Lead On with Greg & Mark (LOwGaM)
We invite you to join us as we talk about the world of leadership during times of complexity.
Lead On with Greg & Mark (LOwGaM)
S4: E2 Decoding the Intricacies of Human Judgement Over a Bed of Lettuce
As we peel back the layers of our decision-making processes, we find ourselves entangled in the web of psychological biases that often lead us astray.
Imagine you're car shopping, and the first vehicle you see sets the price anchor in your mind—ever wonder why that happens? We'll dissect the anchoring bias that nudges our perception of value, and the pitfalls of the sunk cost fallacy that keep us clinging to lost causes. And let's not forget confirmation bias, that sneaky filter coloring the way we process information.
So buckle up for a ride through the twists and turns of our cognitive landscapes, where personal tales illuminate the theory and help us chart a course for clearer thinking and better choices.
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You're listening to Lead On with Greg and Mark, brought to you by the Pennsylvania Association of Intermediate Units. Join us this season as we engage in conversations on leading on through times of complexity. Now for your hosts, Greg and Mark.
Speaker 2:Let's go hello there, dr mark hoffman.
Speaker 3:Greetings, salutations, good tidings to you and your kin wow, we're back in the holidays.
Speaker 1:Wow, we're back in the holidays you like that.
Speaker 3:That was a collective, that was good it was really good.
Speaker 2:It was really good, hey. So lately I've been trying to find new places to get salads and I don't know, I know. It sounds pretty lame, Doesn't that sound lame? The joys of middle age. I mean the joys of middle age. Where do you get a good salad?
Speaker 1:In Schnecksville.
Speaker 2:So I'm in Schnecksville. I'm looking for a good salad.
Speaker 3:You can't get a good salad these days. I have tried the diner.
Speaker 2:I've tried all these different places.
Speaker 3:We went to the Mexican restaurant, the Italian Mexican. Yeah, we did, that was good, that was good.
Speaker 2:That was good stuff, this pizza place and I went in. That was probably my first problem that I went into a pizza place for a salad. But I went in there and I ordered a salad with tuna on it and he automatically registered me for the large, which was $14. And I looked at him and I said I don't, I want the smaller one. And he goes it's too late. It's too late, yeah. So I should have just walked out.
Speaker 1:But I didn't.
Speaker 3:I just paid the $14.
Speaker 2:I paid the 14. I gave him an uncomfortable look and he goes it's already done, the transaction has already gone through. There's no going back. Yeah, because I had already. I had already, in fairness to him, I had already given my. It was a crappy salad, so you won't go back there.
Speaker 3:No, because the salad was crappy and the customer service was, and the customer service was bad yeah but you bring up a good point, I don't ever look at what.
Speaker 1:I'm actually putting in my credit card, especially with the tap you know Exactly. I have no idea they could put $1,000.
Speaker 3:I would have. No, yeah, I know what is a tuna salad for you. Is it lettuce vegetables and then scoops?
Speaker 2:The one I love is actually.
Speaker 3:It's like scoops of tuna fish.
Speaker 2:It would have scoops of tuna fish on it, but it would have provolone cheese and.
Speaker 3:Tomatoes, peppers. It's almost like an antipasta kind of salad. So you lose me at the mayo. I get it.
Speaker 2:It's just not for me. I just like it and it works for me. Um so I want to hear more about this salad cake. You're on, so I've been it's. It's just something I need to eat more salads, I get more fiber. Yeah, well, the thing is, is that the winter you put on the winter weight, you know, like a bear like, like you were hibernating I was hibernating for a while. Now I'm trying to get fit again.
Speaker 3:Summer slim, Summer slim yeah, so walk me through. If there was a salad at a restaurant, it was the Grey Coon salad. Yeah, let's start from the base layer. What?
Speaker 2:kind of lettuce, no, so the lettuce would have to be Go ahead. No iceberg, it needs. The greener the better, really you. No iceberg, it needs to, the greener the better, really you don't like iceberg lettuce. We grew up on it and I got sick of it.
Speaker 3:I love it. Mom made homemade dressing. I love it.
Speaker 2:Was really good, like the heart of italian dressing was amazing that she made with vinegar and she put sugar in it and stuff. It was really good so you're a romaine guy I am more of a romaine guy or you're like a mixed greens. Well, it mixed greens, but the greener the better. So like there's crunch.
