what numbers dont tell you (correctly)
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decision making, leadership, managementTRANSCRIPT
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What Numbers Dont Tell You (Correctly)
Richard Pircher University of Applied Sciences bfi Vienna
richard-pircher.net
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A Quiz
Count how many times
the players wearing white
pass the ball
please dont talk to your neighbour
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGQmdoK_ZfY (second Video)
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Focus
To be able to focus on something is a valuable ability
To perceive all stimuli around us would be far too much
To focus on something means missing everything else
Numbers only may quantify what is noticed as important
(Most, Scholl, Cliffort & Simons, 2001 )
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Invisible Gorilla
Some people may know the first video with an invisible gorilla already
Do they realize the other surprising details which are new in the second video?
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The Monkey Business Illusion
Among those people who already knew the first video with the Gorilla only 17 % took notice of the other two events => they probably thought they knew the video already
Among those who didnt know the first video 29 % realized the curtain changing colour and the leaving player.
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The Monkey Business Illusion
When youre looking for a gorilla,
you often miss other unexpected events
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The Monkey Business Illusion
Prior experiences and knowledge
may be misleading
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Sensing the Future?
of our brains capacity is occupied with differentiating valuable from irrelevant information
For this task the brain uses expectations based on experiences from the past
May we be sure that nothing is missed which could be
important for the future?
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Change Blindness Blindness
The change blindness study
Most people firmly believe that they would notice such large changes
We tend to be blind to our own blindness
Thats a kind of change blindness blindness
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qb-gT6vDrmU&index=56&list=PL944828D6EF3E7530 (Levin et al. 2000, Simons / Rensink 2005)
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Change Blindness Blindness
We dont want to believe that we can be that easily manipulated
We want to believe in everything which confirms our current beliefs and which
flatters our ego
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Planning fallacy People tend to
underestimate the time, costs, and risks of future actions and to overestimate the benefits of their own tasks (optimistic bias)
overestimate the time needed as outside observers of somebody elses task (pessimistic bias)
This phenomenon occurs regardless of the individual's knowledge that past tasks of a similar nature have taken longer to complete than generally planned.
(Kahneman / Tversky 1979, Lovallo / Kahneman 2003)
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Loneliness feels cold
One group of test persons is asked to recall an experience of social exclusion within a larger test context
The other group is asked to recall an experience of social inclusion
With the pretext of a heating problem both groups were asked to estimate the room temperature
Those who recalled the social exclusion experienced a significantly lower room temperature than those who recalled an inclusion experience
(Zhong & Leonardelli, 2008, Bargh / Shalev, 2012)
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Emotional and social
contexts influence our perception and
judgment
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The Unconscious Rules
Everyday intuitions suggest full conscious control of behavior, but conscious thought has little or no impact on behavior.
In fact the unconscious strongly influences our behaviour
It is plausible that almost every human behavior comes from a mixture of conscious and unconscious processing
(Baumeister, Masicampo, & Vohs, 2011)
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Thinking Too Little Thinking Too Much
Thinking too little causes
mistakes, errors and
actions which contradict other decisions and actions
Thinking is a kind of mental test run.
Thinking too much leads to
a tunnel vision and narrow minded decisions
decisions which are easy to explain to others but are not consistent with our own feelings and preferences any more
(Ariely / Norton, 2011, Nordgren et al., 2011)
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Using the Best of Both Worlds
System 1 old and powerful
(unconscious, intuitive)
System 2 new and controllable
(conscious, reflective)
Automatic, affective Controlled
Effortless Effortful
Associative Deductive
Rapid, parallel Slow, serial
Process opaque Self-aware
Skilled action Rule application
Concrete, specific Neutral, abstract
Causal propensities Statistics
Prototypes Sets
e.g.: DRIVING A CAR ON A
WELL-KNOWN ROUTE
e.g.: FINDING THE BEST WAY TO
DRIVE ROUND ROAD WORKS
Adapted from Kahneman / Frederick 2002
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Using the Best of Both Worlds
Unconscious ressources may be integrated:
Sleep on decisions: during sleep the brain consolidates information and connects it with prior knowledge
Stop thinking about something and switch to non-cognitive activities: sports, nature, meditation, etc.
Invite contradictive and diverse perspectives to identify blind spots instead of favoring mainly affirmative oppinions, e.g. through critical people, customers, etc.
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The strengths of our unconscious resources
may be consciously integrated in everyday life
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Take-away Guidelines 1. Be aware that we usually focus on what we already
know. We overlook a lot which could be important for the future. Numbers only quantify what we already notice as being important.
2. Question current beliefs and the misleading power of your own ego. Knowledge may be distortive.
3. Use the best of both worlds: Consciousness and unconsciousness
4. Ask yourself the question: Am I thinking too little or am I thinking too much?
5. Use diverse and non-cognitive activities to enlarge perspectives and to identify blind spots
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Richard Pircher University of Applied Sciences bfi Vienna, Austria
[email protected] richard-pircher.net
Slides are available at de.slideshare.net/pircher
I would be glad to answer your questions and to
discuss the topic
Feel free to contact me!