bad. Given ths situation, itis not too mach in many cases to appraise caly-formed habits 1s destiny. When Madey’s miserable ghost says, “I wear the chains [Forged in fe” he i talking about chains of Inabitthat-were too light to be flt before they became {00 strong tobe broken, "The rare life tha is wisely ved has in t many good habits maintained aad many bad habits avoided or cred. And the great rule that helps heve is agen from ranlin’s Poor Rishon’: Aanack: “An cunce of preven- tion is worth a pound of cure.” What Franklin is here indicating, in pars that Ineonsstency- Avoidance Ten- dency makes tt uch easie t© prevent a habit chan to changeit “Also tending to be maintained in place by the ant change tendency of the brain are one’s previous conclu tions, haman loyalties, eeputational identry, commit ‘ments, accepted role in 4 civilization, ete. I i not en firely clit why evolution woold program into man’s bain an anti-change mode alongside his tendency (0 «quickly remove doubt. My guess isthe an-change mode Stas signiicandy caused by « combination ofthe follow ing factors: 1). Te facliared faster decisions when speed of decision ‘was an importaat contsibusion to the survival of rnothuman ancestors that were pre. 2) Ie facitated the survival advantage that out ancestors gained by cooperiting in groups, which ‘Would have been more difficult to do if everyone ‘vas always changing responses. 3) Tt-was the best form of solution that evolution could get (0 in the limited aumber of generations Detween the start of liteacy and today’s complex modes life Tis easy to sce that a quickly reached conclusion, tig- gered by Doubt Avoidance Tendency, when combined with a tendency to resist any change in that conclusion, ‘will matually cause a lot of exrors in cognition for mod- ‘em man, And so it observably works out. We all deal such with others whom we eorecdy diagnose as im- prisoned in poor conclusions that are maintained by ‘mental habits they formed early and wail cary to their garves. So great is the bad-decison problem caused by Inconsistency Avoidance Tendency that our cours have adopted important suategce aginst it. For instance, before making decisions, jadges and jusies are required to heat long and elllfal presentations of evidence and scgument from the side they will not naturally Exvor, given thle idess i place. And chis helps prevent consi teable bad thinking from “st conclusion bias” Simi- lady, other modern decision makers will offen force groups (© consider shilful coonterarguments before making decisions ‘And proper education is one long exescise in aug mentation of high cognition so that our wisdom be- comes strong enough to destroy wrong thinking, main- tained by resistance to change. As Losd Keynes pointed ‘out about bis exalted intellectual group at one of the restest universities in the word, i-was not the intrinsic tilficlty of new ideas that prevented their acceptance. Tstead, the new ideas were not accepted because they ‘were inconsistent wit old ideas in place. What Keynes was reporting is that the human mind works a lot like the human egg- When one sperm gets into a human egg, theres an astomatic shut-off device that bats any other speci from getting ia. The hamac mind tends strongly tovward the same sore of result ‘And 20, people fend ro accurmlate large mental holdings of fixed conclusions and attitudes that are not often reexamined or changed, even chough there is plenty of good evidence chat they are wrong ‘Moreover, this doesn't just happen in social science departments, like the one that once thought Freud should serve as the only choice asa psychology teacher for Caltech, Holding to old erors even happens, al though with less frequency and sevecity, in hard science Aepastments. We have no less an authosity for ths than ‘Max Planck, Nobel laureate, finder of "Planck's con: ‘sank” Planck is famous not only for his science but also for saying that even in physics the zadicaly new ideas ace seldom relly accepted by the old guaed. Instead, said Planck, the progres: is made by 2 new generation that comes along, let brn blocked by its previous conch sions, Indeed, precisely this sort of brai-blocking hap: pened to a degree ia Einstein, At his peak, Hinstein was f preat destroyer of his own ideas, but an older Einstein ever accepted the full implications of quantum tne= chanics. ‘One of the most suceessful wees of an antidote to fiest conclusion bias was Charles Darvan, He tnined hhimaelf, eats, to intensively consider any evidence tend ing to discongica any hypothesis of his, mote so if hethought his hypothesis was « pariculatly good one. The ‘opposite of what Darwin did is aow called confimation bias, a teem of opprobrium. Darwin's practice came from his acute recognition of man’s natural cognitive faults arising fom Inconsistency-Avoidance Tendency. He provides a great example of psychological insight comecdly used to advance some of the finest mental work ever done Taconsistency-Avoidance ‘Tendency has many good effects in civilization. Fos instance, rather than act in consistently with public commitments, new or old pob> Fi identities, ex, most people are more loyal in their roles in life as pests, physicians, citizens, coldiers, spouses, teachers, employees, ec ‘One corollary of Iaconsictency-Avoidance Ten- deney is that perton making big saccifices in the course fof escaming a new identity will intensify his devotion 10 the new identity. Afte all, t would be quite inconsistent behavior 10 make « laage sacsfiee for something that ‘yas n0 good. And thus civilzation has invented many tough and sclema initiation ceremonies, often public in nature, that intensify new commitments made. "Tough initiation ceremonies can intensify bad con tact as well as good. The loyalty of the new, “made~ rman” mafia member, or of the military office: making the required “blood oath” of loyalty to Hitler, was Doosted through the tiggcring of Inconsistency- ‘Avoidance Tendency. ‘Moreover, the tendency will often make man a “patsy” of manipulative “compliance-peacitioners” ‘who gain advantage from tiggesing his subconscious Tnconsisteney-Avoidance Tendency. Few people dem- onstrated this process better chan Ben Franklin. As he ‘was rising From obscusty ia Philadelphia and wanted the approval of rome important man, Franktin would often raneiver that man into doing Franklin some unimpor- tant favor, lke lending Franklin a book. Theteafter, the man would admire and trust Franklin more because 2 onsdmited and nontusted Franklin would be inconsis- feat with the appraisal implicit in lending Franklin the ook using the Koreaa War, this technique of Prank- lin’s was the most important feature of the Chinese bralawashing system that was used on enemy prisoners. Soul step by sinall step, the technique often worked. better than torre in altering prisoner cognition in favor ‘of Chinese captors "The practice of Prandin, whezeunder he got ap- proval from someone by maneuvering him into treating Branklin favorably, works viciously well in reverse ‘When one is maneiwered into deliberately hating some cther person, one wil tend fo disapprove ot even hate that person. This eect, fom Inconsstency-Avoidsace “Tendency, accowats for the insight implicit inthe saying “A tman never forgets where he has busied the hatchet” “The effect accounts for much prisoner abuse by guards, increasing their dislike and hatred for prisoners that ex- ints a5 a consequence of the guards! reciprocation of hostility fiom prisoners who ace trated ike animals. Given the psychology-based hostility natural in prisons between guards end prisoners, an intense, consinuows ‘effort should be made to prevent prisoner abuse from starting and to stop it instndly when it stars because it wwill grow by feeding on itself lke a choster of infections disease. Mote peychologial acuity on this subject, aided bby more insightful tezehing, would probably impeove the overall effectiveness of the US. Army. ‘So strong is Inconsistency-Avoidance Tendency thas i wl often prevail after one has merely pretended to have some identity, habit, or conclusion. Thus, foc a ‘while, many an actor sort of believes he is Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. And maay « bypoctte is improved by his pretensions of vistue. And many a judge and ju rot, while preteading objectivity, is gaining objectivity ‘And many a tial lawyer or other advocate comes £0 believe what he formedy only pretended to believe ‘While Inconsistency-Avoidence Tendency, with its “gtatus oo bias” immensely haem sound edveation, it also causes rmuch benefit For instance, a near-uliimace inconsistency would be to teach something 0 others that one did nor believe tue. And £0, i clinical mevical ‘education, the learaee is forced 10 “see one, do one, and then teach one,” with the texching pounding the leam= ing into the teacher. OF course, the power of teaching to influence the