Posts Tagged ‘effects’
These Principles are Not for problem solving: Just how people behave on Average
Posted by: adonis49 on: November 21, 2016
These Principles are Not for problem solving: Just how people behave on Average
Many articles and books have been published for every single one of these principles, effects and laws.
I stumbled on a term-paper that a student of mine submitted in 2002 for the course of Human Factors in Engineering and I said: Why not? It is a good topic to post
Most of these principles were formulated by psychology researchers and they are good guidelines of what to expect in pitfalls and erroneous judgement when designing for people usage.
These laws and principles cannot be classified as rules for solving problems as is commonly misunderstood in natural sciences.
Many of these principles were the results of experiments with failed hypothesis because they were not tightly controlled.
Basically, if you know how average people behave in your community, you can design for effective results
Consequently, the first critical phase in any project is to comprehend the idiosyncrasies of the particular community in order to design valid solutions
First, check the ones you have already heard of, or read about in your course works.
- Hawthorn Effect
- Placebo Effect
- Occam’s razor
- Peter principle
- Parkinson’s Law
- Murphy’s law
- Pareto Principle
- Rule of Redundant systems
- Zeigarnik Effect
- Contrast principle
- Cognitive Dissonance
- Perceptual Consistency
- Turnpike Effect
Actually, last year I read a book “How to think clear” and it developed on many of these biases and effects. I reviewed many of the chapters.
Hawthorn Effect
The motivated people have greater effect than the solution presented to resolve a problem.
In the mid 1930’s a vast experiment involved thousands of employees who were supposed to ignore that an experiment is taking place. It turned out that the employees got wind and overdid their best at work. An example of an experiment that was not very well controlled.
Placebo Effect
A harmless with No pharmacological effects may make sick people feeling better if they were told the medicine is part of the cure.
Apparently, placebo has positive effect even though the sick person was told that it is a harmless medicine. (Maybe the sick person doesn’t really believe what he was told?)
William of Occam’s razor
The explanation with the fewest assumptions is the correct alternative in most cases
Peter principle
Employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence. When a competent employee rises to a higher level of complexities then they fall back to an incompetent job where they are not positioned to fill.
Parkinson’s law:
Work expands to fill the time allotted to it: The procrastination effect.
Any work must be subdivided to last a definite time span so that the entire project is finished according to a timetable and on schedule.
Give a student a project that can be done within a few days and he will gladly leave it to the last minutes after a few months for the scheduled time for presentation.
Murphy’s law
If anything can go wrong, it will go wrong. We tend not to expect what we think is an unexpected event or behaviour.
Pareto Principle
A small fraction of people do most of the job. The wealthiest are a tiny fraction of the total population. A fraction of the items sold generate most of the profit or revenue.
Rule of Redundant systems
Every critical system requires a redundant backup system
Zeigarnik Effect
We prefer to have a closure on a task before starting another one. Handling simultaneous tasks is difficult for most people and they are upset when they are asked to interrupt a job in midstream in order to tend to another job.
Contrast principle
The last event in a stream of successive events is retained and valued more than any of the other events. If the latest person seemed nice, he is viewed as nicer than he is. A good suggestion offered after a series of bad suggestions feels better than it is.
Cognitive Dissonance
Hearing about a crime committed creates a dissonance in the belief system of morality and justice and the event that occurred.
If we believe that a certain event should not happen then we tend to find fault in the victim.
Perceptual Consistency
We tend to pigeon-hole people and circumstances into simple generalized entities.
Turnpike Effect
The availability of unforeseen utility of a resource or facility generates greater use than was predicted.
Improve the road condition of a side route and people will drive on it more frequently than expected.
Fallacies, Biases, Illusions, effects, trendencies, errors… and “The Art of Thinking Clear”
Posted by: adonis49 on: October 7, 2014
Fallacies, Biases, Illusions, effects, trendencies, errors… and “The Art of Thinking Clear”
By Rolf Dobelli
This book is a simple guide to “less irrational” behaviors and tendencies, as we get aware of the hundreds of biases that are ingrained in our behaviors.
I have reviewed two dozen of these 99 listed biases and added my comments.
“It isn’t what we know that gets in our way. It is what we believe” Physicist Harold Puthoff
“We’d rather be roughly right than precisely right” Lord Keynes
“Faced with the choice between changing our mind and proving there is no need to do so, everyone gets busy on the proof” (John Kenneth Galbraith)
1. Survivorship Bias
2. Swimmer’s body illusion
3. Clustering illusion
4. Social proof effect
5. Sunk cost effect
6. Reciprocity
7. Confirmation
8. Authority
9. Contrast effect
10. Availability
11. Getting worse before getting better fallacy
12. Story bias
13. In hindsight illusion
14. Overconfidence bias
15. Chauffeur knowledge
16. Illusion of control
17. Insensitive Super-Response tendency
18. Regression to mean fallacy
19. Outcome bias
20. Paradox of choice
21. Liking bias
22. Endowment effect
23. Coincidence fallacy
24. Group think effect
25. Neglect of Probability
26. Scarcity Error
27. Base-rate neglect
28. Gambler’s fallacy
29. The Anchor
30. Induction
31. Loss aversion
32. Social loafing
33. Exponential growth
34. Winner’s curse
35. Fundamental attribution error
36 False causality
37. Halo effect
38. Alternative path
39. Forecast illusion
40. Conjunction fallacy
41. Framing
42. Action bias
43. Omission bias
44. Self-serving
45. Hedonic treadmill
46. Sel-selection bia
47. Beginner’s luck
48. Cognitive dissonance
49. Hyperbolic discounting
50. Because Justification
51. Decision fatigue
52. Contagion bias
53. Problems with averages
54. Motivation crowding
55. Twaddle tendency
56. Will Roger phenomenon
57. Information bias
58. Effort justification
59. Law of small numbers
60. Expectations
61. Simple logic fallacy
62. Forer effect
63. Volunteer’s folly
64. Affect heuristic
65 Introspection illusion
66. Inability to close doors
67. Neomania
68. Sleeper effect
69. Alternative blindness
70. Social comparison
71. Primacy and recency effects
72. “Not invented here” syndrome
73. The Black Swan
74. Domain Dependence
75. False-Consensus
76. Falsification of History bias
77. In-group, out-group biases
78. Ambiguity aversion
79. Default, standard option effects
80. Fear of regret
81. Salience effect
82. House-Money effect
83. Procrastination
84. Envy vs jealousy
85. Personification
86. Illusion of paying attention
87. Planning fallacy
88. Zeigarnik effect
89. Illusion of skills
90. Feature=positive effect
91. Cherry picking tendency
92. Single cause fallacy
93 Intention to treat errors
94. News illusion
Note 1: As you read these 100 tendencies to commit errors of judgment, try to add other systematic biases to the list
Try to add a title or a short statement that succinctly describe the topic.
Note 2: The exigencies of living lead us to stick to most of our biases and fallacies. We tend to procrastinate acting on our well-intentioned decisions that could correct our ill-conceived methodology to run our life.
Note 3: To better comprehend these types of behavioral errors or shortcomings, the best way is to try various taxonomies (categorizing) for these biases, fallacies… that lead to errors
1. You may define these terms and delimit how they differ and sort them accordingly
2. You may sort them according to cognitive, social, evolutionary perspectives
3. Sort them according to your field of interest so that you rely on a shorter list when reviewing failed projects and erasing the biases that were taken care of.
4. Group them for correlation or seemingly contradictory behaviors