Cognition - How Your Mind Can Amaze and Betray You: Crash Course Psychology #15

00:02

Why do smart people make dumb decisions?

00:04

Why do conspiracy theorists think that we didn’t land on the moon or that Hillary

00:08

Clinton is a space alien?

00:09

And why won’t Bernice admit that the new Superman movie just isn’t very good?

00:13

We’ve talked about cognition before.

00:15

We usually refer to it as the process that we use to think and solve crossword puzzles

00:19

and stuff.

00:20

But really, cognition involves knowing, remembering, understanding, communicating, and to a certain

00:26

extent, learning.

00:27

And as truly wonderful as our brains are, we can be spectacularly bad at ALL of these

00:32

things.

00:33

We used to think our cognition worked like a computer -- logically processing information.

00:37

But that cabbage-sized chunk of pink, wet brain matter in your skull can do a lot more

00:41

than math, and the things that it does are certainly not always logical.

00:45

Many experts argue that it’s cognition that makes us truly human, and that everything

00:50

that comes with it -- our preferences, prejudices, fears, and intuitions -- are what make us

00:55

the individuals that we are.

00:57

We’re not the only animals that show some evidence of cognition, of course: Chimps and

01:00

gorillas exhibit insight and planning; crows use tools; elephants teach each other.

01:05

But our capacity as humans to figure stuff out is matched only by our ability to totally

01:10

misjudge stuff.

01:12

As prone as we are to brilliance and insight, we’re equally likely to succumb to irrational

01:17

thinking and false intuition.

01:18

So, to borrow a riff from Rene Descartes, you think, therefore you are.

01:23

Which means you’re brilliant a lot of the time.

01:27

And sometimes, you’re just going to look stupid.

01:38

[INTRO]

01:39

We all want to make sense of the world.

01:41

And one of the major ways our cognition allows us do that is by forming concepts -- mental

01:46

groupings of similar objects, people, ideas, or events.

01:49

We like to lump things together.

01:51

Concepts simplify our thinking in such a fundamental way that we usually don’t have to stop and

01:55

think about using them, they’re just there.

01:57

And yet without concepts, we’d need a unique name for everything.

02:01

You couldn’t just ask me to shake the anglerfish -- because there’d be no concept of shake

02:06

or fish, let alone stuffed, blue anglerfish.

02:09

And if I told you I was devastated that I lost my anglerfish -- which I probably would

02:13

be -- I’d also have to explain my emotions, their intensities, even the words themselves

02:18

that I had to use.

02:19

So basically, without concepts, no one would ever get anything done.

02:24

We’d all be like a bunch of ents taking all morning to say “Hey, what’s up?”

02:28

We often organize our concepts by forming prototypes--mental images or pinnacle examples

02:34

of a certain thing.

02:35

For example, if I say “bird”--the general shape of a songbird probably pops into your

02:39

head before like, a penguin or chicken or emu, because robins and cardinals more closely

02:44

resemble our bird prototype.

02:45

Still, if I show you a picture of some crazy creature you’ve never seen before, and you

02:49

note that it has feathers and a beak, you’ll probably file it under the bird category because

02:53

it more closely resembles your concept of bird than your concept of rodent or overcoat

02:58

or footstool.

03:00

Concepts and prototypes speed up our thinking, but they also can box in our thinking, and

03:05

lead to prejudice if we see something that doesn’t fit our prototypes.

03:08

A hundred years ago the sight of a female doctor might have caused some heads to explode,

03:12

because in peoples’ tiny minds, the prototypes of “doctor” and “woman” didn’t have

03:16

any overlap.

03:17

And actually some people today still feel that way.

03:20

Haters gonna hate.

03:21

So it’s important to actively keep your mind open mind to make room for evolving concepts,

03:26

and remember that concepts may sometimes hurt as much as they help.

03:29

One of the biggest ways our cognition works to our benefit, though, is through our ability

03:33

to solve problems.