Speaker 1:There's no spinach in there.
Speaker 2:There's no crunch. But listen, it's all about those other ingredients.
Speaker 3:Go ahead Keep going.
Speaker 2:I said the provolone cheese would be in there, the tuna fish. I like Some tomatoes.
Speaker 3:How do you want your tomatoes? You want them cut in wedges or you have little grape tomatoes.
Speaker 2:I prefer grape tomatoes.
Speaker 3:You eat them whole whole. You cut them in half, I cut them in half, all right, so all you have is lettuce, tomatoes and tuna fish that's all it is.
Speaker 2:And then no carrots for crunch with what my favorite salad would be. They put some some nice assorted meats on there too like a, so you've got like an antipasto as you said antipasto, fascinating it's.
Speaker 3:So there's that that's like the opposite of the salad that I would want I know I, I want cucumbers. I want baby corn. I want carrots, I want peas.
Speaker 2:It's how I get this full head of hair, buddy.
Speaker 3:Isn't this so funny yeah.
Speaker 2:And then to each his own. But I mean speaking of customer service. I was back at your favorite gas station this morning.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was actually wondering for folks. Back in season two we talked about the revolution of convenience stores becoming more convenient though less customer driven, that's right, and the customer service was just terrible so.
Speaker 2:So tell me more. Well, I don't think it's gotten much better. Uh, but something I've been doing is I picked up. You'll see, on my laptop here I have lots of little motivational things I see them so I pick up those stickers at the gas station now.
Speaker 3:So I don't understand. The gas station has a sticker dispenser.
Speaker 2:They have a sticker display. It's on like one of those revolving.
Speaker 3:Oh, like an end cap kind of thing. So I buy them or they're free.
Speaker 2:So I buy them there and then I think it's. You know, I'm trying to teach the staff to like as I buy them, I show them what did they say, so they can be a little bit more.
Speaker 3:Which ones did you buy? I think let's, because you have an assortment of things that are pro education.
Speaker 1:Of course you've got some procedural safeguards.
Speaker 3:You've got our podcast. Yeah, let me guess the choose kindness came from the gas station, that came from the gas station and then, to smile, come from the gas station, uh on the right, the sun.
Speaker 2:Yes, let it be yep, let it be, came from there. Yeah, see that, came from there. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, yep, see that. And then there's another one right there Procedural safeguards, baby. Yeah, yeah, world Tour 2024. Band manager right here.
Speaker 3:The best band manager. I try, yeah, try, to keep you all fed. You're like the colonel.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I didn't give you an update on the smoke machine.
Speaker 3:Yeah, let's hear about it. So what's a concert without a smoke machine?
Speaker 2:So last year, last year we had. We had to actually get it in the rider, we got it in the contract for the smoke machine between and that the event was from seven to 10 and they said you can use it only from seven to 10.
Speaker 3:I don't think people know what we're talking about?
Speaker 2:Oh, we were talking about the paiu band, the house band, the house band, and you're the manager and I'm the manager and we call them the procedural safe, and you wanted a smoke machine and I wanted a smoke machine and I demanded it and we got it. And this year you're, you're being told no and I was told no. And I found out why. Yesterday go ahead. They want to charge us five hundred dollars for the use of the smoke machine. Yes, because they would have to have somebody on site in case there was a fire fire, or if this fire detector.
Speaker 2:Yeah well, we're not going to do that we're not going to do that, but I'm going to miss that, but anyway that's a little detail all right, all right. So what are we talking about today?
Speaker 3:listen there are um so I I have a personal fascination with logical fallacies and um, like sort of innate biases okay like. Like and I mean that at the psychological sense like the things that make us human, the things that we believe or we don't believe, yes, and the reasons why we do those things Right. A lot of it is related to, just like, how we've evolved as humans. A lot of them are protections that we put in place to protect our egos and to protect ourselves.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 3:So I recently saw a pack of cards that I ordered from. Let's give them a shout out. This is from school of thought dot org, so you can order these things, ok, and they look like traditional playing cards, though they're not. These are like tools that you can use in a meeting or something like that, and the idea is that each card has a different fallacy and a different bias. Ok, and these are the psychological biases. Biases I'm not talking about bias, like towards a particular race, gender orientation or anything like that.
