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What a Drunk Swiss Guy Can Teach You About Handling Criticism | Copyblogger

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on 2009-09-26 and saved by 5 people
- “You’re right. I’m a guest here. I get that. I wouldn’t want some foreigner coming into my home and telling me what to do. But that’s my sister. I have to take care of her.”
- get inside their drunk Swiss perspective and talk to them like people. If you do, you might be surprised at how few have the energy to remain mad.
- 5 more annotations...
- - I’m sorry for my part in arousing those feelings for you.
  - I’m sorry for my part in arousing those feelings for you.
    
    You are not responsible for every reaction that a reader draws from your words, but neither should you dismiss them
  - I wanted to rail at him, but instead, I explained that some of his assumptions were incorrect
  - Remember, you are the professional. You are the one putting yourself out there. Other readers watch to see how you respond to detractors. If you flip out, you will look like the jerk.
  - Responding to harsh criticism is like having only one bullet to hit a difficult target.
Benefit from blogging without spending tons of time | Penelope Trunk's Brazen Careerist

2hrs/wk
[Specialization is the goal, but be wary of too much or too early. If your specialty is marketing on Mars, you'll be the only person in your field, but you probably won't get paying gigs. Even a reasonable specialty can go awry if you limit yourself before you know enough.]
get known by blogging on a specific topic, so you can make yourself irreplaceable & can ask for flexibility at work.
you can show your potential by broadcasting your ideas.
your passion, commitment is evident & you become appealing.

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career on 2009-08-25 and saved by 2 people
- if you can't afford two hours a week for networking, your career is in trouble. But here are three more benefits to blogging — these are goals you should have for your career anyway, and they're goals you can reach by blogging only a handful of times a month
- pick a topic and stick with it. And just the act of doing that is good for you because specializing is good for your career. After all, you can't be known for something if you are not specializing in something. And once you are known for something you have a lot more leverage to get the kind of work you want to be doing.
- 4 more annotations...
- - if you specialize you are not so easily replaced, so you can ask for more flexibility at work.
  - With a blog, though, you show people your creativity. Got a lot of ideas? Good, because there are a lot of days in the week for you to fill on that blog. And instead of you running around the office complaining to people about your stifled potential, you can show people your potential by broadcasting your ideas.
  - the most appealing people are those who have passion and commitment.
  - if you are a blogger, and post at regular intervals, you don't need to tell people about your passion and commitment
Get your next mentor by being slightly annoying » Penelope Trunk's Brazen Careerist

contact tenaciously.
tap his vulnerabilities to make him help you.
be real not perfect so he can mentor you.
expect advice not money.

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mentee on 2009-08-25 and saved by 4 people
- Don’t be discouraged by lack of response.
- make him feel a little unstable and vulnerable. And then I launched into how he needs to help more
- 2 more annotations...
- - Be real. No one wants to mentor someone who is perfect.
  - Remember that good advice is harder to find than money.
5 Things to do when you're unemployed. Hint: It's not job hunting. » Penelope Trunk's Brazen Careerist

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to-do career humor on 2009-08-23 and saved by 3 people
- worked for free for my boyfriend’s company for a couple of hours a day. That way I didn’t actually have a gap in my resume; a resume doesn’t show part-time or full-time and it doesn’t show pay or no pay. So volunteer
- when people asked me why I left my job, I told them about how I gave myself time to fulfill lofty goals as a swing dancer.
- 4 more annotations...
- - Put your ideas out into the world and connect with people that way. This is why you want to be hired, right? For your ideas. So show them. The reason that people who blog have great careers is that bloggers are always thinking about issues in their industry. Show that side of yourself to people.
  - whether or not your company does well, you’ll be able to talk about it in an interview as a huge learning moment that will deflect from any problems at your last job. The company that never got out of your parent’s basement can sit on your resume as professionally as a stint in the Fortune 500. It’s all about how you write the bullet points: talk about accomplishments and learning.
  - you know what you’re aiming for, but you need to talk about it with everyone – parties, at the gym, on the phone with friends. When they ask how you’re doing, talk about what you’re doing like you are in the job interview
  - You control what you do with your time and you can make it useful. Talk about that. There is no reason to talk about why the last job didn’t work
Self Honesty - Knowing Is Better Than Not Knowing | World of Psychology

