People make a variety of mistakes for a variety of different reasons. This book attempts to explain those reasons in the hopes that we can possibly avoid them.
People generally don't remember names because of the lack of meaning. However, people do remember faces. There have been over 200 convicted criminals released because they were found innocent by DNA evidence, and 77% of them were identified by the eyewitnesses.
Humans can make decisions based on things we do not notice or see. For example, strippers earn more according to where they are in their fertility cycle. Also colors, such as black, have an impact on how we make a decision. Finally people generally believe that one should not change answers on a test from the first answer, even though this is proven to be incorrect, and additionally people regret changing these answers more so than not changing them.
Humans recall experiences of their actions more favorably than what actually happens. Disclosing bias does not do anything to eliminate the effects of that bias, and sometimes even makes the result worse. Several examples of how people do not remember their role in events are examined, most notably test scores and John Dean's role in Watergate.
People are terrible at "multi-tasking," which is a myth anyways. In spite of this fact, cars are becoming increasingly distracting. Distraction caused 78% of all car accidents with a camera in the car, and 65% of all near accidents.
Our frame of mind, or frame of reference, is a key part in our interactions. For example, the first offer in negotiations, such as the listing price of a house, becomes the anchor, or frame of reference, for all future offers. Also, we don't notice when grocery stores charge more for non-sale items after advertising a sale.
Humans tend to not notice the finer details when doing something that is routine to them or that they've done many times before. As a result, newspapers are constantly printing mistakes, and music sight readers will miss errors in the notes. Also, the book provides an example of a woman hanging herself in her tree on Halloween, and people not noticing because they thought it was a decoration.
People remember things as much "cleaner" than they were in reality. For example, people remember rivers, states, streets, etc as much straighter than they really are. Also, humans will alter stories so they make sense in their mind, even to great lengths. Finally, how much we remember is greatly limited, and we also will believe our own outright fibs if it fits the impression in our own mind.
The main difference between men and women is the level of confidence. Men are more confident in themselves, which leads to better navigation, debugging, and social skills. Men will over estimate how well they did, why women will under estimate their performance. The role of tinkering and exploring as children can lead to these results.
People are incredibly over confident. This is displayed in confidence tests, gym memberships, and other tests of one's skill. Information overload helps confidence, but doesn't affect outcomes.
We don't read instructions. We'd rather just do it our own way. Experts are classified as such because they spend thousands upon thousands of hours practicing. Cognitive maps are a key way animals solve problems, as we're always looking for the shortest path to "get the cheese."
Objects are created with constraints and affordances that limit or cue proper use. If objects are not properly constrained or given the proper affordances, serious errors can occur. For example, herapin overdoses due to too many similarities in the labels have affected thousands, including Dennis Quaid and his family. The aviation industry is much better at eliminating these types of errors than the medical field because of better naming and differing attitudes towards accepting advice.
Millions of people move out to California every year because they believe they will be happier, but it turns out that the things we focus on tend to not make us as happy as we would expect. Handicapped people are generally very satisified with their life, but most people wouldn't expect that. Finality allows for adaptation, while the option for a "grass is greener" scenario can hamper happiness.
Discussion:
I really liked this book. I know I make a lot of the same mistakes listed in the book without even thinking about it. I really liked how the author used a lot of specific "real-world" examples to demonstrate his points, rather than just saying that such-and-such mistake is common, ala Donald Norman. A lot of the things the author classifies as mistakes, I would never have thought of as mistakes, such as over confidence. I understand how it can lead to mistakes, but I feel now that it can be a mistake in and of itself. Also, this book really demonstrates how inter-related all aspects of our lives and interactions can be. I liked how he showed that people believe themselves to be better looking and more accurate than they really are. It made me try to evaluate myself a little more objectively. Lastly, I really try to avoid doing anything in my car while I'm driving now because of this book. Overall, I really liked this book and would recommend it in the future.
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