cognition of the teacher is not alvays a benef to society. When such power flows into political ‘and cult evangelism, there are often bad consequences. For instance, modern education often does rmuch damage when young students are aught dubious polit ‘eal notions and then enthusiastically push these notions ‘on the rest of us. The pushing seldom convinces others ‘Bot as students pound ino their mental habits what they are pushing out, the etudents age often permanently damaged. Educational institutions that create 8 climate ‘where muuch ofthis goes on are, think, istesponsible. It | impottaat act to thus put one’s bmn in chains before fone has come anpwhere nese his fall potentiality 25 a ‘ational person 6. Curiosity Tendency “hete is alot of innate exosty ia mammal, but its ‘nonhuman version is highest among apes and monkeys Man's cuioiy, in tur, is auch stronger than tat of his simian latives. In advanced huraa civilization, ature grey increases the effectiveness of curiosity ia advancing knowledge. For insance, Athens (including its colony, Alexandra) developed rouch math and sci fence out of pure cutocity while the Romans made al ‘most no contribution to either math or science. They instead conceatated ther attention oo the “practice!” cnginceting of mines, roads, aqueduct, etc. Cusiosiy, fenhanced by the best of modem education (which is by definition « minority part ia many places), mich helps man to prevent of seduce bad consequences sssingfrom other peychological tendencies. The curious are slso provided with much fin and wisdom long after formal education has ended, 7, Kantian Fairness Tendency Kane wae famous for his “categoria imperative” sort ‘of « “golden rule” that required humans to follow those behavior pattens tha, if followed by all others, would snake dhe surrounding human system work best for eve- sybody. And its not too much to say that modem ac- cultursted man digplays, and expects fiom others, fot of fairness as thus defined by Kant Tn a small community having a one-way beidge or tunnel for autos, it the norm in the United States to sce lt of reciprocal courtesy, despite the absence of sigos of signals. And many freeway deivers, including rysalf, will often let other divers come in froat of them, in lane changes or the like, because that is the ‘couesy they desie when roles ae reversed. Moreover, there i, in modems human caltue, a lot of cousteous lining up by strange so that all are served on @ “fist come-festerved” basis Also, strangers often voluntarily share equally in unexpected, unearned good and bad fortune. And, as an obverse consequence of such “‘ai-sharing” conduct, uch reactive hostility occurs when fitsharng is ex: pected yet not provided, Tt is interesting how the world’s slavery was pecty ‘wal abolished dusing the last three cenaies after being tolerated for a grest many previous cenmaies dusing ‘which it coexisted with the world's major religions. My guess is thar Kantian Falimess Tendency was a major ontrbatoe to this result 8, Envy/Jealousy Tendency [A member of a species designed through evolutionsry process to want often acare food is go to be driven Stoagly toward getting food when it fist sees food. ‘And this is going fo occu often and tend to create some ‘conflict when the food is seen ia the possession of an- other mermber ofthe same species. This is probably the evolutionary oxgia ofthe Envy/Jealousy Tendency that lies s0 deep in human nature. Sibling jealousy is clay ‘very strong and usually greater children than adults, It Jr often stronger than jealousy directed at strangers ‘Kantian Faimess Tendency probably contsibues to this result Envy/jealousy is extreme ia myth, religion, and literature wherin, ia account after account, ft exggers hatred and injury Te was regarded as s0 pernicious by the Jews of the civilization that preceded Chait that it ‘was forhidden, by phrase after phrase, in the levs of Moses. You were even warned by the Prophet not to covet your neighbors donkey. "And envyealousy is also extreme in modern life. For instance, university communities often go bananas ‘shen some univesity employee in money management, or some profesor in sugey, ges anal compenstion in muliples of the standard professorial slay. And in tmodern' investment banks, law Sims, tc, the envy jealousy effets are usally more exueme than they fre in univers faeuies, Many big law fem, Fes disorder fom envy jealousy, have log twcated al ecior partners alike in compensation, no matte: how different theiscontdbutons to Sem welae. As Thave shared the cbsecntion of fe wath Waren Buffet over decades, Ihave heard him wisely tay on several occasions “It is ot gieed that ceiver che wos, but en.” “Aad, because this is eoughly aght, one would ex pect a vast coverage of envy/ealousy in poychology textbooks, Bur no such vast coverage existed when 1 read my thee textbooks. Indeed, the very words “emry” and “jealousy” were often absent from the index "Nondscussion of envy/jelousy is oot a phenome- non confined to psychology tes. When did aay of you last engage in any lange group dscusion of come issue wherein ada envy/jealousy was identified as the cause fof someone's agiment? ‘There seems to be a general taboo against any such dim. IF so, what accounts for the taboo? “My guess is that people widely and general sense that labeling some postion ab devon by eavy/jealousy wel be regarded as extremely insulting to the position taker, possibly more 20 when the diagnosis is cosrect than when it is wrong, And if elig a postion “avy- stiven” ie percived a¢ the equivalent of describing its holder ae e chiish metal asker case, chen itis quite ‘undecetandabe how a general boo bas arisen Bat should this general taboo esten eo psychology texts when i creates such 2 age gap in the correct, psy- chologcl explanation of whats widespread and impor fan? My aasweris no. 9. Reciprocation Tendency “The automatic tendency of humans to reciprocate both favors and distavors has long been noticed as itis in apes, monkeys, dogs, and many less cognitively gifted animals. The tendency faites group cooperation for the benefit of members. In this respect, it mimics much genetic programming of the social insects, We see the teteme power ofthe tendency to seciprocate distvors in some wars, wherein eincresses hatred toa level caus- ing very brut conduct. For long stretches ia many ‘wats, no prisoners were taken; the only acceptable en- ‘emy a dead one. And sometimes that was not enough, as io che case of Genghis Khao, who was not satisfied wih corpses, He insisted on ther being hacked ino pices. ‘One interesting mental exercise isto compare Gea- his Khao, who exercised extzeme, lethal hostility to tward other mea, with sats that display extreme, lethal hostility toward members of theie own species that ere ‘not pat ofthec breeding colony. Genghis looks sweety lovable when compared to the ants. The ants ate mote disposed to fight and Bight with more extreme croely.Indeed, E. O. Wilson once waggichy suggested that if ants were suddenly to get atom bombe, all ants would be dead within eightten hours, What both human and ant baistoxy suggest 1) tht natore has no general algorithm making ints: species, tara the-other-cheeke behavior a booster of Species survival, 2) that fei not clear that a country would have good prospects were it to abandon all secpeocate- {Estavor tendeney diced a outsidersand 2) if tuemthe-ocherceek behavior is a good idea fora county as it deals with outsiders, man’s eutoce is going co have to da lot of avy iting becouse his genes won't be of much help. 1 next tam fo man’s reciprocated hostility that falls wel short of war, Peacetine hosoliy can be prety exteme, fin many modern cases of “road rage" oF injy producing temper entrams on athletic Bel ‘The standard antidote t0 one's overactive horliy isto tain onceelf co defer reaction. As my smart fend ‘Tom Murphy so frequently says, “You can absays tll the man off tomorrow fits such a good idea.” (Of course, the tendency to seeiprocae favor for favors also very intense 0 much s0 that it occasionally revewes the coue of reciprocated hos. Weird pruses in Gghting have sometimes occured right in the fniddle of ware, tiggeted by some minoe epurtesy or favor onthe pat of one side, flowed by favor ecipco- ‘ation from the other side, and so on, unt fighting ‘Stopped for « contderable period. This happened moce than once in the tench warfare of World War I, ovee big tretches of the Ett and rmuch othe dismay ofthe ener "tis obvious that commercial tad, a fundamental cause of modern prosperity, is eoommousl facinted by fan's innate tendency t0 reciprocate fivors. In tade, talightenedsclinterest joining with Reciprocon Tendency results in constmctive conduct. Day inter lunge in mariage is ako aessted by Reciprocation “Tendency, without which marsage would lote much of inealure ‘And Recprocston Tendency, insomuch asi ses good ens, doer