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starred decision on 2009-06-04
- You just have more power to make your situation better if you face it
- whole reason they are in counseling is because they can’t manage it the same way anymore. The old excuses and rationalizations aren’t enough to keep the emotional pain in check. Reality is trying come to the surface anyway, and yet they keep trying to stuff it down.
- 3 more annotations...
- - Trying to justify alcohol use will cause the same problems they came to counseling with. The only way to be free of this bondage is to face the reality of the addiction and make different choices.
  - check your expectations. Are they realistic? Do I have evidence that this situation will likely keep turning out the same each time? Is much of the solution out of my hands? Do I really want to create this much misery for myself trying to pretend or make this problem be something it can’t be? Am I harming a relationship because my
    
    expectations have been inflexible or unreasonable?
  - facing the truth of a difficult situation is a shorter-term pain than most people anticipate. It can hurt like a sucker punch, but then the best part comes. You get the chance to move forward with your life, leaving behind a clunky dirty piece of baggage that you’ve been dragging around behind you. As long as you keep trying to dress up that piece of baggage and keep it with you, it’s going to
    
    keep weighing you down. Call it out for what it is, dump it, and get on to the best part of life. Living with honesty.
Ben Casnocha: The Blog: When to Trust Your Gut

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decision on 2009-05-25
- On the other hand, if you're not sexually attracted to the candidate, you're not going to have a negative intuition on the person. It's neutral -- a non-issue. Any negative hunch you do have is probably going to be grounded in something meaningful or relevant.
Mind Hacks: The psychology of being scammed

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decision state books on 2009-05-17 and saved by 3 people
- offer look like a legitimate one being made by a reliable official institution or established reputable business.
- provoke intuitive reactions and reduce the motivation of people to process the content of the scam
- 9 more annotations...
- - impression that the offer is unique to the recipient
  - to make small steps of compliance to draw them in, and thereby cause victims to feel committed to continue sending money.
  - led to focus on the alleged big prize or reward in comparison to the relatively small
  - unduly undiscriminating about who they allow to persuade them.
  - knowledge can increase rather than decrease the risk of becoming a victim
  - more cognitive effort into analysing scam content than non-victims
  - people who fall for scams often have a feeling that it's dodgy
  - If it seems to good to be true, it probably is.
  - those things that we think make us resistant to scams (a keen analytical mind) are not what help us avoid being a victim.
Less Wrong: Striving to Accept

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decision on 2009-03-19
- I visualized a spread of probable worlds, in which - in some tiny fraction - a knife-wielding maniac had indeed chosen that moment to lurk behind the door; and I visualized the fact that my visualizing the knife-wielding maniac did not make him the tiniest bit more likely to be there - did not increase the total number of maniacs across the worlds. And that did cure me, and it was done; along with a good deal of other half-superstitions of the same pattern, like not thinking too loudly about other people in case they heard me.
- If you can't find that feeling of frustration at your own inability to accept the obvious, then you should back up and ask whether or not it really is obvious, before trying to make your mind do anything.
- 3 more annotations...
- - This is to be understood as a technique for not shooting off your own foot, not as a way of proving anything to anyone.
  - You shouldn't be trying to raise desperate enthusiasm for a belief - if it doesn't seem like a plain old reality that you need to accept, then you're using the wrong technique.
  - Strive to accept "X implies Y", not just "Y".
Less Wrong: Never Leave Your Room

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decision starred on 2009-03-19
- First, avoid exposure to any salient stimuli in the few minutes before making an important decision.
- try to make decisions in a neutral environment and then stick to them.
- 1 more annotations...
- - waiting a few minutes in a stimulus-free environment before a big decision might be a good idea.
Overcoming Bias: Newcomb's Problem and Regret of Rationality

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starred decision on 2009-03-18 and saved by 3 people
- one should two-box, and Omega is just rewarding agents with irrational dispositions. This dominant view goes by the name of "causal decision theory".
- But it is agreed even among causal decision theorists that if you have the power to precommit yourself to take one box, in Newcomb's Problem, then you should do so. If you can precommit yourself before Omega examines you; then you are directly causing box B to be filled.
- 18 more annotations...
- - if you build an AI that two-boxes on Newcomb's Problem, it will self-modify to one-box on Newcomb's Problem, if the AI considers in advance that it might face such a situation. Agents with free access to their own source code have access to a cheap method of precommitment.
  - Rational agents should WIN.
  - rationality - that you never end up envying someone else's mere choices. You might envy someone their genes, if Omega rewards genes, or if the genes give you a generally happier disposition. But Rachel, above, envies Irene her choice, and only her choice,
    irrespective of what algorithm Irene used to make it. Rachel wishes just that she had
    a disposition to choose differently.
    
