Note: This article is by Vanessa Van Edwards, who tells us about the need to be wrong sometimes and how to overcome the desire to always be right.
It was a nice fit for our reading list at the Science of People book club. But, well, it turns out I was wrong.
I've written this article to share my thoughts on the art of making mistakes. Even though the title may have been a mouthful, I did it on purpose to get you hooked so you would read it and learn something truly worthwhile. This is not a handbook on how to be right always, but on how to convince yourself and others that you are right.
Being right all the time is kind of dull, but as it happens, being wrong has a certain charm. Plus, you can't be right all the time! It's like saying you arrive at work every day full of energy—totally nonsense.
In this article, I want to share two things:
I tried to finish the book in question, but I couldn't. I read around 22% of it, or, to be precise, 17%, before hurriedly flipping through the pages to hit 22%.
Since the book is about making mistakes—and since I made a mistake reading it—I chose to use my personal experience as an example to write an article about the science of making mistakes.
What's the Best Way to Make Mistakes?
Let's talk about those pesky little thoughts that make us believe we're always right:
1. Saying "I Told You So!"
This might sound a little fulfilling. Say it out loud a few times. When was the last time you were actually right? Does it make you feel good? When you are so sure about something, does it get challenging to shake the urge to growl, "I told you so"? It's like claiming to be right and sticking up for it, only to find out that your satisfaction when you're right comes from the fact that it's necessary for our survival. It's just how we're wired.
One of the easiest and most gratifying experiences in life, according to what Kathryn Schulz wrote in her book, is the sense of being right. It's essential to our survival and feeds our pride.
So, being right is your reward for trying since, within our psychological structure, there is an innate reward system that thrives on the right answers. But the thing is, we often aren't right, or we rashly jump to wrong conclusions based on very little information. This tendency often leads to confirmation bias, which prompts us to look for or interpret information in a way that supports our preconceptions. This leads to statistical inaccuracies and snap judgments.
2. I'm Basically Right About Everything
How many times have you spoken your mind about the following, believing you were 100% right?
- How should someone in front of you drive?
- How should your friends go about their lives?
- Healthy eating habits.
- Your interior design preferences.
If you're anything like most people, you not only voice your opinion but also believe that it's spot on. There's no better way to put it than how Henry Ward Beecher, a former American minister, did: "Every man should keep a fair-sized cemetery in which to bury the faults of his friends."
How about:
- Your religious views?
- Your political beliefs?
- Your personal taste?
- Your intellectual convictions?
Most of us would say we are 90% right about our beliefs, but how can we all be right all the time? Obviously, we can't. I wonder why we don't admit that. We're smart enough, so why don't we question our opinions instead of taking our words at face value?
In the following scenario, let's explore how most people think and how their thoughts sound logical to them.
Reality
"Why on earth are they voting for this man? Are they out of their minds? Have they really lost it? That person will bring the nation to its knees. I genuinely thought they were smarter than that, yet it's quite sad they would make such a dumb decision. We need to start drafting a statement regarding such issues to share with our friends."
Logic
"Oh, just why are they casting their ballots for him? I suppose People are different; I guess I should consider that. Maybe they have different values or thoughts than mine. I think that's it. Even though they voted for someone else, I still really respect their choice. I should talk to them about it; if I am convinced, then I might change my mind."
The decision-making process is both cognitive and emotionally driven. According to research by neuroscientist Antonio Damasio, people with brain damage that affects emotional regions share peculiar characteristics. For instance, since they are incapable of feeling emotions, their judgment is unaffected by them, and they can copy procedures logically. Yet, they find it quite challenging to come to a final decision.
We believe we make decisions, base our beliefs on logic, and try to get others to “see things the way we do,” but here's the truth: our decisions and beliefs are always driven by emotion. Author Jim Camp shares, “So at the point of decision, emotions are very important for choosing." He adds, "Even with what we believe are logical decisions, the very point of choice is arguably always based on emotion.”
3. Why You're Wrong
Last Thanksgiving, my friends and I planned a dinner get-together. Everybody was up preparing and warming the buns, green beans, and sweet potatoes. During the buffet, my friends, my husband, and I truly believed that we had passed by a turkey on the buffet table. "Where did the turkey go?" mumbled one friend after we had all settled down and dug in. I replied with a shrug, "It wasn't there at the buffet; perhaps in the oven?" Perplexed, we asked our host, who lightly said, "Oh! Well, it's off the menu tonight. We just made another chicken meal instead."
This illustrates that our brains are active, making quick judgments and drawing conclusions in response to our needs and thoughts. Now for the issue: Our minds are not memory banks. Although we are not always good at recalling details, our brains are excellent at connecting the dots, whether or not we have seen them firsthand.
4. I'm Wrong, No Doubt
On December 7, 1941, 13-year-old Ulric Neisser was tuning in to a baseball game on the radio when he learned about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Throughout his childhood, he carried strong memories of this incident as a startling and devastating tragedy. As he grew older, he thought back on that recollection and realized that baseball isn't a winter sport, and there's no way he could have listened to a game broadcast at that time. Despite swearing it was true, his mind had played tricks on him. As a professor at Emory University, he decided to test this with his students when the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded in 1986. He asked them to recall where they were and what they did upon hearing the news.
Three years later, he asked them to recall the experience again:
- Merely 7% of students correctly remembered the "event."
- 50% of them were wrong in two-thirds of their prior confirmations.
- 25% of them got all the key details wrong.
Note that whether we get into a heated discussion with our partner, at work, or over memories with a friend, our memories and perceptions aren't necessarily on the dot. Our brains don't stockpile every experience we go through. Lars Muckli, a professor at the University of Glasgow, studied visual blind spots and how the brain forms predictions based on its surroundings. He suggested that the "main function of the brain is to minimize surprise; that's what it's built for." While this can be an upside, it's important to be aware of physical and emotional blind spots.
5. Your Off-Base Tricks
We are ultimately more wrong than we seem to be for several reasons. While some of our mistakes are driven by memory lapses, as already pointed out, two more reasons must be brought to light.
Emotional Blind Spots
The blind spot is a part of the eye where the optic nerve passes through the retina, preventing any visual processing in that area. Just as there are blind spots in our vision, I'd like to suggest that we've all got emotional blind spots, too—touchy topics, ideas, or people that cause us to stumble over skewed logic. Ever brought up a certain topic with your mother and sensed her displeasure? That's an emotional blind spot. Encountered someone reacting so strongly to something so trivial? Another emotional blind spot. Identifying these blind spots helps us prevent slip-ups.
- Which topics make you overly sensitive?
- Who are the people you approach with suspicion all the time?
- What do you know but would rather not acknowledge? Do you hold on to any unpleasant truths?
Justification
If we set our minds to it, we're also quite good at justifying our wrong opinions and convincing ourselves of just about anything. In 1977, psychologists Richard Nisbett and Timothy Wilson experimented with a store in Michigan. Customers were asked to compare and select the best pair out of four pairs of women's nylon stockings displayed on a table. Despite all pairs being identical, none of the consumers took notice of it. One by one, they chose pairs, explaining in great detail why their pair was warmer, rougher, or thicker in wool than other pairs. Even after informing the ladies that they had all chosen identical pairs, many refused to believe it. This type of justification often blocks important details and hampers our learning process.
Wrapping It Up
This concludes the first part of our article. In this part, we went over our natural tendency to always be right, learning that it's not always an asset. We also explored some thoughts that led us to believe we're always right.
Stay tuned for the second and final part, where we'll examine more troublesome thinking patterns that support the belief that we are always "right."
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