sot jin fores only with the super pover of incentive It also. joins Inconsstency- ‘Rvvidance Tendency ia helping case: 1). the flllment of promises made as pat of « ace fain, including loyaley promises in manage cere ‘monies, and 2) couect bebavior expected fom persone serving a8 Priest, shoemakes, physicians and alee. “ike other poychologial tendencies, and also mas abi ‘ty turn somennats, reiprocate-avor tendency ope tes to a very considenble degice at a subconscious teveh This helps eoake the tendency 2 stong force that can sometimes be aed by some men to mislead others, ‘which happens a the ime. For instance, when an automobile salesman gr ously steers you into 2 comfortable place to sit and gives you a cup of coffee, you are very bkely being tricked, by this small courtesy alone, into parting with an ‘ext ive hundeed dollars. This i far from the most testreme caze of sles success tht is rooted in a salesman Aispensing minor favors. However, in this scenario of buying « ea, you are going to be disadvantaged by part- fag with an oxtm five hundeed dollars of yout own ‘money. ‘This potential loss will protect you to some ex: ‘But suppose you ate the purchasing agent of some fone eee ~ a fch employes, for instance. Now the minoe favor you receive from the salesman is less opposed by the threat of extra costo you because someone ese i paying the ex cost. Under sich eiscumstances, the falerman is often able to maximize bis advantage, par ticularly when government isthe purchaser Wise employers, therefose, ty to oppose recipto cate-favor tendencies of employees engaged in purchas- ing. The simplest antidote works best: Don't let them ‘accept any favors fom vendors. Sam Walton speed with this idea of absolute prohibition. He would let purchasing agents accept 90 zauch as & hot dog fiom a Yendos. Given the subconscious level at which much Reciprocation Tendency operates, chis policy of ‘Walton's was profoundly correct If I controlled the Defense Department, its policies would mimic Walron’s. In a famous peychology experiment, Ciakni balk liantly demonstrated the power of “compliance pructi- toners” to mislead people by triggering their subcon- scious Reciprocation Tendency CCaztyiag out this experiment, Cisklini cused his ‘compliance practitioners” to wander around his cam pus and ask strangers to supervise a bunch of javenile {elinguents on trip (0 200. Because this happed on & ‘campus, one person in six out of a large sample actually fagieed to do this. After acoumulating this one-in-six Statistic, Cildini changed his procedure. His practtio- ners nest wandered around the campus asking strangers to devote @ big chunk of time every week for two years to the supervision of juvenile delinquents. This eidicu- lous request got him a one hundred pescent rejection rate, But the practitioner had a fllow-up question: "Wall you at leat spend one afternoon taking jvenile delin- ‘Guents to a 200?" This sed Cilin’s foumer accep- tance sate of 1/6 so ¥4—a taping ‘What Cisldin’s “compliance practitioners” Id done twas make a small concession, which was recipso~ ‘cated by a sinall concession from the other side. This Subconscious reciptoestion of a concession by Cialis experimental subjects acrully caused a much increased percentage of them to end vp ixationally agreeing to go fo @ 200 with javenle delinquents, Now, # professor ‘yho ean invent an experiment ike that, which so power- filly demonstrates something so impoctant, deserves, much recognition in the wider world, which he indeed pot tothe credit of many universities that leanned a greateal om Cali ‘Wy Recprocation Tendeny so inportan? Wel, consider the fl of having hw siden graduate, and fp own the wold cepseting dents in negoiatons, for Erowing te nate of te sabes pens ofthe mind = ested in Ciin’s cxpenene. Yer Such fly wes pctalet in the lw school ofthe wood Erde in fice gencatons The contest sar for tt eatin pace, The hw scools dist no occ to each na Som Walon 20 wel ew “The importance and. power of seiptocte vor tendency was ao demondated ia Culdis expra- fon of th foo declan ofthe toro gene of the Unied Sate to authouse the Watgate barley “Thee, an aggresive subocdinae rade fore extere proposal for avanciag Republican nese hugh oe Er tome combinason of whores and 4 ggnase yacht ‘heats aul request ae set He asbord tts backed oft in gaciove concestion, co merely aking for consent to bua, and the attorney genctal went Sony Calin bees at subconscios Reproction ‘Tendency has became one important eae of hero gundam of a United Stes predentin the Watrate Six, and wo do 1 Recprneaion Tendency sy caunes many extre and angeros consequences, Rot fiston see ocersions but pretty much al dhe ine ‘Mans bela in reiproct-Bvor tendency, flow ing cone of his pacing ts hos done eome queer snd ta ings in elgons, ‘The stakecd murder of te Phoenicens ad the, Aztecs, ia which they sted rman oictins wo thes yous, wat a pac egregios trample And we shoul not forget that alte athe Pant Wary the ced Romane out of ar of defeat, used in'1 few instances to the prctce of human tress On te ots hand te selon ined cl ‘Geocities of obtaining help from God ia weip- Teton for good harman bebavae bas probaly been vos conse ‘Owe bot inside and outside egos, sors clear 10 me that Reiproaion Tendency constuctve onsipatons to tan fr teh ts deve ees cues of poydlogil tendencies feng aed to uta oc prewatbud ress fom one or ore eter fprebologeal tendencies for instance, inthe ease of TReavendons to end chemial dependency ~ you val aly ed Rerprocation Tendengy” petfoaring Seong onthe constucve ide "Red he very best pt of oman ie probably es fn teste of atlicton wherein pas ae tore teste! psig nn beng phased = 2 900 ocimon ousons in daply of teiproat favor tea dey. Before we letve reiproaefaror tendency, the Gel phenomenon oe wl oases wiepee htn tae Com fring of gue Fo the exet the fing of ipl last crokonry base, bee the mos plas Hie causes he mental conf! eiggete in one deeson “ by reciprocate favor tendency and in dhe opposite direc tion by Reward Supercesponse Tendency pushing one 1 enjoy one hundred percent of some good thing OF course, human culture has often greatly boosted the fenetc tendency to suffer from feelings of guilt. Most expecially, eligious culture has imposed hard-ro-follow cthical and devotional demands on people. There is a ‘charming lish Catholic priest in my neighborhood who, ‘with ough accuracy, often says, “Phe old Jews may have invented guilt, but we Catholics periecied it” And if yo, Hike me snd this pees, believe thar, averaged out, feelings of guilt do moze good thaa harm, you may jin in my specal graiade for reciprocatefavor tendency, ‘no matter haw tnpleasant you find feelings of guilt. 10, Influence-from-Mere-Association Tendency Inthe standard conditioned reGexes studied by Skinner and most common in the wodd, responsive behavior, Creating a new habit i dace tiggered by rewards previously bestowed. For instnce, a man buys 2 can of branded shoe polis, has a good expedence wiht when shining his shoes, and because ofthis “reward” buys the same shoe polish when he needs another can. But theze is another (ype of conditioned reflex wherein mere association wggers a sesponse. For in- Stance, consider the cate of many men who have been trained by thei previous experince in life 10 believe that when several similar items aze presented for par chase, the one with the highes price wil have the igh- fst quay. Knowing this, some seller of an ordinary {Industral product wall offen change his product’ trade diess and sie its psice signicandly hoping that quality ‘sceng bayer wl be ticked iato becoming purchasers by mete astociation of bis product and ite high price. This indastnl practice requedy i effective in diving up sales and even more 20 ia deving up profs, For Instance, it worked wondecflly with high-priced power tools fora long time. And i would wor beter yet with highpriced pumps atthe bottar of oil els. With hax- tay goods, the proces works with # special boost be- cause buyers who pay high prices often gui exta stars ffom thos demonstrating both thee good taste and thei ability t0 pay TBven atsaition that appeats to be tv, if ease- fay planned, can ave exueme and peculiar effects on purchasers of products, The tuiget purchaser of shoe polish may ke prety gts. And so he chooses the pl Sh with the prety gion the can or the ope with the rst gc in the las ad for shoe paish that he sv "Advertisers know about the power of mere asocs- tion, You won't see Coke adveresed aloogside some Account of the death of a child. Instead, Coke ade pi: ture life as happier than seal. Similarly, iti not from mere chance that miliasy Inds ply sock itppessive music. Tat ind of musi ppeating in rere atzocaton with militry service, elpeto attact soldiers and keep them in the army. Most ‘mies have lenuned to use mere association ia this suc- cessful wy. However, che most damaging