Speaker 3:So this will become clear as we go through them. Okay, different kind of bias. Okay, um, though, I mean, I think all biases are the same in the sense, but we're not talking about. We're talking about those psychological biases, okay. So all right. So let's talk about fallacies first. So a fallacy would be like a program in your brain or a framework in your brain that's not based on truth or that leads you in a direction that is not towards the truth.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah.
Speaker 3:Got it. It's what you believe to be true, but it's actually not, or it's an errant way of thinking, yes, that our brain often defaults to. Even when we're aware of the fallacy, it still happens anyway.
Speaker 3:So you could study all these, you can memorize them, and you're still going to be victim to the fallacies and the biases. It's just the human condition. So, like here's one, all right, so we'll just go through these randomly. Appeal to emotion. So the fallacy is appeal to emotion, manipulating an emotional response in place of a valid or compelling argument. So the example they give Luke didn't want to eat his sheep's brains with chopped liver and Brussels sprouts, but his father told him to think about the poor, starving children in a third world country who weren't fortunate enough to have any food at all. So, in other words, compelling to emotion to convince someone to do something that they don't want to do.
Speaker 3:People do that all the time at work. They do that all the time at home. I want you to do something that they don't want to do. People do that all the time at work. They do that all the time at home. I want you to do something. You're not willing to do it. I'm going to invent an argument that appeals to your emotions to convince you to do something that you don't want to do.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:I mean, can you think about that? Oh, I could see that happening. I mean it happened growing up. It's a weird example in the car. Well, I had one that's a weird example in the card. Well, I I had one.
Speaker 3:That is a weird example with that but I think they use extreme, ridiculous examples my parents used to say that to me growing up.
Speaker 2:I mean I think it was liver and onions, and I didn't want to eat the liver and onions and they said, well, they're starving people in other countries. Well, of course. Or my brother, steve, didn't want to eat lima beans. He still hates lima beans to this day yeah and they, you know, and again I, I, I see what you're saying there, because they go to the emotions. Here's one.
Speaker 3:This is called a loaded question. Okay, this is another fallacy. A loaded question is something that humans do to one another. It means asking a question that has an assumption built into it so that it can't be answered without appearing guilty. So lawyers do this all the time. Unfortunately, supervisors do this to their employees all the time. Colleagues do it to other colleagues in front of the supervisor in order to make themselves look better and the colleague look bad. So the silly example that they use here is that Grace and Helen were both romantically interested in Brad. One day, with Brad sitting within earshot, grace asked in an inquisitive tone whether helen was still having problems with her fungal infection wow, wow.
Speaker 3:So the brad, would you know that's low.
Speaker 2:That's just taking somebody right out of the game, right? That's a loaded question.
Speaker 3:It totally is, yes, a fungal infection well, whatever, but not that there's anything funny about a fungal infection. Oh, but there is. But and right, but we do this to each other all the time. Yeah, yeah, um. So anyway, have you actually given thought to these kinds of fallacies and the things and how they influence your decision making? Perhaps?
Speaker 2:incorrectly, oh, most definitely, and I think so much comes comes back to our childhood and the way we were raised, and then that's where your biases are developed over time, right? And then, whether or not, I mean, in the back of your mind, you kind of have your own way of thinking, no matter what.
Speaker 3:That's right.
Speaker 2:And that's just driving you through it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, here's one Appeal to authority. This happens at work. All the time it's using the opinion or position of an authority figure or institution of authority in place of an actual argument. So I'm the boss I said so, or you know whatever. Unable to defend his argument that the earth is flat, bob said that his friend terry is a qualified botanist who also believed the earth was flat and had even seen so from up top in a tree. So because he's a botanist, he must know something about the earth being flat.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, he does.
Speaker 3:Right Assumption.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so did you have any psychology background in school other than our, the psychology of the family that we had in education?
Speaker 3:No, but it's, it's my passion. I love organizational psychology. It's group dynamics. I love it, yeah, it's group dynamics.
Speaker 2:I love it, I love it. I could tell that with you. I love it, I love it, I love it. You analyze, yeah, sometimes, but sometimes listeners. I feel like I'm being psychoanalyzed by this guy the straw man.
Speaker 3:Have you heard of the straw man?
Speaker 2:yeah, the straw man. Why don't you tell us? Misrepresenting someone's argument to make it easier to attack right yeah, and so like finding the weakness in it and or you miss in it or not even that, it's literally like redefining the argument.