03:34

We use our problem-solving skills all the time: How to assemble Scandinavian furniture,

03:38

bake muffins with a missing ingredient, or handle the crushing disappointment of the

03:42

new Superman movie.

03:43

And we approach problem-solving in different ways -- sometimes we value speed; other times,

03:47

accuracy.

03:48

Some problems we figure out using trial and error--you know, you try something and if

03:52

it doesn’t work, try it a different way, and keep at it until something works.

03:54

Trial and error is slow and deliberate--which may be good or bad, depending on the problem.

03:59

We can also use algorithms and heuristics to come up with solutions.

04:04

Algorithms are logical, methodical, step-by-step procedures that guarantee an eventual solution,

04:10

though they may be slow to work through.

04:12

Heuristics, on the other hand, are more like mental shortcuts -- simple strategies that

04:16

allow us to solve problems faster, although they’re more error-prone than algorithms.

04:21

Say you’re at the store, looking for a family-sized bottle of Sriracha.

04:24

You could use an algorithm and methodically check every shelf and aisle in the store.

04:29

Or you could use heuristics and first search the Asian or condiment sections--the places

04:33

that make the most sense based on what you already know.

04:36

Heuristics may be way faster, but the algorithmic approach guarantees you won’t overlook the

04:40

sauce along the way, because they stuck it in the deli or whatever dumb thing they did

04:43

this week.

04:44

So algorithms, heuristics, and trial-and-error are problem-solving strategies that involve

04:48

a plan of attack.

04:49

But sometimes we get lucky while puzzling out a problem, and Aha!, out of nowhere a

04:54

sudden flash of insight that solves our problem.

04:56

I’ll use orange in the muffin recipe instead of lemon!

04:59

Or, Sriracha lives in the Mexican section!

05:01

For some reason!

05:02

Neuroscientists have actually watched that kind of sudden, happy brain flash on neuroimaging

05:06

screens.

05:07

In one experiment, they gave subjects a problem to solve:

05:10

What word can be added to the three words CRAB, PINE, and SAUCE to create a new compound

05:16

word?

05:17

Then they asked the subjects to press a button when they had the answer.

05:19

While the subjects thought about it, scans showed activity in their frontal lobes, the

05:23

areas involved in the focused attention of typical problem-solving.

05:27

But right at the Aha!

05:29

moment, just as they pushed the button, there was a clear burst of activity just above the

05:34

ear in the right temporal lobe, which, among many other things, is involved with recognition.

05:38

The answer, by the way, we already gave you the hint earlier in the episode.

05:43

Where’s my fish?

05:46

Those sudden bursts of insight are awesome, but you can’t count on them to solve all

05:51

your problems.

05:52

And just because something feels, doesn’t mean it’s truly correct.

05:55

Because as inventive and smartypants as we may be, our cognition often leads us astray

06:00

in all kinds of ways.

06:02

For instance, we often look for, and favor, evidence that verifies our ideas, while we’re

06:06

more likely to avoid or ignore contradictory evidence -- a tendency known as confirmation

06:11

bias.

06:12

This is really similar to the overconfidence we’ve talked about, when you’re basically

06:16

more confident than you are correct.

06:18

When this kind of cognitive bias takes hold, you might cling to your initial conceptions

06:22

in a kind of belief perseverance, even in the face of clear proof to the contrary.

06:26

This happens all the time, and it can be maddening for people watching it happen.

06:32

People still think that the earth is flat!

06:35

It’s like...WHAT?

06:36

HOW?

06:37

There’s space pictures!

06:38

I probably don’t need to tell you -- people can really get weird and defensive when they

06:43

evade facts and choose to see only the information that confirms their beliefs.

06:47

They may even become functionally fixed, unable to view a problem from a new perspective.

06:52

Instead they just keep approaching a situation with the same mental set, especially if it’s

06:58

worked in the past.

06:59

Say you’ve got a nail sticking out from a board, and you’re like “I need to take

07:01

care of that!”