miscalclations from mete association do aot ordinarily come from advestis- cers and masic providers. ‘Some of the mast impo:tant miscalelations came fom what is accidentally associated with one's past suc cess, ot one’s king and loving, ot one’s disliking and hating, which includes 2 tural hatred for bad news. ‘To avoid being misled by dhe meze ascociation of some fact with past success, use this memory clue ‘Think of Napoleon and Hitler when they invaded Russia ater using thes axmies with much success elsewhere ‘And there axe plenty of mondane examples of results like thote of Napoleon and Hitler. For instance, a man. foolishly gambles in a casino and yee wins. This unlikely correlation causes him to try the casino again, or again ‘nd gui, this horsd detzimens, Or » man gets hacky Jn an odde-against ventuse headed by an untalented fiend, So influenced, he tries again what worked before = with tebe resalts, ‘The proper antidotes to being made such a patsy by pase suecess are: 1) to careflly examine each past success, looking for secidental, noncausative fetors associated with fch suecess that will tend to mislead as one =p- praises odds implicit in a proposed new undertal- ing, and 2) 10 look for dangerous aspects of the new undertale ing thar were not present ‘when past success oc- ceurred, ‘The damage co the mind that ean come from liking and loving was once demonstiated by obviously false test- ‘mony given by an otherwise very admirable woman, che ‘wife of « party in a jury case. The famous opposing counsel wanted to minimize his attack on such an admi= rable woman yet desttoy the credibility of her testimony. ‘And so, in his losing argument, he came to her testi- ‘mony last. He then shook his’ head sadly and said, What ate we to make of such testimony? The answer lies ia the old thyme: ‘a dhe hueband i, So the wifes. She is mazeed toa clown, ‘And the grossness of his nature Drags her down.” The jury dsbulieved the woran’s testimony. They caslyrecoghized the szongrisilueace of love on het ognion. And we now offen see even stonger mis face fiom love as teal mothers, with hearflt con ‘ietion, dedare before TV cameras the ianocence of thei obviously gully sons. ‘People disagree about how much blindness should accompany the association called love. In Por Richard's inane Prandin counseled: “Keep your eyes wide ‘pen befoce mariage and half shut thereftes” Pesbaps 8 ths “ejeshalfshut solution is about sigh, but I favor a tougher prescription: “See it Hke tis and love aayay” “lating and dilking also cause miscalculation tig- ced by mere assocaoa, In basncs, I commonly se people undersppeise both the competency and morals of compettor: they dilike. Tit oa dangotous practice, tulip disguised because it occurs on a subconscious bass “Another common bad effec from the mere asocs- tion of a person and a hated outcome i displayed in “Persian Messenger Syndcome Ancient Persians acm- aly led some messengers whose sole fault was that they brought home truthful bad news, say, of a bate loet. Fear acroally safer forthe messenger to ron aay te bide, nstead Of dang his job as a wises boss woald have wanted it done "And Persian Messenger Syndzome is alive and well in modern lf, albeit i les lethal versions. leis actly Cangerous in many earcers to be a cz oF uatelcome brews. Union negotiators and employee representatives often know thi, and it lads to may tragedies in labor ‘ations. Sometimes lanyers, knowing their cents wll fate them if they tecommead aa unveleome but wise setlerent, wil tery on to disaster. Even in places well Iron foe high cognition, one wil sometimes Gnd Per- sian Messenger Syndrome. For instance, yeas a0, 80 Insjor oil companies Ingated in Texas el cour over some ambiguity ia on operating agreement coveding one ‘of the largest oil reservoits in the Westen hemisphere My guess i thatthe cause ofthe tsa was some general counsels unwilingness to cay bed news (0 a tong finded CEO. CBS, ints ae heyday, was famous for occurence cof Persian Messenger Syndrome because Chast Bill Paley wis hose wo people who brought him bad news. ‘The teslt was that Paley lived in cocoon of wnseaiy, fiom which he made one bad deal afer another, even ‘exchanging lige shate of CBS fora company that had to beliguidated shortly thereafte:, “The propse antdate to eating Pesian Messenger Syndrome and its bad effects, ike those at CBS, i (0 develop, through exercise of wil, bait of weloming bad news. At Becethize, thete is « common injunction: “Always tll ue the bad news promptly. eis only the good news that cn wait” Ie alo helps be 50 wise and infocmsed that people fear not telling you ted news be- case you ar 0 Htlyt gti elsewhere Taduence-ftom-Mete-Astociaion Tendency often Ins a shocldng effect that helps swamp the normal ten- dency to retam favor for fivor, [especially when the favor relents] condition is unpleasant, due Co pov fen, sickness, subjugation, o something else. Some- times, when one receives 2 frvor, the favor may trigger fn envy-driven dablke for the person who wis in 30 vores ste that he could easly be «favor giver Under sich circumstances, the favar receiver, prompted panty by mere association of the fivor givee with pastpin, wail not only dislike the man sho helped him bot fiko ty to injuce him. ‘This accounts for a fimous re- sponse, sometimes dubiovely artibuted to Henry Ford: ‘Why does that man hate me so? T never did anything for bien” Thave a fiend, whom T will aos call “lot” who had an amusing experience in fvorgiving, Glotz owned an apartment building that he had bought because he “ranted, eventually, to use the lad in diffecent develop. ‘meat. Pending this outcome, Glorz was very lenient in Collecting below-market rents from tenants. When, at Test, thece was @ public heating on Glot’s proposal ro teat down the building, one tenant who was fac behind fn his rent payments was particularly angry and hostile Fle came to the public hearing 2ad said, “This proposal is outrageous. Glots doesa's need any more money. T know this because T was supported in college by Glocz fellowships” "A final serious clump of bad thinking caused by mere association lie in the common use of clasifcarion ereotypes. Because Pete knows that Joe is ninety years fold and that most ninery year-old persons don't think ‘ery wel, Pete appites old Joe asa thinking lure even if ald Joe stl thiols very well. Or, beeause Jane is a white-baired wornao, and Pete knows no old women. {ood at higher math, Pete appraises Jane 2s ao good at it feven if Jane is a whiz. This sort of wrong thinking is both natural and common. Pete's antidote is not to ‘lieve that, on average, nety-year-olds think as wel as focty year okds or thar chere are as many females as males among PhD.'s in math, Tostead, just as he mast Tearn that rend does not alvays comectly predict des- tiny, be most lean that the average dimension in some group will not eeably guide him to the dimension of Somme specific item. Otherwise Pete will make many e= tom, like that of the Fellow who deowned in a tives thar averaged out only cighteen inches deep. 11. Simple, Pain-Avoiding Psychological Denial “This phenomenon frst hit me hard in Wodd War 11 ‘when! the supersthete, superstudeat son of a fanily [fiend few off over the Atlantic Ocean and never came ‘back. His mother, who was « very sane woman, then refused to believe he was dead. Thats Simple, Pain- ‘Avoiding Psychological Denial. The zal is t00 painful to beat, so one distorts de facts until they become bear- able. We all do that to some extent, often causing ems ble problems. The tendency’s most extreme outcomes ace usually mixed up wit love, death, and chemical de- penien. "Where denials used to make dying exter the con- Aut meets almost no excise. Who would begrudge fellow man such help at such a time? But some people hope to leave fe hewing to the ison prescription, “Te is rot necesacy to hope in order to persevere” And these is something admizabe in anyone able to do this. In chemical dependency, whersin morals usualy break down hotribi, addicted persons tend to believe that they semein in respectable condition, with cespect- able prospects. They thus display an extremely unceais- tie denial of realty as they go deeper and deeper into detecoration. In my youth, Freudian remedies Gxled ttterly in revessing chemical dependency, but nowadays 'Sleodolies Anonymous routinely achieves a Gy percent tone rate by eavsing several psychological tendencies to fact together to counter addiction. However, the cure jeocess is spically difficult and draining, and a Sty pee ent success sate implies «fifty percent failure rate. One should stay far away {oom any conduct at all Ukely 10 Grit iro chemical dependency. Even a small chance of suffering so grata damage should be avoided. 