Our brain's (overly) snap judgments

The question of cognitive biases is increasingly on the psychological agenda. Specialists in human thought have come to realize that we operate on two patterns of thinking: one rather slow and analytical, and another fast, called "heuristic". This quick thinking has been very effective in enabling human beings to survive. In the face of real danger, it's best to think and react quickly.

But we're rarely in such situations. We're usually much more comfortable in our daily lives. Nevertheless, our brains continue to make sharp, often erroneous analyses. One of the most frequent errors is illusory correlation: it will associate one fact with another and create a causal link, whereas this would require much more study and observation before concluding anything. A sportsman will have the impression that, because he wore a bracelet given to him by his grandmother and won, the object led to his success. This will even lead him to achieve less if he doesn't have it - a self-fulfilling prophecy, in short.

We also have an illusory superiority bias. We all generally believe that we are smarter than the average person. Mathematically, this makes no sense, as the average would then be very high. This thinking helps us to avoid feeling inferior and depressed, but becomes problematic when it makes us assert all sorts of things about health, social, historical and other issues.

Running time: 15min11