FutureIQ

Feelings vs Facts? Science of Why We Make Bad Decisions - FutureIQ

7,519 views • Feb 21, 2025
Open in YouTube

Concepts in this episode

Browse all concepts ›
  1. False-Consensus Effect mental-model

    The false-consensus effect is the habit of treating your own choice as the normal choice. Once you choose a side, you tend to imagine that most other people chose it too.

  2. Belief Perseverance mental-model

    Once a judgment is made, new evidence must overcome not only the original belief but the urge to defend having chosen it. A conclusion can quietly change from a hypothesis into a position.

  3. Cherry Picking mechanism

    When many studies or facts exist, selectively amplifying favorable results and burying unfavorable ones can manufacture a convincing public picture. The distortion requires neither fabricated evidence nor universal dishonesty—only control over which truths receive attention.

  4. Steel Manning principle

    Make better decisions by comparing the strongest arguments from capable advocates on opposing sides. This prevents a weak or caricatured opponent from creating false confidence.

  5. Dunning-Kruger Effect mental-model

    The Dunning-Kruger effect is a double failure: weak skill produces poor performance while also withholding the diagnostic skill needed to recognize it. Confidence is therefore not evidence of competence—and doubt can sometimes signal that a person knows enough to see the difficulty.

  6. Backfire Effect mental-model

    Directly attacking a belief can strengthen it when disagreement is experienced as a threat to identity: reasoning shifts from examining the claim to defending the self and the tribe. Persuasion works better when both sides can investigate the subject without first becoming opponents.

  7. Illusion of Information Adequacy mental-model

    Missing evidence does not feel like a gap. A coherent one-sided account can therefore produce the same sense of informational sufficiency as a more complete view.

  8. Red Teaming principle

    Assign someone to build the strongest case against a claim before you commit to it. Red teaming exposes missing evidence and gives weak conclusions a chance to be revised or abandoned while the cost is still low.

Description

In this episode, we will talk about why we make wrong decisions without realizing it—and why we stubbornly stick to them! Have you ever made a choice, felt totally confident about it, and later realized you were missing key information? Turns out, most of us do this all the time! A study from top universities reveals how overconfidence, bias, and selective information shape our thinking—and why even when given the full picture, 2 out of 3 people refuse to change their minds. We’ll break down how these mental traps work, how they’re used to manipulate us, and—most importantly—how to outsmart them. You’ll also hear real-life examples of how misinformation spreads and how to make smarter, more informed decisions. If you’ve ever wondered why people believe things that aren’t true (or if you might be doing it too!), this episode is for you! Get your copy of Tim Urban's "What's Our Problem" at this link - https://tapthe.link/timurban Related videos: From Instinct to Insight - How Do We Really Decide? Bayesian Thinking - Future IQ: https://youtu.be/9_Ffrs0YyX0 ChatGPT Can Make You Dumb OR Smart - You Choose: https://youtu.be/McdWSLWQUkA Dunning Kruger Effect: https://youtu.be/GtmcY3t5hB4?si=BWsduTjQKJVSZYaD Illusion of Explanatory Depth: https://youtu.be/_ak0k7GNCjM?si=I6xJ1LbPDQ4fMgyl Preference Falsification: https://youtu.be/Pwh90BkWRt8?si=qGO7Lr8IskMD9ZBP Group Conformism: https://youtu.be/_XhIECCt_P8?si=FIG0_Xdbwe6dzqoE System 1 vs System 2: https://youtu.be/DIVTMooO7o4?si=M-oY4JfWa5Y4O4Lx Hope you enjoyed FutureIQ by Navin Kabra and Shrikant Joshi. Do hit us up on Twitter: @ngkabra http://twitter.com/ngkabra @shrikant https://twitter.com/shrikant Listen it on the podcast provider of your choice: https://tapthe.link/FutureIQRSS Sources cited - Research paper: The illusion of information adequacy https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0310216 Chapters: 00:00 3 Scientific reasons for making Stupid decisions 01:15 How does Science prove this? 04:38 Am I also Stupid? Or am I.. Confidently Stupid? 06:28 IT GETS WORSE?! 09:00 But.. What about the Backfire Effect then? 12:00 THIS is how NOT to be Idiot :) #futureiq #incorrectdecision

Transcript

Subscriber transcript

Subscribe to @TheFutureIQ, then sign in with Google to unlock full transcripts and transcript search.