20 Concepts Understanding Could Change Your Life

Twitter has a new interesting thread. In it, British-Indian writer and journalist Gurvinder Bhogal shares useful concepts that will help you see the logic in everyday things and make more informed decisions. We chose 20 of them.

1. Grun effect

Have you ever noticed that in large grocery stores, the most needed and frequently bought products like bread and milk are usually hidden as deep as possible and the path to them is like a maze? This arrangement of departments is planned to confuse you and force you to collect as many unnecessary things that you did not plan to buy.

2. Productive procrastination

We often avoid work by doing something that seems productive to us so as not to feel guilty about inaction. For example, we endlessly scroll through articles about increasing productivity instead of doing at least something useful. Remember that your brain will strive justify procrastinationdisguising it as useful activity.

3. Gray stone method

An emotional reaction to the words of a toxic person or an Internet troll is exactly what they are after: your time and energy. The answer only fuels trolling and insults. Therefore, the best reaction is its complete absence.

4. Solomon's Paradox

We are used to being great at solving other people's problems, but not our own, because objectivity requires separating emotions from facts. StudyExploring Solomon's Paradox: Self‑Distancing Eliminates the Self‑Other Asymmetry in Wise Reasoning About Close Relationships in Younger and Older Adults / Psychological Science 2014 showed that talking about yourself in the third person also contributes to such distancing. So when you try to help yourself, imagine helping a friend.

5. Zeigarnik effect

Our brain is focused on achieving goals, so unfinished business remembers better than completed. This can be used to your advantage. Take a break in the middle of a task. For example, if you are writing something long, stop in the middle of a sentence. This will make it easier for you to get back to work when you return.

6. excess risk

“If more people die because of bees than because of terrorists, why do we spend so many resources on fighting terrorism?” The fact is that mortality and risk are two different things. The most a bee can do is kill one person. The maximum that a terrorist can do is blow up an entire city. If only current statistics are taken into account, potential risks in the future are ignored.

7. Delayed Happiness Syndrome

Many live with the idea that their real life has not yet begun, and the present is just a prelude to an idyll in the future. But this idyll is just a mirage that crumbles as you approach it. So it turns out that the expectation of happiness takes a whole life.

8. Chatter hypothesis

Can you guess by what parameter you can predict whether a person will be a leader? Maybe it's experience or intelligence level? Not really. Research showTesting the babble hypothesis: Speaking time predicts leader emergence in small groups / ScienceDirectthat it's how much they talk - it doesn't matter how or what.

9. Rated error

We often hang labels so as not to understand the problem. For example, we explain the behavior of a murderer by the fact that he is an immoral evil, because it is easier than analyzing the intricacies of the circumstances that led him to the crime.

10. role assault

Can't figure out a creative challenge? Imagine how Winston Churchill, Lady Gaga or Yoda would solve it. Continue the work by acting out the behavior of the selected character or person, think more creatively so that.

11. Semantic apocalypse

In the era of digital culture, we are all divided into subcultures (and we can often attribute ourselves to several at once). As a result, society is no longer bound by a set of shared beliefs. The only thing that unites us is a common biology: our fears and desires. We have created a civilization where the only link is the animal traits that everyone has.

12. Public opinion bias

Difficult trust reviews buyers, given that people write them under the influence of previous reviews. If a product's rating is too high or too low, the customer is more likely to rate it higher than they do. deserves it - to support the majority or correct the underestimated, in his opinion, general assessment. As a result, many things have a higher rating than they deserve.

13. Electoral laziness

We are skeptical of other people's statements and views, but not our own. Research showThe Selective Laziness of Reasoning / Cognitive Sciencethat if you bring a person to his own position, expressed in other words, he can reject it, because he subjects him to more criticism. Checking the consistency of your beliefs is simple: imagine that they are not yours, but someone else's.

14. Surgeons should not be like surgeons

Imagine you are hiring a surgeon for a hospital and you have two candidates with similar experience and accomplishments. One looks neat, wears elegant glasses, his speech is well delivered, and the gestures of gentle hands are elegant - even shoot him in an advertisement for a medical school. The second one looks like a village butcher, overweight, with big hands and a protruding gold tooth, speaks rudely and with a thick accent, and the absence of a diploma on the wall of his office shows that he is not proud of his education.

Who will you take? The second one would be better.despite all the prejudices. Why? It's just that a person who didn't look right for the job, but was able to perform well in the profession, had a lot to overcome in terms of perception. And since there were no indulgences for appearance, it means that he passed the test for competence, and not sympathy.

15. Razor Alder

If something cannot be proven by experiment or observation, it is very likely unworthy of argument. Because without clear evidence, one can only measure assumptions - and everyone wants to have the last word. Ignoring such disputes can save you a lot of time.

16. Three people create a tiger

Chinese proverb meaning: a person can believe any lie if he hears it from three different people. This is actively used by unscrupulous journalists who present their opinion as a position supported by many, backing it up with convenient facts. For example, instead of “I don’t like Elon Musk’s new haircut,” they write “Elon Musk was ridiculed on the Web because of the new hairstyles”, backing this up with a couple of tweets of similar content, although in fact there are no other examples of such an opinion at all. exists.

17. Okrent's Law

We know how biased journalists can be, but even those who try to be objective can actually spread misinformation. The reason is simple: striving for objectivity, they treat erroneous opinions with the same respect as confirmed facts.

18. Theory of personal nonsense

This is already a concept that was formulated by the author of the thread himself. According to him, many people do not have a well-formed opinion on certain topics. But if a person is asked what he thinks on such and such an issue, he will come up with a position for himself in a couple of minutes, based on the fragments of knowledge that he has on this topic. And in the future he will defend this opinion, as if he had adhered to it all his life.

19. The Attention Economy

The whole world is competing for your attention, which means that it can be considered a currency no less valuable than real money. And treat him the same way. Think about whether it is rational to spend your attention on what you are doing and where it should be directed to get the maximum result.

20. Minimize Regret

Remember that as you grow older you will remember yourself the way you are now. It is up to you whether this memory will be bitter regret or pleasant nostalgia.