Let's say you're on a game show. You've already earned $1000 in the first round when you land on the bonus space. Now, you have a choice. You can either take a $500 bonus guaranteed or you can flip a coin. If it's heads, you win $1000 bonus. If it's tails, you get no bonus at all. In the second round, you've earned $2000 when you land on the penalty space. Now you have another choice. You can either take a $500 loss, or try your luck at the coin flip. If it's heads, you lose nothing, but if it's tails, you lose $1000 instead. If you're like most people, you probably chose to take the guaranteed bonus in the first round and flip the coin in the second round. But if you think about it, this makes no sense. The odds and outcomes in both rounds are exactly the same. So why does the second round seem much scarier? The answer lies in a phenomenon known as loss aversion. Under rational economic theory, our decisions should follow a simple mathematical equation that weighs the level of risk against the amount at stake. But studies have found that for many people, the negative psychological impact we feel from losing something is about twice as strong as the positive impact of gaining the same thing. Loss aversion is one cognitive bias that arises from heuristics, problem-solving approaches based on previous experience and intuition rather than careful analysis. And these mental shortcuts can lead to irrational decisions, not like falling in love or bungee jumping off a cliff, but logical fallacies that can easily be proven wrong. Situations involving probability are notoriously bad for applying heuristics. For instance, say you were to roll a die with four green faces and two red faces twenty times. You can choose one of the following sequences of rolls, and if it shows up, you'll win $25. Which would you pick? In one study, 65% of the participants who were all college students chose sequence B even though A is shorter and contained within B, in other words, more likely. This is what's called a conjunction fallacy. Here, we expect to see more green rolls, so our brains can trick us into picking the less likely option. Heuristics are also terrible at dealing with numbers in general. In one example, students were split into two groups. The first group was asked whether Mahatma Gandhi died before or after age 9, while the second was asked whether he died before or after age 140. Both numbers were obviously way off, but when the students were then asked to guess the actual age at which he died, the first group's answers averaged to 50 while the second group's averaged to 67. Even though the clearly wrong information in the initial questions should have been irrelevant, it still affected the students' estimates. This is an example of the anchoring effect, and it's often used in marketing and negotiations to raise the prices that people are willing to pay. So, if heuristics lead to all these wrong decisions, why do we even have them? Well, because they can be quite effective. For most of human history, survival depended on making quick decisions with limited information. When there's no time to logically analyze all the possibilities, heuristics can sometimes save our lives. But today's environment requires far more complex decision-making, and these decisions are more biased by unconscious factors than we think, affecting everything from health and education to finance and criminal justice. We can't just shut off our brain's heuristics, but we can learn to be aware of them. When you come to a situation involving numbers, probability, or multiple details, pause for a second and consider that the intuitive answer might not be the right one after all.
Recimo da ste na kvizu. Već ste osvojili 1000 dolara u prvome krugu kada otvorite bonus polje. Sada imate izbor. Možete uzeti 500 dolara zagarantiranog bonusa ili možete bacati novčić. Ako je glava, osvajate bonus od 1000 dolara. Ako je pismo, ne dobivate ništa. U drugome krugu osvojili ste 2000 dolara kada otvorite kazneno polje. Sada imate drugi izbor. Možete izgubiti 500 dolara ili iskušati svoju sreću novčićem. Ako je glava, ne gubite ništa, ali ako je pismo, tada gubite 1000 dolara. Ako ste kao većina ljudi, vjerojatnije je da ćete u prvome krugu uzeti zagarantirani bonus i baciti novčić u drugome krugu. Ali ako razmislite, to nema smisla. Šanse i ishodi u oba su kruga jednaki. Zašto se onda drugi krug čini strašnijim? Odgovor leži u fenomenu poznatom pod nazivom averzija prema gubitku. Prema teoriji racionalnog izbora, naše odluke trebaju slijediti jednostavnu matematičku jednadžbu koja procjenjuje razinu rizika nasuprot iznosu koji je u pitanju. Ali istraživanja su pokazala kako je za mnoge ljude negativni psihološki utjecaj osjećaja gubitka nečega otprilike dvaput veći od pozitivnog utjecaja dobivanja iste stvari. Averzija prema gubitku je kognitivna pristranost nastala iz heuristika, pristupa rješavanju problema temeljenog na prethodnom iskustvu i intuiciji, radije nego na pažljivoj analizi. Ti mentalni prečaci mogu dovesti do iracionalnih odluka, ne poput zaljubljivanja ili bungee jumpinga s litice, nego logičkih pogrešaka za koje se lako dokaže da su pogrešne. Situacije koje uključuju vjerojatnosti notorno su loše za primjenu heuristika. Na primjer, recimo da bacate kocku s četiri zelene i dvije crvene strane dvadeset puta. Možete birati jednu od ponuđenih opcija ishoda bacanja i ako se pojavi, osvajate 25 dolara. Koju biste odabrali? U jednom istraživanju, 65 % sudionika, od kojih su svi bili studenti, odabralo je opciju B iako je A kraća i sadržana unutar B, drugim riječima, vjerojatnija je. Ovo se naziva pogreškom reprezentativnosti. Očekujemo da ćemo vidjeti više zelenih kockica te nas mozak može zavarati da odaberemo manje vjerojatnu opciju. Heuristici su općenito loši kada su u pitanju brojevi. U jednom primjeru studenti su podijeljeni u dvije grupe. Prva je grupa upitana je li Mahatma Gandhi umro prije 9. godine, dok je druga upitana je li umro nakon 140. godine. Oba su broja daleko od točnog, ali kada se od obje grupe tražilo da pogode u kojoj je godini zapravo umro, prosjek odgovora prve grupe bio je 50, a druge 67. Iako su očito krive informacije u početnim pitanjima trebale biti nebitne, one su i dalje utjecale na procjene studenata. Ovo je primjer efekta sidrenja i često se koristi u marketingu i pregovaranjima kako bi se podigle cijene do onih koje su ljudi spremni platiti. Dakle, ako heuristici dovode do svih ovih krivih odluka, zašto ih uopće imamo? Pa, jer mogu biti prilično učinkoviti. Kroz većinu ljudske povijesti preživljavanje je ovisilo o brzom donošenju odluka uz ograničene informacije. Kada nema vremena da se logički analiziraju sve mogućnosti, heuristici nam ponekad mogu spasiti život. Ali današnja okolina zahtijeva daleko kompleksnije donošenje odluka i te su odluke ovisnije o nesvjesnim faktorima nego što mislimo, utječući tako na sve, od zdravlja i edukacije do financija i kaznenog pravosuđa. Ne možemo samo isključiti heuristike u mozgu, ali ih možemo naučiti biti svjesni. Kada se nađete u situaciji koja sadrži brojeve, vjerojatnosti ili više detalja, zastanite na sekundu i razmotrite da intuitivni odgovor možda ipak nije onaj pravi.