Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think
Recommended by: David Abraham
Posted in: Growth and Sustainability Psychology
Purchase →The Roslings were not the first to suggest that we humans operate more on instinct (lizard brain, emotions) than rational thought and data/reality (pre-frontal cortex). They were the first (afaik), however, to connect those instincts to negative thinking about the world’s condition, and to break them down into ten separate and identifiable instincts so that we may more easily recognize when we are trapped by that kind of thinking. On top of that, the book is a real “page-turner”!
This terrific book nicely combines my interests in politics and psychology. (“One of the most important books I’ve ever read,” says Bill Gates.) It’s written by a doctor, Hans Rosling, who devoted his career to world health, in collaboration with his son and daughter-in-law. He died before the book was published. Basically, he describes how the world is much better off, in terms of health, poverty, literacy, etc., than most of us believe. And he discusses 10 psychological biases that prevent us from recognizing that fact. You should also check out two organizations that he and his family started to promote their ideas: gapminder.org and dollarstreet.org.
For the 5 or so of you who are (still) reading this, here are the 10 cognitive/psychological biases/weaknesses that distort our thinking. (Bear in mind the authors are not psychologists.):
1. The Gap Instinct: our tendency to categorize the world into two categories, and then make the difference between the two more extreme than it is. (Sound familiar?)
2. The Negativity Instinct: the tendency to believe things are worse than they are. Here the media gets some blame: good news is no news, i.e., is not worth reporting. But we the consumers of media are also to blame for wanting negative news.
3. The Straight Line Instinct: the tendency to believe that current trends will continue indefinitely. For example, the world’s population has grown dramatically, and will continue growing during this century, but then is expected to level off. One reason is that wealth is the chief determinant of family size. Wealth is increasing throughout the world, and family size is already shrinking wherever that happens–regardless of cultural differences that we falsely believe to be the main determinant of family size.
4. The Fear Instinct: We have certain instinctive fears of physical harm, captivity, contamination, that set off primordial alarms from our evolutionary past.
5. The Size Instinct: the tendency to judge sizes in isolation. One million may be a large number in some contexts, but a small one in others. Comparison to other relevant quantities is always essential for judging size.
6. The Generalization Instinct: our tendency to overgeneralize. This, like many of these instincts, is related to many of the other instincts. So when asked whether 20%, 50%, or 80% of children worldwide have been vaccinated against some disease, most of us guess one of the two lower numbers, when the correct answer is 80%. We categorize (The Gap Instinct) and stereotype the categories. Also, we may consider 80% to be a lot, even though it is much less than the amount in more developed countries (The Size Instinct).
7. The Destiny Instinct: This is perhaps an odd name for our tendency to think that things always were the way they are now, and always will be that way. For example, we are so accustomed to our standard of living and the conveniences we enjoy, we assume we (and our parents, etc.) always lived this way. On the other hand, we are so used to being ahead of third world countries, that we tend to think we always will be. The authors emphasize to notice slow change, because slow changes accumulate over time. Also: Change is a constant.
8. The Single Perspective Instinct: Don’t view problems only through your own area of expertise. Expertise is important, but multiple areas of expertise are also important. Or: To a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
9. The Blame Instinct: “The problem is that when we identify the bad guy, we are done thinking. And it’s almost always more complicated than that. It’s almost always about multiple interacting causes–a system.”
10. Urgency Instinct: the tendency to think a problem is so urgent that we don’t think rationally about the solution to it. We panic. We ignore, or don’t seek, relevant data. We take drastic, overly-extreme action. Stop and think, instead.
Addendum:
“Wouldn’t you rather have a few opinions that are right than many that are wrong?”
This is one sentence in this book, full of remarkable facts about the world and insights into the limitations of our thinking, that many readers will gloss over. The author’s point is that overcoming the common distortions in our thinking will lead us to have fewer opinions that we can count on.