Cognition - How Your Mind Can Amaze and Betray You: Crash Course Psychology #15 — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:02Why do smart people make dumb decisions?
2. 0:04Why do conspiracy theorists think that we didn’t land on the moon or that Hillary
3. 0:08Clinton is a space alien?
4. 0:09And why won’t Bernice admit that the new Superman movie just isn’t very good?
5. 0:13We’ve talked about cognition before.
6. 0:15We usually refer to it as the process that we use to think and solve crossword puzzles
7. 0:19and stuff.
8. 0:20But really, cognition involves knowing, remembering, understanding, communicating, and to a certain
9. 0:26extent, learning.
10. 0:27And as truly wonderful as our brains are, we can be spectacularly bad at ALL of these
11. 0:32things.
12. 0:33We used to think our cognition worked like a computer -- logically processing information.
13. 0:37But that cabbage-sized chunk of pink, wet brain matter in your skull can do a lot more
14. 0:41than math, and the things that it does are certainly not always logical.
15. 0:45Many experts argue that it’s cognition that makes us truly human, and that everything
16. 0:50that comes with it -- our preferences, prejudices, fears, and intuitions -- are what make us
17. 0:55the individuals that we are.
18. 0:57We’re not the only animals that show some evidence of cognition, of course: Chimps and
19. 1:00gorillas exhibit insight and planning; crows use tools; elephants teach each other.
20. 1:05But our capacity as humans to figure stuff out is matched only by our ability to totally
21. 1:10misjudge stuff.
22. 1:12As prone as we are to brilliance and insight, we’re equally likely to succumb to irrational
23. 1:17thinking and false intuition.
24. 1:18So, to borrow a riff from Rene Descartes, you think, therefore you are.
25. 1:23Which means you’re brilliant a lot of the time.
26. 1:27And sometimes, you’re just going to look stupid.
27. 1:38[INTRO]
28. 1:39We all want to make sense of the world.
29. 1:41And one of the major ways our cognition allows us do that is by forming concepts -- mental
30. 1:46groupings of similar objects, people, ideas, or events.
31. 1:49We like to lump things together.
32. 1:51Concepts simplify our thinking in such a fundamental way that we usually don’t have to stop and
33. 1:55think about using them, they’re just there.
34. 1:57And yet without concepts, we’d need a unique name for everything.
35. 2:01You couldn’t just ask me to shake the anglerfish -- because there’d be no concept of shake
36. 2:06or fish, let alone stuffed, blue anglerfish.
37. 2:09And if I told you I was devastated that I lost my anglerfish -- which I probably would
38. 2:13be -- I’d also have to explain my emotions, their intensities, even the words themselves
39. 2:18that I had to use.
40. 2:19So basically, without concepts, no one would ever get anything done.
41. 2:24We’d all be like a bunch of ents taking all morning to say “Hey, what’s up?”
42. 2:28We often organize our concepts by forming prototypes--mental images or pinnacle examples
43. 2:34of a certain thing.
44. 2:35For example, if I say “bird”--the general shape of a songbird probably pops into your
45. 2:39head before like, a penguin or chicken or emu, because robins and cardinals more closely
46. 2:44resemble our bird prototype.
47. 2:45Still, if I show you a picture of some crazy creature you’ve never seen before, and you
48. 2:49note that it has feathers and a beak, you’ll probably file it under the bird category because
49. 2:53it more closely resembles your concept of bird than your concept of rodent or overcoat
50. 2:58or footstool.
51. 3:00Concepts and prototypes speed up our thinking, but they also can box in our thinking, and
52. 3:05lead to prejudice if we see something that doesn’t fit our prototypes.
53. 3:08A hundred years ago the sight of a female doctor might have caused some heads to explode,
54. 3:12because in peoples’ tiny minds, the prototypes of “doctor” and “woman” didn’t have
55. 3:16any overlap.
56. 3:17And actually some people today still feel that way.
57. 3:20Haters gonna hate.
58. 3:21So it’s important to actively keep your mind open mind to make room for evolving concepts,
59. 3:26and remember that concepts may sometimes hurt as much as they help.
60. 3:29One of the biggest ways our cognition works to our benefit, though, is through our ability
61. 3:33to solve problems.