    You shouldn't claim to be more rational than someone and simultaneously envy them their choice - only their choice. Just do the act you envy.
    
    I keep trying to say that rationality is the winning-Way, but causal decision theorists insist that taking both boxes is what really wins, because you can't possibly do better by leaving $1000 on the table... even though the single-boxers leave the experiment with more money. Be careful of this sort of argument, any time you find yourself defining the "winner" as someone other than the agent who is currently smiling from on top of a giant heap of utility.
  - thought experiments in which some agents start out with an advantage - but if the task is to, say, decide whether to jump off a cliff, you want to be careful not to define cliff-refraining agents as having an unfair prior advantage over cliff-jumping agents, by virtue of their unfair refusal to jump off cliffs. At this point you have covertly redefined "winning" as conformance to a particular ritual of cognition. Pay attention to the money!
  - causal decision theorists who believe that two-boxers are genuinely doing their best to win; versus someone who thinks that two-boxing is the reasonable or the rational thing to do, but that the reasonable move just happens to predictably lose, in this case.
  - Would you spend an extra hour thinking it through, if you were confident that, at the end of the hour, you would be able to convince yourself that box B was the rational choice? This too is a rather odd position to be in. Ordinarily, the work of rationality goes into figuring out which choice is the best - not finding a reason to believe that a particular choice is the best.
  - What if your daughter had a 90% fatal
    disease, and box A contained a serum with a 20% chance of curing her,
    and box B might contain a serum with a 95% chance of curing her? What
    if there was an asteroid rushing toward Earth, and box A contained an
    asteroid deflector that worked 10% of the time, and box B might contain
    an asteroid deflector that worked 100% of the time?
    
    Would you, at that point, find yourself tempted to make an unreasonable choice?
  - But Omega rewards people who choose to take only box B, regardless of which algorithm they use to arrive at this decision, and this is why I don't buy the charge that Omega is rewarding the irrational.
  - If the stake in box B was something you could not leave behind? Something overwhelmingly more important to you than being reasonable? If you absolutely had to win - really win, not just be defined as winning?
    
    Would you wish with all your power that the "reasonable" decision was to take only box B?
    
    Then maybe it's time to update your definition of reasonableness.
    
    Alleged rationalists should not find themselves envying the mere decisions of alleged nonrationalists, because your decision can be whatever you like. When you find yourself in a position like this, you shouldn't chide the other person for failing to conform to your concepts of reasonableness. You should realize you got the Way wrong.
    
    So, too, if you ever find yourself keeping separate track of the "reasonable" belief, versus the belief that seems likely to be actually true. Either you have misunderstood reasonableness, or your second intuition is just wrong.
    
    Now one can't simultaneously define "rationality" as the winning Way, and define "rationality" as Bayesian probability theory and decision theory. But it is the argument that I am putting forth, and the moral of my advice to Trust In Bayes, that the laws governing winning have indeed proven to be math. If it ever turns out that Bayes fails - receives systematically lower rewards on some problem, relative to a superior alternative, in virtue of its mere decisions - then Bayes has to go out the window. "Rationality" is just the label I use for my beliefs about the winning Way - the Way of the agent smiling from on top of the giant heap of utility. Currently, that label refers to Bayescraft.
  - We can choose whatever reasoning algorithm we like, and will be rewarded or punished only according to that algorithm's choices, with no other dependency - Omega just cares where we go, not how we got there.
  - It is precisely the notion that Nature does not care about our algorithm, which frees us up to pursue the winning Way - without attachment to any particular ritual of cognition, apart from our belief that it wins. Every rule is up for grabs, except the rule of winning.
  - You shouldn't find yourself distinguishing the winning choice from the reasonable choice. Nor should you find yourself distinguishing the reasonable belief from the belief that is most likely to be true.
    
    That is why I use the word "rational" to denote my beliefs about accuracy and winning - not to denote verbal reasoning, or strategies which yield certain success, or that which is logically provable, or that which is publicly demonstrable, or that which is reasonable.
    