07:03

There’s rocks, and bricks all around you.

07:05

But because of your functional fixedness on the idea that only hammers work on nails,

07:10

you don’t even consider hitting it with the brick, and instead you waste a bunch of

07:13

time in the garage looking for a hammer, and you’re angry and frustrated, and there’s

07:17

still a nail sticking up from the board.

07:19

So, our mental set predisposes how we think, just as you’ll remember that our perceptual

07:24

set predisposes how we perceive.

07:26

This is what makes heuristics -- those super-convenient mental shortcuts that we all use -- so easily

07:32

fallible.

07:33

In the 1970s, cognitive psychologists Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman researched how

07:37

we make snap judgments, and discovered one way smart people make dumb decisions.

07:42

They found that people believe an event will be more likely to occur if they can conjure

07:46

up examples or memories of it, especially if those examples are particularly vivid,

07:51

scary, or awesome.

07:52

So, say you’re in a casino and you win two dollars at a slot machine.

07:55

Suddenly every flashing light and ringing bell in the place goes off.

08:00

But when you lose -- which is the vast majority of the time -- it’s just...crickets.

08:03

With all their lights and noise-making, the casino makes sure that wins are super vivid

08:07

and memorable, while losses just go away unacknowledged.

08:11

That way, the next time you’re standing there with 100 bucks in your pocket, you’re

08:14

more likely to overestimate your chances of winning, because the memories of winning are

08:18

more striking.

08:19

The more mentally available those memories are, the more it seems that it’s going to

08:23

happen again.

08:24

This is known as the availability heuristic.

08:26

And it can warp our judgements of people, too.

08:29

If we keep remembering news footage that shows people of a given group shooting guns, that

08:34

can shape our impression of the entire group -- even if what we saw was only a tiny minority

08:39

within that group.

08:40

Essentially, we are great at fearing the wrong things.

08:43

We worry about being killed in a plane crash or getting bitten in half by a shark or accidentally

08:48

choking on a dumpling.

08:49

Thanks to our brain’s b-roll of horrific images, we come to fear what’s actually

08:53

very rare, instead of worrying about much more common, but less memorable ends like

08:58

car accidents, cancer, and heart failure.

09:01

Our thinking can also be swayed by framing, or how an issue is presented.

09:05

Imagine you’re considering climbing Everest or getting a nose job or eating a bowl of

09:09

raw blowfish.

09:10

I can frame the risks in different ways.

09:12

Telling you that you’ve got a 95 percent chance of survival sounds a lot different

09:15

than saying five out of a hundred people die doing this activity, though the information

09:20

is the same.

09:21

Our cognitive minds are capable of incredible intellectual feats and tremendous failures.

09:27

We can solve problems better than any organism on the planet, but given the chance, we can

09:31

also mess up a pretty simple judgment every day of the week.

09:34

But if we’re mindful of our capacity for error -- and if we honor our ingenuity and

09:39

intellect -- I think our ability to solve any problem is nearly infinite.

09:43

And that, gives me a lot of hope.

09:45

Seriously though where is my fish?

09:46

Today you learned how we use concepts, prototypes, and our mental sets to think and communicate,

09:53

and how algorithms, heuristics, and insight help us solve problems.

09:57

You also learned about how fixation, the availability heuristic, fear, overconfidence, and belief

10:02

perseverance can get in the way of good decision-making and thinking.

10:06

Thank you for watching, especially to our Subbable subscribers, who make this whole

10:09

channel possible.

10:10

If you’d like to sponsor an episode of Crash Course, get a special Laptop Decal, or even

10:14

be animated into an upcoming episode, just go to Subbable.com/crashcourse.

10:19

This episode was written by Kathleen Yale, edited by Blake de Pastino, and our consultant

10:23

is Dr. Ranjit Bhagwat.

10:24

Our director and editor is Nicholas Jenkins, the script supervisor is Michael Aranda, who

10:28

is also our sound designer, and the graphics team is Thought Café.