BS Story
“Is it the other person’s fault, or is my way of looking at things wrong?”
How many times did you ask yourself that?
To answer this question, which is very much about our distorted lenses, is to write down your decisions. Just like in the behavioral science area: hypothesizing, why you think about something that it is or isn’t, tracking progress, and analyzing the results.
In our case, we were tracking behavioral patterns.
How do I assess if the problem is with ME:
I have similar approaches with different people that bring me the same results.
I get the same feedback from different people regarding the same topic.
E.g., For the first time when I started to deliver workshops as a trainer, I got feedback that I was too theoretical. I was annoyed by that. At that time, I didn’t get what people wanted to say about being too academic. They needed more practice.
How do I assess if the problem is with OTHERS:
If analyzing my behavior and looking at my decisions, I see that I did well, then the issue is with that person, not with me.
If the feedback I get is just some random opinions out of context, then again is about that person, not me; I dismiss the ”advice.”
If I observe her interest in the matter, meaning that giving me advice has something to gain, I dismiss the ”suggestion.”
Sometimes you need an outsider to draw relevant conclusions, especially if you don’t accept acknowledging your mistakes.
Tips:
Use these guidelines to asses if your thinking is biased or the other person has distorted lenses.
Make your life better
Here’s a super helpful tip on how to learn from Katy Milkman, author of How to Change:
Emulate. See how your colleague, neighbor, mentor, etc., is doing and doing the same.
I do this with my friends, partners, and mentors. I learn much faster persuasion, business, and social skills.
Studies have shown that people learn much better when they do it than when they take advice.
I always put the participants to practice after I tell them a piece of theory.
Tips:
You learn faster when you do what X does than when you listen to X’s advice.
Look around and see how other people do what you are trying to learn.
Test and refine your method.
Nudge your happiness
How much happy do you want to be? We don’t have enough happiness, for sure.
How can you get more? Change your perspective. Science says that focusing on something else that brings us happiness is the solution (see Paul Dolan).
Practical advice on how to change your perspective.
a) Ask yourself how you will feel in a few months if you make decision X.
b) Ask a friend how they see things. If you have friends like me, a quick shower of advice will wake you up. :)
c) Put the magnifying glass on something else; as D. Kahneman says, when we put the magnifying glass on, the things look very significant. If we ZOOM OUT, things will look different.
d) A mental trick from sports psychology: you must come up with something positive about yourself (your situation) for every negative thing.
Biases
The Endowment Effect
The Endowment Effect happens when we value something already in our possession much higher than it is worth. If someone else offers us the same object that wasn’t before in our possession, we will evaluate it more objectively.
Here it’s a short video.
Tip: if you want to see the video much faster, change the view speed from 1x to 1.25x or 1.5x from the settings. I do this all the time.
The second part of this effect is related to our ideas. Since I work with different teams as a Behavioral Designer and Corporate Trainer, I observe how people fall in love with their ideas and get defensive.
”This may not work because the research tells us otherwise,” I used to say in some situations. With few exceptions, the person gets offended. They get attached to their idea and take them personally. (You too?)
Tip:
If this happens to you, remember: it is not about you. It’s about your idea that may not work or is just incomplete or another reason. Make the difference between you, as a person, and your thoughts. It is not the same.
Inspiration from Behavioral Economics
Inequity on animals
Do you think humans are the only one who gets angry over injustice? This is not the case. Many experiments show that some animals have moral elements too.
Frans de Waal is a primatologist who has studied animals’ behavior for a long. He has some beautiful books about the emotions of animals. One of the most known books is The Bonobo and the Atheist.
Look at this monkey getting angry because the other monkey receives something different than it does. You will laugh.
See you the next time ;)