    As Miyamoto Musashi said:
    "The primary thing when you take a sword in your hands is your
    intention to cut the enemy, whatever the means. Whenever you parry,
    hit,
    spring, strike or touch the enemy's cutting sword, you must cut the
    enemy
    in the same movement. It is essential to attain this. If you think only
    of
    hitting, springing, striking or touching the enemy, you will not be
    able actually
    to cut him."
  - spirit of winning,
    whatever the weapon and whatever its size.
  - So I just have to figure out how to optimize for that morality. You can't tell me, first, that above all I must conform to a particular ritual of cognition, and then that, if I conform to that ritual, I must change my morality to avoid being Dutch-booked. Toss out the losing ritual; don't change the definition of winning. That's like deciding to prefer $1000 to $1,000,000 so that Newcomb's Problem doesn't make your preferred ritual of cognition look bad.
  - to take only one box, you must somehow believe that your choice can affect whether box B is empty or full - and that's unreasonable! Omega has already left! It's physically impossible!"
  - Unreasonable? I am a rationalist: what do I care about being unreasonable? I don't have to conform to a particular ritual of cognition.
  - The point is not to have an elegant theory of winning - the point is to win
  - Rather than starting with a concept of what is the reasonable decision, and then asking whether "reasonable" agents leave with a lot of money, start by looking at the agents who leave with a lot of money, develop a theory of which agents tend to leave with the most money, and from this theory, try to figure out what is "reasonable". "Reasonable" may just refer to decisions in conformance with our current ritual of cognition - what else would determine whether something seems "reasonable" or not?
Overcoming Bias: Taboo Your Words

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starred decision think on 2009-03-17
- Why
  wouldn't you just say "An artificial group conflict in which you use a
  long wooden cylinder to whack a thrown spheroid, and then run between
  four safe positions"?
- The illusion of unity across religions can be dispelled by making the
  term "God" taboo, and asking them to say what it is they believe in; or
  making the word "faith" taboo, and asking them why they believe it.
  Though mostly they won't be able to answer at all, because it is mostly
  profession in the first place, and you cannot cognitively zoom in on an audio recording.
- 1 more annotations...
- - When you find yourself in philosophical difficulties, the first line
    of defense is not to define your problematic terms, but to see whether you
    can think without using those terms at all. Or any of their short synonyms. And be careful not to let yourself invent a new word to use instead. Describe outward observables and interior mechanisms; don't use a single handle, whatever that handle may be.
Overcoming Bias: Near-Far Like Drunk Darts?

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starred decision on 2009-03-01
- trust your emotions in situations where you have had a lot of experience
- In novel situations, on the other hand, such as when playing a new game or considering a risk to your health, it is a good idea to take a step back and do the maths, even though your emotional brain will tell you it knows better
- 1 more annotations...
- - have developed most of their expertise while considering events in far mode, they might give better advice when in far than near mode
Scott H Young » Why Good Deeds and Money Don't Mix

social norm mode drives performance thr feeling of goodwill/satisfaction/personal pride. [nepotism,popularity contests over intelligence,unfair transactions are the downsides]. so pick this to spend your off hours.

market norm mode makes you more goal oreinted but you tend to focus on money you make [shady business dealings, moving workers overseas, ruthlees competition are the downsides] & forget enjoying the flow from learning,relatedness,higher meaning.

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decision starred on 2009-08-25
- When you volunteer, you are using social norms. In this game, time you donate is not exchanged directly for money. Instead, it is exchanged for goodwill from people around you, a feeling of satisfaction and personal pride
- the social group performed fairly high for nothing, the performance of those working for cash was largely based on how much they were paid
- 5 more annotations...
- - social norms can work, they also have downsides. Nepotism, popularity contests and unfair transactions are also a side-effect.
  - The key isn’t picking one set of norms as being better than another, but understanding how things change depending on which set of norms you operate in.
  - The enjoyment for the task goes down, and the amount of money becomes more important to your happiness than other factors like learning new things, making connections and accomplishing something meaningful.
  - when picking your side activities. If you know you’ll enjoy things more when there is no direct payment, you can factor that into deciding how to spend your off hours.
  - Fully understanding both sides, and the line that separates them, is the key to making sure you aren’t abused by the other side.
    
    I see people who complain about shady business dealing, moving workers overseas or what they view as ruthless competition. Perhaps part of the problem is that these people don’t fully understand the market norms that are being played in that situation. On the opposite side, I’m sure you know people who complain about the lack of equality, how the popular often outrank the intelligent, or how fair deals are pushed aside for unfair reasons. Perhaps the problem here is that these people don’t fully understand the social norms being used.
Overcoming Bias: The Importance of Saying "Oops"

as many oops as possible & as soon as possible.