Speaker 3:So if you and I are in a disagreement and it's not that I disagree with your point or that I make a better point or an equally important point I misrepresent what your point was to undervalue it. It's almost like what Helen did to Grace, right? Oh yeah, so after Bob said that we should be nice to kittens, Will?
Speaker 2:said Bob wants to be mean to puppies, right?
Speaker 3:so totally unrelevant, completely unrelated yeah, right, but obviously will wants to attack bob. So bob says let's be nice to kittens. Will, doesn't like bob? Can you believe he just said that we should be mean to puppies, right? I?
Speaker 1:mean this feels like politics right, happens all the time time it does all right biases.
Speaker 3:Here's a couple of the biases. The anchoring bias have you heard of the anchoring bias? I have not. So sales guys use anchoring bias all the time when you go in to buy a car. The psychology of the anchoring bias is that the salesman will show you. They'll say, oh, you want to spend fifteen thousand dollars on a car. They're going to show you a. They'll say, oh, you want to spend $15,000 on a car. They're going to show you a $30,000 car first, because they want to anchor your brain to the idea that a car is worth 15, or, excuse me, $30,000. Yes, and therefore you have this assumption that anything less than 30 is a good deal. So they're going to show you a car that's 25,000 next and they're going to say a good deal. So they're going to show you a car that's 25,000 next and they're going to say, look, it's not 30,000. It's, it's 25,000.
Speaker 2:They've re anchored your brain away from 15,000 to 30,000. This, this exact that exact was used, and I didn't know that's what it was called, but that exact example was used in defending your life. It was an Albert Brooks movie, sure, and it was. He was buying I think it was a BMW and they showed him the $30,000 BMW first and then they showed him what he got and he goes.
Speaker 3:my car looks like a turd now. Yeah, and that's exactly what was his quote?
Speaker 3:They're trying to anchor you into this new idea. Uh, negotiations are the same way. When you're negotiating with someone, usually whoever is the first to offer a proposal is anchoring the negotiation into that proposal, being the um, the the place to work from. So let's just say that you and I I have a bass guitar I want to sell you, and let's just say that neither of us are sure what the value is. Um, and we're going to negotiate. It's going to be an adversarial negotiation. Okay, I'm going to say it's in my best interest to offer you a price first and say I'll sell it to you for $1,000. We've now anchored the price of the base to be $1,000. Right, and you can say well, that's crazy. I'll give you $750 because now you feel like you're getting a good deal. Meanwhile, I'll give you $750 because now you feel like you're getting a good deal.
Speaker 2:Meanwhile, the base is worth $100. Whoever goes first?
Speaker 3:anchors the negotiation, and it works down or up. It works down or up. Here's just one more the sunk cost fallacy. Have you heard of that one? No, all right. The sunk cost fallacy is something that happens at work all the time as well. It's when one irrationally clings to things that have already cost you something. So when we've invested our time, money or emotion into something, it hurts to let it go, you ask yourself had I not already invested something, would I still do so now?
Speaker 2:So this has happened. I guarantee it's happening in our personal professional lives right now. Oh, absolutely. So yes it could be a purchase with the family that we have done and it was a bad purchase. It could be an investment of not only. This is what hurts, not only the financial investment but the staff involvement, like the professional development and stuff. With a new solution. I had this example from it goes back two positions ago and we invested in the software and it was the wrong solution for our organization.
Speaker 3:And people were probably very hesitant to move on because of the sunk cost fallacy right.
Speaker 2:And they kept. Well, I was administration was, but the staff was fighting it tooth and nail. Yeah, they were fighting it every step of the way.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and no wonder so in other words, you wanted to implement the solution, but people were hanging on to yes. Now take the same example and let's say that after a year you've implemented this new solution yes. And let's say it cost you $300,000 to implement it and you had to hire someone.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:Let's say that you know in your heart of hearts that this solution isn't a good solution. The old way was actually better, or a different way is actually better, or a different way is actually better. But you've invested 300 grand and you've hired someone. You're much less likely, psychologically speaking, according to the sunk cost fallacy, to say it out loud oh my God, we just wasted 300 grand and we hired somebody. Instead, you're more likely to sort of bury your head in the sand and move forward, because you don't want to admit that those expenses were for nothing.
Speaker 2:And you know what, the longer it goes on, the worse.