62. 3:34We use our problem-solving skills all the time: How to assemble Scandinavian furniture,
63. 3:38bake muffins with a missing ingredient, or handle the crushing disappointment of the
64. 3:42new Superman movie.
65. 3:43And we approach problem-solving in different ways -- sometimes we value speed; other times,
66. 3:47accuracy.
67. 3:48Some problems we figure out using trial and error--you know, you try something and if
68. 3:52it doesn’t work, try it a different way, and keep at it until something works.
69. 3:54Trial and error is slow and deliberate--which may be good or bad, depending on the problem.
70. 3:59We can also use algorithms and heuristics to come up with solutions.
71. 4:04Algorithms are logical, methodical, step-by-step procedures that guarantee an eventual solution,
72. 4:10though they may be slow to work through.
73. 4:12Heuristics, on the other hand, are more like mental shortcuts -- simple strategies that
74. 4:16allow us to solve problems faster, although they’re more error-prone than algorithms.
75. 4:21Say you’re at the store, looking for a family-sized bottle of Sriracha.
76. 4:24You could use an algorithm and methodically check every shelf and aisle in the store.
77. 4:29Or you could use heuristics and first search the Asian or condiment sections--the places
78. 4:33that make the most sense based on what you already know.
79. 4:36Heuristics may be way faster, but the algorithmic approach guarantees you won’t overlook the
80. 4:40sauce along the way, because they stuck it in the deli or whatever dumb thing they did
81. 4:43this week.
82. 4:44So algorithms, heuristics, and trial-and-error are problem-solving strategies that involve
83. 4:48a plan of attack.
84. 4:49But sometimes we get lucky while puzzling out a problem, and Aha!, out of nowhere a
85. 4:54sudden flash of insight that solves our problem.
86. 4:56I’ll use orange in the muffin recipe instead of lemon!
87. 4:59Or, Sriracha lives in the Mexican section!
88. 5:01For some reason!
89. 5:02Neuroscientists have actually watched that kind of sudden, happy brain flash on neuroimaging
90. 5:06screens.
91. 5:07In one experiment, they gave subjects a problem to solve:
92. 5:10What word can be added to the three words CRAB, PINE, and SAUCE to create a new compound
93. 5:16word?
94. 5:17Then they asked the subjects to press a button when they had the answer.
95. 5:19While the subjects thought about it, scans showed activity in their frontal lobes, the
96. 5:23areas involved in the focused attention of typical problem-solving.
97. 5:27But right at the Aha!
98. 5:29moment, just as they pushed the button, there was a clear burst of activity just above the
99. 5:34ear in the right temporal lobe, which, among many other things, is involved with recognition.
100. 5:38The answer, by the way, we already gave you the hint earlier in the episode.
101. 5:43Where’s my fish?
102. 5:46Those sudden bursts of insight are awesome, but you can’t count on them to solve all
103. 5:51your problems.
104. 5:52And just because something feels, doesn’t mean it’s truly correct.
105. 5:55Because as inventive and smartypants as we may be, our cognition often leads us astray
106. 6:00in all kinds of ways.
107. 6:02For instance, we often look for, and favor, evidence that verifies our ideas, while we’re
108. 6:06more likely to avoid or ignore contradictory evidence -- a tendency known as confirmation
109. 6:11bias.
110. 6:12This is really similar to the overconfidence we’ve talked about, when you’re basically
111. 6:16more confident than you are correct.
112. 6:18When this kind of cognitive bias takes hold, you might cling to your initial conceptions
113. 6:22in a kind of belief perseverance, even in the face of clear proof to the contrary.
114. 6:26This happens all the time, and it can be maddening for people watching it happen.
115. 6:32People still think that the earth is flat!
116. 6:35It’s like...WHAT?
117. 6:36HOW?
118. 6:37There’s space pictures!
119. 6:38I probably don’t need to tell you -- people can really get weird and defensive when they
120. 6:43evade facts and choose to see only the information that confirms their beliefs.
121. 6:47They may even become functionally fixed, unable to view a problem from a new perspective.
122. 6:52Instead they just keep approaching a situation with the same mental set, especially if it’s
123. 6:58worked in the past.