12, Excessive Self-Regard Tendency ‘We all commonly observe the excessive sellsepard of man He mostly msspprises himself on the high side, like the ninety percent of Swedish drivers that judge themselves to be sbove average. Such misapprasals leo apply t0 a pesson’s major “possessions” One spouse sual overppesises the other spouse, And a man's ‘iden ae Heese apposed higher by him than they tre lly 10 be in a more objecuve view. Even man’s tminoe. possessions tend #0 be oxersppnived. Once ‘urn they suddenly become worth more to hitn than be would pay if they weve offered fr sale to him and he Gide’ deady own therm. There is «name in psychology foe this oveappzizal oF our-own-possessions phe nomenon: the “endowment effect” And ll man's dex sions ae suddenly repided by him a better than would Trav bes the ease jst before he mide them. Man's excess of selfregad pically makes him strongly prefer people like humslé. Pycilogy profes ors have bad touch fon demonstrating this effect in “foeseallee” epeiens. Their expesiments all show that the Gader of Tor wallet containing identty loc ‘willbe mos lite to cesar the wallet wheo the owner post closely resembles the Gnder. Given this quay in pryehorocal gate, ciquish groups of simiae pesons Rall always be a very infnental part of human culuce, tren after we wisely ty to danpen the worst fest. ‘Some of the worst consequences in modern life come when dysfunctional groups of eliguish peons, Glminated by Excessive Self Regard Tendency, sect a new members of their organizations persons who are ‘ery moch lke themselves, Thus if the Engi depat- nent at an elite university becomes mentally dysfunc onal oc the sales department of a brokerage fs sips {nto routine Exud, th peoblem wal have « naar cen- dency to get worse and to be quite resistant ro change for the better So also with a police department or prson-guard unit or poliicel group gone sour and Eounos other places mized in ev and fll suchas che worst of oar big-city teicher? unions that haxm ur ude by preventing discharge of ineffective teaches"Therefore, some of the moct useful members of oat Civilization aze those who are willing to “clean house” ‘when they find a mest onder their ambit of contol ‘Well canuzally, all forms of excess of self-egard cause much error. How could ie be otherwise? Let us consider some foolish gambling decisions. In lorie, the play is much lower when numbers are dis- tebuced randomly than ic i when the player picks his ‘owe nutnber, This i¢ quite icational. The odds are al- most exactly the eame and rauch against the player. Be- ‘cause state loteres take advantage of man's itztional love of sef-picked numbers, moder man buys more lottery tickets than he otherise would have, with each parchsse foolish. Ttensify man’s love of his own conclusions by adding, the porsestory wallop from the “endowment cffec” and you will ind that a man who has already Dough « porkebelly furute on a commodity exchange ‘now foolishly believes, even more steongly than before, in the mesits of his speculative bet. ‘And foolish sports bettig, by people who love sports and think they know a lot about relative metits of. teams, is « lot more addictive than race track betting — parlly because of man’s automatic overapprasal of his ‘owa complicated conclusions ‘Also. extremely counterproductive is man's ten dency to bet, time after time, in games of skill, ke gole ‘or poker, against people who are obviously much beter players. Excessive Self Regzed Tendency diminishes the foolsh bettor’s accuracy in appraising his relative degree of tent ‘Mote counterproductive yet are man's appraisals, ‘ypieally excessive, ofthe quality of the future service he Js to provide to his business. His overappaisal of these ‘prospective contributions wil frequeatly cause disastes, TBxcesses of sclé-egard often cause bed hiring deci sions because employers grosely overnppase the woth ff their own conclusions that rly on impeestions in face-to-face contact. The cozsect antidate to this sort of folly is to underweigh face-to-face impressions and overweigh the applicant's pat eecord. once chose exaclly this course of action while 1 sesved as chairman of sa academic seatch committee. I convinced fellow committee members to stop all farther intecviews and simply appoint a person whose achieve- ment record wae much better than thar of any other applicant. And when it was suggested to me that T wast giving “academic due process,” T replied that T ‘was the one being teve to academic values because Iwas using actdemie reveacch shouting poor predictive value (of impressions from face-to-fce intexviews. Because maa is likely to be overinfuenced by face- to-ice impressions that by definition involve his active participation, a job candidate who is 2 marvelous “pre enter” often causes great danger under modern exect- tive-search practice. In my opinion, Hewlett-Packard faced just such a danger when i interviewed the articu- late, dynamic Carly losin ines search for a new CEO. ‘And Thelieve that Hewlert Packard made a bad decision ‘when it chose Ms. Fiorina, and chat this bad decision would nor have been made if Hewlett-Packard bad taken the methodological precautions ie would have ten if ie knew moce psychology. ‘There is « famous passage somewhere in Tolstoy that ilumintes the power of Excessive SelfRegurd Tendency. Accosding to Tolstoy, the worst criminals don't appaise themselves as all that bad, They come t0 balieve ether (1) that they dida't commit their crimes o= {Q) that, considering the pressures and disadvantages of theit lives, it ie underttandable and forgivable that they behaved a they did and became what they became. "The second half ofthe “Tolstoy effec,” where the man maket excuses for his fable poor performance, instead of providing the fix, is enozmously important Because 4 majosty of mankind wil try 0 gee along by making way t00 many uaseasonable excuses for fixable poor performance, itis very impostant to have personal ‘and insiutional antidotes Limiting the savages of such folly. On the pecsooal level a man should ty to face the wo simple facts 1) Gxable but unfixed bad performance is bad charac ter and tends 10 create more of itself, causing more damage to the exeuse giver with each tolerated in stance, and 2) in demanding places, Uke athletic teams and Genetal Eleettic, you are almost sure to he dis carded in due course if you keep giving excuses in- stead of behaving as you should ‘The main insttional antidotes to this past of the “Tolstoy effect” ace 1) a fair, mestocatic, demanding culture plus person tel handling methods that build up morale, and 2) severance ofthe worst offenders. ‘Of coutse, when you can’t sever ~as in the case of your ‘own child ~ you must try to fix the child as best you can once heard of child-eaching method so effective that the child temembered the leaning experience over fy years late. The child later became Dean of the US‘ ‘School of Music and then related to me wit father sid ‘when he saw his child taking candy from the stock of his ‘employer with the excuse that he intended to replace it Tater The father said, “Son, it would be better for you t0 simply take all you want and call youself thief every time you do it” ‘The best antidote to folly from an excess of self regard is to force yourelf to be moce cbjective when you ate thinking about yourself, your family and fiiends, your property, and the value of your past and furure activity. This fn easy t0 do well won't work perfectly, but it will wosk much better than simply letting psycho- Fogical aaare take its normal course ‘While an excess of elf ogued is often covnterpso ductive in its effects on cognition, it can cause some ‘weird succester from overcoafidence that happens 10cenuse success, This factor accounts for the adage: “Never underestimate the man who overestimates him ele” (Of course, some high sel-appraisals are corect and seeve better than flee modesty. Moceover, self-regard in the form ofa justified pride ina job well done, or a hfe well Hed, is a large consteuctive force, Without sich justifed pride, many more algplanes would crash. Peide” is another word generally left out of psychology textbooks, and this omission is nota good idea. I is also ‘pot a good idea to construc the bible’s parable about the Phatise and the Publican as condemning ll pride. (Of all forms of useful pride, perhaps the most de sicable is 2 justified pride ip being trustworthy. More- cove, the trstworthy man, even after sllowing for the inconveniences of his choten cours, ordinarily has a life that averages out better then he would have if he pro= vided lsereliabiiy. 