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to-do decision starred on 2009-01-23
- realizing as little as possible of my mistake on each occasion, admitting failure only in small tolerable nibbles.
- There is a powerful advantage to admitting you have made a large mistake.
- 3 more annotations...
- - It is important to have the watershed moment, the moment of humbling realization. To acknowledge a fundamental problem, not divide it into palatable bite-size mistakes.
  - But if you do make an error, better by far to see it all at once.
  - What they could fix in one fell swoop voluntarily, they transform into tiny local patches they must be argued into. Never do they say, after confessing one mistake, I've been a fool.
Study Hacks » Blog Archive » 5 Thought Experiments That Might Change Your Life

my thought exp: [carrot & stick]
if you stay empty you'll attract those whom you cant relate with.
bill & melinda grades will offer research scholarships for your idea but to people with persisting/consistent academic track record.
eliezer will give you an acceptance letter for your quest for rationality only if you continously attempt towards not giving up on improving attitude & habits.

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starred to-do decision on 2009-01-23 and saved by 2 people
Overcoming Bias: Terminal Values and Instrumental Values

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starred decision think on 2009-01-20
- I rarely notice people losing track of plans they devised themselves.
- conditional probability function that maps each action onto a probability distribution over outcomes
  (a probability being representable as a real number between 0 and 1)
- 26 more annotations...
- - But I've also noticed that when people begin explicitly talking about goal systems instead of just wanting things, mentioning "goals" instead of using them, they oft become confused.
  - The "expected utility" of an action equals the sum, over all outcomes, of the
    utility of that outcome times the conditional probability of that
    outcome given that action.
  - Humans are experts at planning, not experts on planning, or there'd be a lot more AI developers
  - Pick an action whose "expected utility" is maximal
  - It is not an efficient way to compute decisions in the real world.
    
    Suppose, for example, that you need a sequence of acts to carry out a plan?
  - "Shoot my own foot off", a human planner will decide this is a bad idea generally - eliminate all sequences beginning with this action. But we've flattened this structure out of our representation.
  - expected utility, which is something that actions have; and utility, which is something that outcomes have.
  - "Instrumental values" are desirable strictly conditional on their anticipated consequences. "I want to administer penicillin
  - Utilities must be over Outcomes consisting of your state of mind. If this were true, your intelligence would operate as an engine to steer the future into regions where you were happy Future states would be distinguished only by your state of mind; you would be indifferent between any two futures in which you had the same state of mind.
    
    And you would, indeed, be rather unlikely to sacrifice your own life to save another.
  - "Terminal values" are desirable without conditioning on other consequences: "I want to save my sister's life" has nothing to do with your anticipating whether she'll get injected with penicillin after that.
  - "The feeling of importance she attached to that decision." This is a drastic jump that should make us leap out of our chairs in indignation. Trying to convert an Expected_Utility into a Utility would cause an outright error in our programming language. But in English it all sounds the same.
  - The choices of our simple decision system are those with highest Expected Utility, but this doesn't say anything whatsoever about where it steers the future. It doesn't say anything about the utilities the decider assigns, or which real-world outcomes are likely to happen
  - physical cause of a physical action is a cognitive state, in our ideal decider an Expected_Utility, and this expected utility is calculated by evaluating
    a utility function over imagined consequences.
  - To save your son's life, you must imagine the event of your son's life being saved, and this imagination is not the event itself.
  - Recipes make poor cake when you grind them up and toss them in the batter.
  - Outcomes don't lead to Outcomes, only Actions lead to Outcomes.
  - B would have "instrumental value" because it led to C. C itself might be terminally valued - a term in the utility function over the total outcome. Or C might just be an instrumental value, a node that was not directly valued by the utility function.
  - list of possible outcomes
  - Instrumental value is a "leaky abstraction", as we programmers say; you sometimes have to toss away the cached value and compute out the actual expected utility. Part of being efficient without being suicidal is noticing when convenient shortcuts break down.
  - once you say B is usually good because it leads to C, you've committed yourself to always try for B even in the absence of C.
  - list of possible actions
  - Change the beliefs of fact - change the conditional probability function that associates actions to believed consequences - and the instrumental values will change in unison.
  - utility function that maps each outcome onto a utility
    (a utility being representable as a real number between negative and positive infinity)
  - If your debating opponent says that banning guns will lead to lower crime, and you say that banning guns lead to higher crime, then you agree about a superior instrumental value (crime is bad), but you disagree about which intermediate events lead to which consequences.
  - This important distinction often gets flushed down the toilet in angry arguments. People with factual disagreements and shared values, each decide that their debating opponents must be sociopaths.
  - I fear the human brain does not strongly type the distinction between terminal moral beliefs and instrumental moral beliefs.
Overcoming Bias: Sympathetic Minds

