Psychologist Woo-kyoung Ahn uses a BTS dance clip in her class at Yale to illustrate a common thinking error: overestimating your abilities.
. In the book, Ahn highlights some of the most pernicious cognitive slip-ups we make — and how biases can cloud our judgment and affect the people around us.Thinking 101: How to Reason Better to Live Better.
This is known in the field of psychology as an"illusion of fluency," which describes our tendency to be overconfident in our abilities without sufficient evidence. This can lead us, for example, to bungle career-altering presentations because of inadequate preparation, or dramatically underestimate the time it takes to complete projects.
You can also fight this tendency by over-preparing and considering potential obstacles beforehand, says Ahn. For example, if you're working on a home remodeling project for the first time and have no idea how long it will take, don't try to guess. Talk to friends who went through a recent remodel or consult with a few contractors to understand how long the project might take and what problems may arise.
Now imagine this bias at work on a societal level. Ahn says it can lead to under- or over-representation in say, leadership in politics, business and other industries, which can feed gender or racial inequality.
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