13, Overoptimism Tendency ‘Aboot three centacies before the birth of Christ, Demosthenes, the mast femous Greek orntor, sid, "What « man wishes, that also will he believe” ‘Demosthenes, parsed out, was thos saying that man isplays not oaly Simple, Paia-Avoiding Peychologcal Denial but aio an exces of optimism even when he is already doing well “The Greek orator ws cleatly right about an excess of optimism being the aozmul human condition, even ‘ven pain or the threat of pan is absent. Winess happy people buying lonery tickets ox believing that exit farishing,delivery-making grocery stores were gong Spice eat may operetta 2 pezmarkets. ‘One standard antidote to foolish optimism ie tained, habitual use of the simple probability math of Ferma and Pascal, taught ia my youth to high school sophomores. The mental rules of thumb that evolution fies you to deal with sisk are not adequate. They se Senble the dysfunctional golf geip you would have if you reli’ on a gp diven by evolution instead of gol les- 44, Deprival Superreaction Tendency “The quantity of man’s pleasure from a tea dollar gin does pot exactly match the quantity of his dspleasire ffom a tendo lose. That i, the loss seems to hurt such more than the gain seems to help. Moreover, if a ‘man slmost gets something he greatly wants and has it jerked sway from him atthe last mxoment, be wil zeget fnuch as if he had Jong owned the reward snd bad it jerked avn. 1 include the natural human reactions to bath kind of loss experience ~ the loss of the possessed reward and the los of the almost possessed reward — tinder one escption, Deprival Supetreaction Ten dene To doplaying, Depival Sopeszacion “Tendency, man frequently incurs disadvantage by misftaming his problems. He wil often compare what is near instead of ‘what really matters. For instance, a man with $10 milion in his brokerage account will often be extremely initated by the accidental loes of $100 out of the $300 in his wal- let ‘The Mungers once owned a tame and good-natured dog that displayed the canine version of Depsval Super reaction Tendency. Theze was only one way to get bitten by this dog, And that was co ery and take some food away from him after he already had it in is mouth. If you did cha, this fiendly dog would suromatically bite Hee coulda’t help it. Noehing could be more seupid than for the dog to bice his master. But the dog couldn't help being foolish. He had an automatic Deprval Supertenc- tion Tendency in his nature, Ffumans are much the same a this Munger dog, A rman ordisaily reacts with irational intensity to even a small loss, of threatened loss, of property, love, fiend: ship, dominated tesstory, opportunity: status, of aty other valued thing. As a natal sesul, bureavcratic in- fighting over the threatened lost of dominated territory ‘fen causes immense damage to an institution as a ‘whole, This factor among others, accounts for mach of the wisdom of Jacke Welch’ long Sight agsinse bureau: crate ills at General Blectic. Few business leaders have ‘ever conducted wicer campaigns. Deprival Superreaction Tendency often protects ideologieal or religious views by triggering and hatred rected toward vocal nonbelievers."This happens, in part, because the ideas of the aoabalevers, i€ they Spread, wll diminish the infuence of views tht aze now suppotted by = comfortable environment including: strong tlie maintenance system. University liberal ans departments, law schools, aod business organizations all splay plenty of such ideology baved groupthink that rejects almost all conflicting inputs. When the vocal ctc isa former believer, hostile is often boosted both by: 1) « concept of betrayal that triggers additional De- paival Supersesetion Tendency because a colleague is lost, and 2) fears that conflicting views wil have exta persus- sive power when they come ffom 2 former col- “The foregoing considerations help account for che old idea of heresy, which for centuries justified mach killing fof hetetice, fequently after torture and frequently ac- ‘complished by bumning the victim alive Te is almost everywhere the case thet extremes of ideology are maintained with great intensity and with ‘great antipathy 20 non-believers, causing extremes of Cognitive dysfunesion. This happens, I believe, because ‘0 psychological tendencies are usually acting concur: tently toward this same sid result Inconsistency- [Avoidance Tendency, plus Depsval Supenesction Ten dency.One antidote to intense, deliberate maintenance of groupthink is an exteme culture of courtesy, kept in place despite ideological diferences, lke the behavior of the justices now serving on the U.S. Supreme Court ‘Another antidote is to delberstely bring in able and ax- ticulate disbeliovers of incurnbeat groupthink. Successfal comective measures to evil examples of groupthinke maintenance have included aetions like that of Derek Bok when, az president of Harvard, he stated disap proving tenure appointments proposed by ideologues at Harvard Law Schoal Even 8 one-degree loss from a 180-degree view will sometime create enough Deprival Superreaction Ten- ‘dency to nea a neighbor inco an enemy, as I once ob- ferved when T bought a house fiom one of two faeighbors locked into hatred by a tiny tee sewly de stalled by one of them. ‘As the cise of these two neighbors stated, the clamor of almost any group of neighbors displaying ireatiomil, extreme deptival supenteaction over some tale i & zoning heazing is not a pretty thing to watch, Soch bad behavior drives some people from the zoning field T once bought some golf clube from an artisan ‘who was formerly a lowyer. Whea I asked him what kind ‘of law he had practiced, I expected to hear him say,“ vorce lw” But his ansver was, ‘zoning la.” Deptival Superreaction Tendency bas ghastly of fects in labor elatons. Most of the deaths in the lsbor stuf that cccuzzed before World War I came when em ployess tied to reduce wages. Nowadays, we see fewer ‘Seaths and more occasions when whole companies dis- appest, 4s compettion seqaires either takeaways from labor ~ which i wil not consent to ~ or death of che business, Depsval Superreaction Tendency causes much of this labor resistance, often in cases whece it would be in labors interest ro make a different decision. To contexts other than labor relations, takeaways are also difficult to get. Many tragedies, therefore, occur that ‘would have been avoided had these been mote cational ity and less subconscious heed of the imperative frm Deptival Sperseaction Tendency, [Deptival Saperreaction Tendency and Incontis- tency-Avoidance Tendency often join o cause one form ‘of business failure, In this form of ruin, a man gradually ‘ses up al his good assets ima fruitless attempt to rescue a big venture going bid. One of the best antidotes to this folly is good poker skill learned young. The teaching value of poker demonstrates that act al effective texch- ing occurs on a standard seademic path Deptival Superreaction Tendency is also a huge conteibutor to ruin from compulsion to gamble. First, it ‘eauses the gambler to have @ passion to get even once he Inas suffered loss, and the passion grows with the loss Second, the most addictive forms of gambling provide » Tot of neat misses and each one tigaess Deprival Super- reaction Tendency. Some slot machine creators ate vi+ tows in exploiting this weakness of man. Electronic » machines enable these creators to produce a lot of ‘meaningless bae-bar-lemoa sesuts chat greatly increase play by Fools who thiale they have very seaely won large rence ‘Deprival Supesteaction Tendency often does much amage to man in oper-outery auctions. The “social proof that we will ext conse tends to convince man thatthe last price from another bidder was reasonable, and then Depcival Superseaction Tendency prompts him strongly to top the las bid. The best antidote to being thus triggered into paying foolish prices at open-outery auctions isthe simple Buffett practice: Don’t go to such TT myself, the would-be instructor here, many dec- des ago made a big mistake caused in part by subcon- ‘scious operation of my Deprival Supesseaction Ten- dency. A fdendly beoker called and offered! me 300 hates of ridiculously undespsiced, very thinly traded Beleidge Oil at $115 per share, which I purchased using cath Thad on hand. The next day, be offered me 1,500 ‘mote shares atthe same price, which I declined co buy, partly because T could only have made the purchase had. T sold something or borrowed the sequied $173,000. ‘This was a very iraional decision. Twas a well-to-do man with no debt; there was no ssk of loss and similar ‘no tsk opportunites were not likely to come slong Within cwo yeats, Belidge Oi told out to Shell t a price of abour $3,700 per share, which made me about $5.4 milion poorer than I would have been had I then. been paychologicaly seute. As this tle demonstrates, psychological ignorance exn be very expensive. Some people may question may defining Deprival Supereaction Tendency to include seaction to profit bately missed, as sn the well-documented responses of slot machine players. Howeves, I believe that {haven't Gefined the tendency a8 brondly as T should. My reason. for suggesting an even brosder definition is hat many Berkshire Hathaway shareholders 1 know never sell or sive sway a single share after immense