124. 6:59Say you’ve got a nail sticking out from a board, and you’re like “I need to take
125. 7:01care of that!”
126. 7:03There’s rocks, and bricks all around you.
127. 7:05But because of your functional fixedness on the idea that only hammers work on nails,
128. 7:10you don’t even consider hitting it with the brick, and instead you waste a bunch of
129. 7:13time in the garage looking for a hammer, and you’re angry and frustrated, and there’s
130. 7:17still a nail sticking up from the board.
131. 7:19So, our mental set predisposes how we think, just as you’ll remember that our perceptual
132. 7:24set predisposes how we perceive.
133. 7:26This is what makes heuristics -- those super-convenient mental shortcuts that we all use -- so easily
134. 7:32fallible.
135. 7:33In the 1970s, cognitive psychologists Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman researched how
136. 7:37we make snap judgments, and discovered one way smart people make dumb decisions.
137. 7:42They found that people believe an event will be more likely to occur if they can conjure
138. 7:46up examples or memories of it, especially if those examples are particularly vivid,
139. 7:51scary, or awesome.
140. 7:52So, say you’re in a casino and you win two dollars at a slot machine.
141. 7:55Suddenly every flashing light and ringing bell in the place goes off.
142. 8:00But when you lose -- which is the vast majority of the time -- it’s just...crickets.
143. 8:03With all their lights and noise-making, the casino makes sure that wins are super vivid
144. 8:07and memorable, while losses just go away unacknowledged.
145. 8:11That way, the next time you’re standing there with 100 bucks in your pocket, you’re
146. 8:14more likely to overestimate your chances of winning, because the memories of winning are
147. 8:18more striking.
148. 8:19The more mentally available those memories are, the more it seems that it’s going to
149. 8:23happen again.
150. 8:24This is known as the availability heuristic.
151. 8:26And it can warp our judgements of people, too.
152. 8:29If we keep remembering news footage that shows people of a given group shooting guns, that
153. 8:34can shape our impression of the entire group -- even if what we saw was only a tiny minority
154. 8:39within that group.
155. 8:40Essentially, we are great at fearing the wrong things.
156. 8:43We worry about being killed in a plane crash or getting bitten in half by a shark or accidentally
157. 8:48choking on a dumpling.
158. 8:49Thanks to our brain’s b-roll of horrific images, we come to fear what’s actually
159. 8:53very rare, instead of worrying about much more common, but less memorable ends like
160. 8:58car accidents, cancer, and heart failure.
161. 9:01Our thinking can also be swayed by framing, or how an issue is presented.
162. 9:05Imagine you’re considering climbing Everest or getting a nose job or eating a bowl of
163. 9:09raw blowfish.
164. 9:10I can frame the risks in different ways.
165. 9:12Telling you that you’ve got a 95 percent chance of survival sounds a lot different
166. 9:15than saying five out of a hundred people die doing this activity, though the information
167. 9:20is the same.
168. 9:21Our cognitive minds are capable of incredible intellectual feats and tremendous failures.
169. 9:27We can solve problems better than any organism on the planet, but given the chance, we can
170. 9:31also mess up a pretty simple judgment every day of the week.
171. 9:34But if we’re mindful of our capacity for error -- and if we honor our ingenuity and
172. 9:39intellect -- I think our ability to solve any problem is nearly infinite.
173. 9:43And that, gives me a lot of hope.
174. 9:45Seriously though where is my fish?
175. 9:46Today you learned how we use concepts, prototypes, and our mental sets to think and communicate,
176. 9:53and how algorithms, heuristics, and insight help us solve problems.
177. 9:57You also learned about how fixation, the availability heuristic, fear, overconfidence, and belief
178. 10:02perseverance can get in the way of good decision-making and thinking.
179. 10:06Thank you for watching, especially to our Subbable subscribers, who make this whole
180. 10:09channel possible.
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182. 10:14be animated into an upcoming episode, just go to Subbable.com/crashcourse.
183. 10:19This episode was written by Kathleen Yale, edited by Blake de Pastino, and our consultant
184. 10:23is Dr. Ranjit Bhagwat.
185. 10:24Our director and editor is Nicholas Jenkins, the script supervisor is Michael Aranda, who
186. 10:28is also our sound designer, and the graphics team is Thought Café.