Book Review: “Thinking in Bets”

Motivated Reasoning

• “Truthseeking, the desire to know the truth regardless of whether the truth aligns with the beliefs we currently hold, is not naturally supported by the way we process information. We might think of ourselves as open-minded and capable of updating our beliefs based on new information, but the research conclusively shows otherwise. Instead of altering our beliefs to fit new information, we do the opposite, altering our interpretation of that information to fit our beliefs.”
• “Once a belief is lodged, it becomes difficult to dislodge. It takes on a life of its own, leading us to notice and seek out evidence confirming our belief, rarely challenge the validity of confirming evidence, and ignore or work hard to actively discredit information contradicting the belief. This irrational, circular information-processing pattern is called motivated reasoning.”
• “The Internet is a playground for motivated reasoning. It provides the promise of access to a greater diversity of information sources and opinions than we’ve ever had available, yet we gravitate toward sources that confirm our beliefs, that agree with us...Making matters worse, many social media sites tailor our Internet experience to show us more of what we already like.”
• “Even when directly confronted with facts that disconfirm our beliefs, we don’t let facts get in the way...If we think of beliefs as only 100% right or 100% wrong, when confronting new information that might contradict our belief, we have only two options: (a) make the massive shift in our opinion of ourselves from 100% right to 100% wrong, or (b) ignore or discredit the new information. It feels bad to be wrong, so we choose (b). Information that disagrees with us is an assault on our self-narrative. We’ll work hard to swat that threat away. On the flip side, when additional information agrees with us, we effortlessly embrace it.”

Fielding the Unfolding Future

• “Just as we are almost never 100% wrong or right, outcomes are almost never 100% due to luck or skill.”
• “The way we field outcomes (decide what is luck and what is skill) is predictably patterned: we take credit for the good stuff and blame the bad stuff on luck so it won’t be our fault. The result is that we don’t learn from experience well.”
• “100% of our bad outcomes aren’t because we got unlucky and 100% of our good outcomes aren’t because we are so awesome. Yet that is how we process the future as it unfolds.”

Improving Communication

• “When we have a negative opinion about the person delivering the message, we close our minds to what they are saying and miss a lot of learning opportunities because of it. Likewise, when we have a positive opinion of the messenger, we tend to accept the message without much vetting. Both are bad...The accuracy of the statement should be evaluated independent of its source.”
• How to communicate in a truthseeking way:
  • “First, express uncertainty. Uncertainty not only improves truthseeking within groups but also invites everyone around us to share helpful information and dissenting opinions.”
  • “Second, lead with assent. For example, listen for the things you agree with, state those and be specific, and then follow with ‘and’ instead of ‘but.’ If there is one thing we have learned thus far it is that we like having our ideas affirmed. If we want to engage someone with whom we have some disagreement (inside or outside our group), they will be more open and less defensive if we start with those areas of agreement, which there surely will be.”
  • “When we lead with assent, our listeners will be more open to any dissent that might follow. In addition, when the new information is presented as supplementing rather than negating what has come before, our listeners will be much more open to what we have to say.”

Mental Time Travel

• “Business journalist and author Suzy Welch developed a popular tool known as 10-10-10 that has the effect of bringing future-us into more of our in-the-moment decisions. ‘Every 10-10-10 process starts with a question...[W]hat are the consequences of each of my options in ten minutes? In ten months? In ten years?’ This set of questions triggers mental time travel.”
• “When we identify the goal and work backward from there to ‘remember’ how we got there, the research shows that we do better.”
• “Forgetting about an unrealized future can be dangerous to good decision-making.”
• “[W]e tend to assume that, once something happens, it was bound to happen. If we don’t try to hold all the potential futures in mind before one of them happens, it becomes almost impossible to realistically evaluate decisions or probabilities after.”
• “Once something occurs, we no longer think of it as probabilistic--or as ever having been probabilisitic. This is how we get into the frame of mind where we say, ‘I should have known’ or ‘I told you so.’ This is where unproductive regret comes from.”