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starred feel decision on 2009-01-20
- "Mirror neurons" are neurons that are active both when performing an action and observing the same action - for example, a neuron that fires when you hold up a finger or see someone else holding up a finger.
- what your relatives want probably has something to do with your relatives' reproductive success - this being an explanation for the selection pressure, of course, not a conscious belief.
- 6 more annotations...
- - Who is the most formidable, among the human kind? The strongest? The
    smartest? More often than either of these, I think, it is the one who
    can call upon the most friends.
  - if you smile when designated friends smile.
    And what kind of organism will avoid making its friends angry at it, in full generality? One that winces when they wince.
  - sympathy is on by default.
  - "sympathy" in front of even "boredom"
  - they might keep them for calculated fear of reprisal.
  - They would never see us as anything but means to an end. They would never shed a tear for us, nor smile for our joys. And the others of their own kind would receive no different consideration, nor have any sense that they were missing something important thereby.
bookoutlines / Predictably Irrational

relative comparisions, anchoring, privelage-work -------[question your repeated behaviours, pay attention to your first decision]
loss averse in normal transactions but value free more immensely since no visible loss.
willing to workhard for free/nonmonetary gift[social norm] but moderately to high pay[market norm].
market frame of mind -selfish,selfreliant,alone.
market norms drive out social norms & takes longer time/rare to reestablish social norms.
maintain social norms under all circumstances since take personal offence.
social norms are cheaper & more effective than money to motivate people to pitch in.
during a state of arousal promises are held up.
imposed divided deadlines improved performance. admit weakness to be in a better position to utilize tools for precommitment. use appointment/announce for accountability.
not to forget -by a refundable penalty / predictable & easy procedure.
to counteract sunk costs view all transactions as non-owner.
consciously choose to close doors that suck our energy/commitments to stop distractions from main objectives.
expectations changing our sensory experience[even words/images/brand/appearance] beforehand mould our opinions & we even follow through - hence presenting facts without revealing delegated actions help recognize truth without prejudices.
price effects efficacy assumption.
when tempted to cheat, high/low risk of getting caught doesnt influence but more by our ability to rationalize the cheating.
we dont consider little transgressions as dishonesty.we cheat easily on non-monetary things.
we are more honest when we sign a moral commitment.
plan out before & stick to it for personal utility to avoid swaying to what others choose to gain reputational utility.

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decision starred books on 2009-01-19 and saved by 44 people
- We always seek to draw comparisons. Thus, given three choices, A, B (very distinct, but equally as attractive as A), and A- (similar to A, but inferior), we will almost always choose A, because it is clearly superior to A-.
- We always seek to draw comparisons. Thus, given three choices, A, B (very distinct, but equally as attractive as A), and A- (similar to A, but inferior), we will almost always choose A, because it is clearly superior to A-.
- 69 more annotations...
- - When contemplating the purchase of a $25 pen, the majority of subjects would drive to another store 15 minutes away to save $7
    When contemplating the purchase of a $455 suit, the majority of subjects would not drive to another store 15 minutes away to save $7
  - When contemplating the purchase of a $455 suit, the majority of subjects would not drive to another store 15 minutes away to save $7
  - Fallacy of Supply and Demand
    