gains in market ‘alue have occurred. Some of this reaction is caused by rational calculation, and same is, no doubs, atuibutable to some combination of (I) reward supessesponse, (2) staras quo bias” from Inconsisteney-Avoidance Ten- dency, and (@) “the endowment effect” from Excessive Self Regard ‘Tendency. But I believe the single strongest Jnratonal explanation is a form of Deprval Superree tion Tendency. Many of these shareholders simply can’t stand the Wea of having their Berkshire Hathaway hold ings smaller, Partly they dislike facing what they consider fan impsisinent of identity, but motly they fear misting ‘oat on fate gia from Stock sold or given away. 15, Social-Proof Tendency “The otherwise complex behavior of man is mach simpli fied when he automatically thinks and does what he observes to be thought and done sround hirm. And such followership often Works fine. For instance, what sim-ples way could there be to find out how to wall to a big football game in a strange ciry than by following the flow of the crowd. For some such reason, man’s evolu- tion left him with Socal-Proof ‘Tendency, an automatic tendency 10 think and act as he sees others around him thialdng and acting. Paychology professors love Social-Proof Tendency because in thei experiments it causes ridiculous results Forinstance, ia professor arcanges for some stranger to center an elevator wherein tea “complizace practtioness” are all silently standing so that they face the seat of the levator, the stranger wil often tara around and do the tame. The psychology professors can also use Socal- Proof Tendency to ctuse people to make lage and s- diculous measurement errors. ‘And, of course, teenagers’ paseats usually learn ‘moce than they would Uke about teenagers" cognitive exons from Social Proof Tendency. This phenomenon ‘was recently involved ia a breakthrough by Judith Rich artis who demonstated chat supertespect by young people for thee peers, sather than for parents or other dali, ig ordained 0 some considerable extent by the genes ofthe young people. This makes it wise for par- nts to rely more on manipulating che quality of the ‘peers than on exhortations to their own offspring. A ‘petson like Ms, Hass, who can provide an insight of Sue quality and uty, hacked by new seasons, has aot lived in vai. "Aad in the highest reaches of business, itis not all uncommon (6 find leaders who display followesship akin to thet of teenagers. IF one oil company foolishly buys a mine, other oil companies often quickly join in baying mines. So also if the purchased company makes feetlizer. Both ofthese oil company buying fis acrully bloomed, with bad results. (OF course, itis difficult to identify and corsecdy ‘weigh all the possible ways to deploy the cash flow of an fill company. So oil company executives, like everyone lac, have made many bad decisions that were quickly tuiggeted by discomfort from doube. Going along with social proof provided by the action of other oil compa- les ends this ditconafort ina narural wy. ‘When will Socil-Proof Tendency be most easily ‘uiggcted? Here the answer is clea from many experi- ‘ments: Triggering most seady occurs in the presence of ‘puzalemnent or stress, and particularly when both exit Because stress intensifies Sociil-Proof Tendency, discepatable salee organizations, engiged, for instance, in such action 4¢ sling swampland to schoolteachers, ‘munipulate targets into stwations combining isolation fad etzess. The isolation strengthens the socisl prot provided by both the knaves and the people who buy Fiet, andthe stress often increased by ftighe, augments the targets’ susceptibility to the social proof. And, of courte, the techniques of out worst “religious” calts mite those of the knavish salesmen, One calt even used ratdesnakes to heighten the stress fle by conver. sion targets. ‘Because both bad and good behavior are rmade con tagious by Social: Proof Tendency, its highly impotent that human societies stop any bad bebavior befone it spreads and foster and display all good behavior. (My father once told me tha just after commencing law practice in Omaha, he went wit a large gooup from Nebraska to South Dakota to hunt pheasants. A South Dakota hunting Heease was, say, $2 for South Dakoca residents and $5 for nonresidents. All the Nebraska res: dents, one by one, signed up for South Dakota licenses ‘vith phony South Dakota addresses until it was my fa thers man, Then, according to him, he barely prevented. himself from doing what the others were doing, which was some sor of ceiminal offense Not everyone so cesists the socal contgjon of bad Dehavioe. And, therefore, we often get “Sespico Spee rome,” named to commemorate the state of a near totally corrupt New York police division joined by [Beank Serpico. He was then neatly mardeted by gunfie ‘because of his sesiatance to going along withthe comup- tion inthe division. Such eosraption was being driven by social proof plas incentives, the combination that ce tes Serpico Syndzome. The Serpico story sbould be taught mote than it now is because the didactic power of its horror is aimed ata very important evil, driven sub- stantially bya very important force: socal proof. Tn social proof, it i not only action by others that misleads but ‘so their inaction. In the presence of doubt, inaction by others becomes social proof that Inaction isthe sight course, Thus, the inaction ofa great many britanders led to the death of Kityy Genovese ina famous incident much discussed in introductory psy chology courses. Th the atnbit of social proof, the outside rectors on «4 corpocate board usally display the neae ultimate form (of inaction, They fal to object to anything much short fof an axe murder until come public embarassment of the boatd finally causes theis intervention. A typical boand-of-diectots’ culture was once well described by any fii, Joe Rosentield, as he sad, “They asked me if Tvanted become a ditectar of Nowthwest Bell, and it ‘was the last thing they ever asd me.” Tn advertising and sles promotion, Socil-Proot “Tendency is about se steong a factor 28 one could imag- ine. “Monkey-see, monkey-do” is the old phrase that reminds one of how strongly John will often wish to do something, ot have something, just because Joe dots o: has it. One interesting consequence is that an advertiser ‘sll pay a lot 10 have its soup ean, instead of someone se’, ia a movie scene involving soup consumption ‘only in a peripheral way. Social Proof Tendency often intesacts in a perverse ‘way with Envy/Jealousy and Deprival Superreaction "Tendency. One such interaction amused my family for ‘years 2s people recalled the time when my cousin Russ ‘nd T, at ages three and fous, fought and howled over asingle surphs shingle while surrounded by a ictual sea ‘of surplus shingles. But the adult versions of this occasion, boosted by psychological tendencies preserving ideologies, are not fonay ~ and can bring down whole civilizations. ‘The ‘Middle Bast aowe presents just such a theent. By now the resources spent by Jews, Arabs aod all others over small amount of dirputed laod if divided arbitral ‘mong lend claimants, would have made everyone better off, even before taking into account any benefit from reduced threat of war, possibly nuclear. ‘Outside domestic eeations ic is sare now to try 10 rewolve daputes by techniques inchuding discussion of impacts from psychological tendencies. Considting the ‘ampleations of childishness that would be raised by such jncusion, and the defects of psychology as now taught, this resule may be sound. But, given che noclear stakes ‘now involved and the many falises in important nego- tations lasting decades, T often wonder if some day, in some way, more use of psychological insight wall even tually improve outcomes. If ¢0, correct teaching of pey- chology matters alot. And, if old psychology professoss face even less likely than old physics professors to leara row ways, which seems neasy certain, then we may, 26 Max Planck predicted, need a new generation of psy- chology profestort who have grown up to chink in ferent way. TE only one lesson is to be chosen feom 2 package ‘of lessons involving Social-Proof Tendency, nd used in {el improvement, my favorite would be: Learn how © Jgnore the examples from others when they are wrong, Deenase few sills are more worth having, 16. Contrast-Misreaction Tendency Because the nervous eystem of man does not cially measure in absolute sien unite, it must intend rly fon something simples. Tee eyes have a colton that Tits their peogamming needs: the contst in what is seen is ceisteed. And sin sight, so does i go, largely, ip the other senses. Moreover, 28 perception goss, so oes cognition. The seul is man’s Contrast Miseaction ‘Tendeney. Few peychologicl tendencies do more dam- age to costect thinking, Small-scale damages involve instances such as man's buying an ovespiced $1,000 leather