    Anchoring has a major long-term effect on our willingness to pay.
  - with black pearls next to diamonds, rubies, and emeralds. Soon, black pearls were considered precious.
  - consider whether or not they would pay that amount for certain items. Then they bid on those items.
    For every product, those with a 80-99 SSN were willing to pay more than those with a 00-19 SSN...by nearly 3X.
  - who move to a new city remain anchored to the prices they paid in their previous city.
  - Herding: Assuming that something is good (or bad) on the basis of other people's previous behavior
  - privilege costs them considerable money, but if they were offered wages for the service, that would turn it into work, and then they would resign."
  - train yourself to question your repeated behaviors. You should also pay particular attention to the first decision in a long stream of decisions.
  - supply and demand are not independent; supply-side variables like MSRP can impact willingness to pay. Price "memory" can also have a major impact.
  - normal transactions, we consider both upside and downside. But when something is free, we forget about the downside.
    "Free" makes us perceive what is being offered as immensely more valuable than it really is
    Humans are loss-averse; when considering a normal purchase, loss-aversion comes into play
    But when an item is free, there is no visible possibility of loss
  - People will wait in line for absurdly long times to get something for free.
    Free is one of the most powerful ways to trigger behavior
  - Social norms such as reciprocity are warm and fuzzy, with no explicit quid pro quo
  - Participants worked harder under non-monetary social norms
  - Market norms drive out social norms.
  - They reacted to explicitly priced gifts in exactly the same way they reacted to cash.
  - "People are willing to work free, and they are willing to work for a reasonable wage, but offer them just a small payment and they will walk away."
  - Small gifts don't constitute a market norm, and keep things in the social realm
  - They reacted to explicitly priced gifts in exactly the same way they reacted to cash.
  - thinking about money puts one in a market frame of mind. Subjects were:
    More selfish and self-reliant
    Wanted to spend more time alone
    Were more likely to select individual tasks rather than those that required teamwork
    Chose to sit farther away from others
  - market frame of mind. Subjects were:
    More selfish and self-reliant
    Wanted to spend more time alone
    Were more likely to select individual tasks rather than those that required teamwork
    Chose to sit farther away from others
  - social relationships are not easy to reestablish. Once a social norm is trumped by a market norm, it will rarely return.
  - Imposing a fine inadvertently replaced social norms with market norms. Parents decided to since they were being fined, they could decide whether or not to be late, and frequently chose to be late.
  - Rather than reverting to social norms, parents now concluded that there was no penalty for tardiness.
  - If you want a social relationship, go for it, but remember that you have to maintain it under all circumstances.
  - If you think you need to play rough, don't waste money making your company the fuzzy feel-good choice. State what you give and what you expect in return--it's just business.
  - take personal offense when a relationship framed as a social exchange turns out to be a market one.
  - If corporations started thinking in terms of social nroms, they would realize that these norms build loyalty and--more important--make people want to extend themselves to the degree that corporations need today: to be flexible, concerned, and willing to pitch in.
  - If you want a social relationship, go for it, but remember that you have to maintain it under all circumstances
  - It's the social norms--pride in their profession and a sense of duty--that will motivate them to give up their lives and health.
  - Money, as it turns out, is very often the most expensive way to motivate people. Social norms are not only cheaper, but often more effective as well.
  - Someone may promise to just say no, but that promise is less likely to hold up during a state of arousal
  - The third group was directed to turn their papers in on the 4th, 8th, and 12th weeks.
    The results?
    Group 3 (imposed deadlines) got the best grades. Group 2 (no deadlines) got the worst grades, and Group 1 (self-selected deadlines) finished in the middle.
  - almost everyone has problems with procrastination, those who recognize and admit their weakness are in a better position to utilize available tools for precommitment and by doing so, help themselves overcome it.
  - if we don't have the will to exercise regularly alone, we can make an appointment to exercise in the company of our friends. These are tools that we can commit to in advance, and they may help us be the kind of people we want to be.
  - Charge a $100 deposit, refundable when the patient shows up on time rather than procrastinating.
  - Repackage procedures so that they are predictable and easily done.
  - Why not make comprehensive physicals simple? Then layer in a financial penalty for missing them.
  - "endowment effect" means that when we own something, we begin to value it more than other people do.
  - We focus on what we might lose, rather than what we might gain
  - We assume that other people will see the transaction from the same perspective as we do
  - The more work you put into something, the more ownership you begin to feel for it
  - We can begin to feel onwership even before we own something (The "eBay effect")
    This is why trials and money-back guarantees work so well!
  - To counteract the endowment effect, try to view all transactions as a non-owner.
  - "What we need to do is to consciously start closing some of our doors....We ought to shut them because they draw energy and commitment from the doors that should be left open--and because they drive us crazy.
  - When we focus on the similarities and minor differences between two things, we fail to take into account the consequences of not deciding. Flip a coin and move on
  - If you tell people up front that something might be diststeful, the odds are good they'll end up agreeing with you--because of their expectations.
  - If the knowledge merely informs us, whether you found out about the vinegar before or after the tasting should be irrelevant
  - if the knowledge actually reshapes sensory experiences, being told beforehand would have a radically different effect.
  - People who were told afterwards about the vinegar liked the beer just as much as those who weren't aware of the vinegar at all. In other words, knowledge affected the sensory experience.
    And people followed through on their opinion
  - use exotic descriptions to improve the perceived taste
  - arrange it artistically on fancy
  - brand was able enhance activity in the brain's pleasure center, actually changing the experience
  - Not only do we react differently based on stereotypes of others, we react differently based on stereotypes about ourselves
  - A first group was asked questions related to their gender, then given a math test. A second group was asked questions related to their race, then given a math test.
    The second group did better
  - The polite word group waited 9.3 minutes before they interrupted.
    The rude word group waited only 5.5 minutes
  - "ancient." These people walked more slowly
  - presenting the facts, but not revealing which party took which actions) might help people better recognize the truth.
  - price has an impact on efficacy.
  - The effect declined when subjects were asked to stop and reflect on the relationship between price and quality. They were far less likely to assume that discounted drinks were less effective.
  - Given the opportunity, many honest people will cheat
  - Once tempted to cheat, students didn't seem to be influenced by the risk of getting caught; even when we have no chance of getting caught, we still don't become wildly dishonest.
  - For little transgressions like taking a single pen, we don't even consider how these actions would reflect on our honesty.
  - This indicated that it was not the Commandments themselves that encouraged honesty, but the mere contemplation of a moral benchmark of some kind."
    Perhaps we can have people sign secular statements--similar to a professional oath--to remind us of our commitment to honesty.
  - Cheating is a lot easier when it's a step removed from money
  - Overall, cheating is not limited by risk; it is limited by our ability to rationalize the cheating to ourselves.
  - .People, particularly those with a high need for uniqueness, may sacrifice personal utility in order to gain reputational utility
  - Plan out your order before your waiter approaches, and stick to it. Don't be swayed by what other people choose.
  - Our irrational behaviors are neither random nor senseless--they are systematic and predictable
Overcoming Bias: Getting Nearer