dashboard merely because the price is 50 low compared to hie concucent purchase of 4 $65,000 ex. Laige sale damages ofen sun lives, as when a wonder fal woman having tele parents musts © man who ‘would be judged sassfactory only in comparison to hes pateass. Or a when a man takes wife number tivo who ould be appraised as allright only ia compasson to Wife number one. ‘A particularly cepechenstble form of stles practice ‘occurs in the offces of tome real esate brokers. A buyer from out ofthe city, petbaps aceding to shift his family thece, vss the office with litle time avaiable ‘The salesman deibentely shows the customer three sswfel houses at ridiculously high prices. Then he shows him a mesely bad house at a price only moderately 00 high. And, boom, the broker often makes an easy sale. Conttast Misteation Tendency is routinely wsed to cause disadvantage for customers buying merchandise tnd services. To make an ordingty price seem low, the ‘vendor wall vxy frequently crete «highly atl price that is mach higher than the psice always sought, then advertise his standard price as 2 big reduction fiom his phony price. Even when people know that this sort of feustomer manipulation is being atrempted, it will often ‘work (0 tigger buying. This phenomenon accounts in patt for much advertising in newspapers. Tr also demon Strates that being awwate of peychologieal ploys is not 2 perfect defense. When a man's steps are consecutively taken toward disaster, with each step being very smal, the brain's Conteast-Miszeaction Tendency will often lt the man go t00 far toward disaster to be able ro avoid it "This happens hecause each step presents small a con ‘ast froma his peesent position. A bridge-laying pal of mine once told me that & frog tossed into very hot water would jump out, but that the sme frog would end up dying if placed in room- temperiture water that was later tated ata very slow rate. My few shreds of physiological knowledge make ‘me doubt this account. Bur no matter, because many bosinesses die in just the mance claimed by my friend for the f0g. Cognition, misled by tiny changes involving low contrat, will often iss trend that is destin. ‘One of Ben Franklin's best-remembered and most ‘useful sphotisos ie “A smell leak will sink great ship.” ‘The utlity of the aphoriem is large precisely because the brain 2 often misses the functional equivalent of «stall leakin a great ship. 17. Stress-Influence Tendency Everyone recognizes that sudden stress, for instance fiom a dheea, wll cause a rush of edeealie in the hi tna body, prompting fasts and more extteme reaction. ‘And creryone who has taken Psych 101 knows that stress rales Social-Proof Tendency mote power Ta a phencimenion less well recogoized, but stl widely known, light eteese can sigh improve pesfosm- ance ~ say, ia examinations — wheress heavy stess ‘causes dysfunction. But few people know more sont really heavy sess than that it ean cause depression, For instance, most people know that an “acute stress depression” males {hiking dysfunctional because ic causes an extreme of pessimism, ofen extended in length and usually accom panied by activity stopping fatigue. Fortunately as most ‘people also know, such a depression is one of mankind's fore seversiile silments. Even before modem drugs svere avaiable, many people afflicted by depression, toch as Winston Chuzchill and Samuel Johnson, gined great achievement i life ‘Most people know very litle about nondeptestivemental beeakdowns influenced by heavy stress. But there fs at least one exception, involving the work of Paviov ‘when he was in his seventies and eighties. Pavlov had. ‘yon a Nobel Prize carly in life by using dogs to work ‘at the physiology of digestion. Then he became woold- famous by working out mere-association responses in dogs, initially salivating dogs ~ s0 much s0 that changes in behavioe tiggeced by mere-association, Hke those caused by much modem advertisement, sre today often sd to come from “Pavlovian” conditioning What happened to cause Paviov’s last work was especially interesting. During the great Leningrad Flood tf the 1920s, Pavlow had rezay dogs in cages. The hab- fas had been transformed, by 4 combination of his “Pav Jovian conditioning” plus standard reward responses, into distinct aad different pattems, As the waters of the flged came up and receced, many dogs reached a point ‘where they had almost no srspace berween their noses tnd the tops of their cages. This subjected them to maxima stess. Immediately thereafter, Pavlov noticed that many of che dogs were no longer behaving as they had. For eximple, che dog that formerly had liked his trainer now dished him. ‘This resolt seminds one of ‘modern coghition-seversals ia which a person’ love of Ins parents suddenly becomes hate, as new love has been shifed suddenly to a colt. The unaotcipated, extreme Changes in Paviow’s dogs would have driven any good experimental scientist into a near-frenzy of curiosity. “That was indeed Pavlow’s tezetion. But not many scien- tists would have done what Paviow next di. ‘And that ws to epend the zest of his long life giv- ing stress-induced nervous brealatowns to dogs, after ‘which he would tey to reverse the breakdowns, all the ‘while keeping catefsl experimental records. Te fowod 1) that he could classify dogs so as to predict how cilya particular dog would breakdown: 2) that the dogs hardest to beeak down were also the ‘hardest to tetorn to thie pre-breakdown state; 3) that any dog could be bzoken downs and 44) that be covldn’e reverse a breakdown except by eimposing tess. Now, prtially everyone is revolted by such experi ‘mental teatment of man’s frend, the dog. Moreover, Pavlov was Russian and did his last work under the Communists, And maybe those facts account for the present extieme, widespeead ignorance of Pavlov’s last ‘Work. The two Freudian psychiatrist with whom I tied [many years ago to discuss this work had never heard of it And the dean of « major medical school acwally tasked me, several years ago, f any of Pavlov's experi ments weie “repeatable” in experiments of other ce- searchers. Obviously, Pavioy is now a sort of forgotten hero in medical science. T frst found a description of Pavlov’ las work in & popular paperback, ystten by some Rockefeller Baanced psychintsst, when T was trying to figure oot hhow ‘cols worked their horsble mischief end what should the law say about whet patents could do to “de- “program” children who had become braiswashed zon bes. Naturally, mainstream law objected to the zombies ‘being physically capeured by their parents snd subjected tostess thar would help to deprogram the effects of the stress they had endaced in cult convessions. never wanted to get into the legal controversy that existed about thie subject But I did conclude that the ‘controversy coulda’r be bandled with maximized ration- aly without consideving whether as Pavlov's ase work fgets, the heavy-handed imposition of stress might be the only reversal method thac would work to remedy ‘one of the worst evils imaginable: a stolen mind. I have included this discession of Paviov partly oat of genesal sntagonism toward taboos, parly to make may tall re sonably complete as it considers stress and partly be- ‘cause T hope some listener may continue my inquiry ‘with more success 48, Availability-Misweighing Tendency “This mental tendency echoes the words of the song When Tem aot nest the gil I Jove, Tlove dhe gil Tim eae” Man's imperfees, limied-capaciy brain easly dfs inco working wih what's easy avaiable wit And the bein eat une what i ean remember or what itis blocked fiom recognizing because ic is beaily inf enced by one or more paychologjal tendencies besring Steongly on i as the fllow is influenced by the nasby igi in the song. And so the mind overwoighs wat is fasly avalible and thos splays Avaality Misteighing Tendency. “The main antidotes to miscues fiom AAvabiliy- Misueighing Tendency often involve procedures, in along use of cheldits, which ate almost abeayshelp- fa Another antidote isto behave somewhat lke Dar- vin did when he emphasized disconficming evidence, ‘What should be done isto especially emphasize factors that don't produce reams of easly available numbers, instead of dafting mostly or enticely into considering factors that do produce such oumbers. Stil another an- tidote is to find and ie some skeptical, articulate peo- ple with farceaching minds to act as advocates for o0 fioas that are opposite to the incumbent notions ‘One consequence of this tendency is that extra vivid evidence, being so memorable and thus more available in cogaition, should often consciously be un- ‘enveighed while less vivid evidence shoold be over- weighed. ‘Stil, the special strength of exteavivid images in induencing the mind can be constructively used 1) in persuading someone else to reach a costect con-

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