www.overcomingbias.com/...getting-nearer.html - Preview

decision on 2009-01-18
- "Visualize!" or "Reason by simulation, not by analogy!" or "Use causal models, not similarity groups!" And those who ignored this principle seemed easy prey to blind enthusiasms, wherein one says that A is good because it is like B which is also good, and the like.
- Use causal models, not similarity groups!" And those who ignored this principle seemed easy prey to blind enthusiasms, wherein one says that A is good because it is like B which is also good, and the like.
- 3 more annotations...
- - when did projects like this finish last time?" were much more accurate and much less optimistic than people who tried to visualize the when, where, and how of their projects. And this didn't seem to fit very well with my injunction to "Visualize!"
  - When you're thinking using very abstract categories - rough classes low on computing power - about things distant from you, then you're also - if Robin's hypothesis is correct - more subject to ideological bias.
  - Far thinking is casual - that's the most frustrating aspect about trying to argue
Overcoming Bias: A Tale Of Two Tradeoffs

for real high probable/events near in space or time/trend deviations - think on making a decision for getting things done/how to do using complex details requiring mental strain giving insights.

for abstract/ low probable/distant /trend following/ our identity values, group/others attitude goals now – think on forming an image by making a effortless sparse hypothesis on why to do.

www.overcomingbias.com/...a-tale-of-two-tradeoffs.html - Preview

decision think starred to-do on 2009-08-25 and saved by 4 people
- The first tradeoff is that social minds must both make good decisions, and present good images to others.
- decision-image tradeoff by context,
- 10 more annotations...
- - Detailed representations tend to give more insight, but require more mental resources.
  - sparse representations require fewer resources, and make it easier to abstractly compare things to each other.
  - use more detail when what they model is closer to you in space and time, and closer to you in your social world
  - more detail for real events over hypothetical ones, for high over low probability events, for trend deviations over trend following, and for thinking about how to do something over why to do it.
  - A social mind would also want such consistency when sparse and detail tasks had the same tradeoffs between decisions and images. But when these tradeoffs differ, inconsistency can be more attractive.
  - Social image matters more, relative to decision consequences, for opinions about what I should do in the distant future, or for what they or "we" should do now.
  - more about my basic goals than about how exactly I achieve them, and they care especially about my attitudes toward them.
  - sparse estimates to better achieve a good image, while detail estimates better achieve good decisions.
  - all near thinking tends to evoke other near thinking, while all far thinking tends to evoke other far thinking.
  - Near thinking better helps us work out complex details of how to actually get things done, while far thinking better presents our identity and values to others.

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Ambika K

162 items | 5 visits

Updated on 2009-09-25
Created on 2009-08-22

Category: Cultures & Community

collaboration communication mentee attitude decision relate

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