Speaker 3:Well, right, and that's the irony of the sunk cost fallacy, that the cost goes greater and greater when you're supposed to just say you know what. Let me get out of this now, it's like a bad investment. Yeah, sometimes you have to cut your losses and move on. You do you?
Speaker 2:do, and luckily in my case. I think we were only in about two or three months Mark, and then we pulled out of that.
Speaker 3:So here's the last one, greg confirmation bias. Okay, confirmation bias is something that we learned about, I'm sure, when we got, when we did our dissertations, right. So it's when you're, when you're studying a question or an issue, it's when everything you see, you see through the lens that supports your argument, so that, no matter what happens, your brain reframes things to confirm the bias that you have in your brain. To be true, so they say, we are primed to see and agree with ideas that fit our preconceptions and to ignore and dismiss information that conflicts with our preconceptions. So if I believe that people don't use their turn signals in Bucks County, back to our earlier episode. Right, don't use their turn signals in Bucks County. Back to our earlier episode. Right. Every time I see a car that's not using their turn signal, I go see. It's proving my point Right.
Speaker 3:However, what you don't say, according to this bias, is the thousands of cars in Bucks County that are using their turn signal. You don't go, gosh. That really contradicts my preconceived notion about drivers in Bucks County. You only talk about the cars that don't use their turn signals. Yes, because it confirms your bias. It does Right, it makes you feel better. Yeah, and it's a solution that we use to help our egos say gosh, we're really smart, look how smart we are. And I'm just picking on you because that was the last episode, but we all do this the way we all do all of these things.
Speaker 2:When I pulled into bucks county it said welcome to bucks county. We don't use signals. We don't use signals exactly. It's totally confirmed what I was thinking the land of the signalists. We are signalists here but, but the point is right.
Speaker 3:You don't drive around saying, wow, that person really did a nice job with their signal, right, right, you see the 10 people who don't you go. This really confirms my belief, my belief I'm so smart, I'm this, that the other, we all do it, greg we all do it, and do you know how often we say this in a meeting?
Speaker 2:We need to be objective, yeah, and the thing is, it's that that's not easy because we like. We like things to go our way, right, yeah, and we already have a vision in our mind of the way we want it to go, and that really does. The objectivity is out the window a lot of times.
Speaker 3:Well, sure, and psychologically, we want to be right, we want to be smart.
Speaker 2:We want to be the hero of our story.
Speaker 3:And so our brain tells us these lies, these fallacies and these biases to help our ego. If we didn't have the confirmation bias then we wouldn't be able to go around saying, gosh, I really have these great hypotheses and and these really great theories and they're always right. Somebody else looking at you goes, god, that's not even remotely true, right. Or you know, they have confirmation bias, got it. So anyway, those are six or so things from this pack literally just arrived today.
Speaker 2:You saw me open the pack, yeah yeah, you did much better opening that than your posters. I'll tell you that much. Yeah, they came. I don't know. Do you think I should send that back? I've just never seen a grown man ask somebody else to take their posters out like that.
Speaker 3:I mean, come on, I am not embarrassed to ask for help, dr Coons. It's a strong man who admits his weakness and it's a strong man who relies on the strengths of others. Oh, look at that.
Speaker 2:Look at how he twisted that.
Speaker 3:That's my confirmation bias. That was a confirmation bias.
Speaker 2:It makes it so he feels better about himself. I like how you did that right there. He's pretty quick.
Speaker 3:So, uh, so you're right, I have a passion for this stuff.
Speaker 2:I think it's great. I think it's great and I think, uh, I think, when we for leaders and education or whatever it may be, psychology, that's got to be there with everything, because all of these things you just went through that's what it made me think of is, how do people operate, what are people thinking? What are all these biases that are out there? That was a good exercise, though. That really made me think. I love these things.
Speaker 3:Yeah, are you?
Speaker 2:going to use that with your team, do you think?
Speaker 3:I'm not sure how to use it.
Speaker 3:It could be a good opener Get people thinking about biases and fallacies before you start a meeting yeah, of course, and then also, my goal here would be just to get people to identify that these things actually exist and that we're all subject to them. No one is immune from these things. These are things that come with just being the human condition, being a part of a. You know, being human and being able to identify them and recite them and talk about them doesn't give you the immunity from them. However, being aware of them and referring back to them as you're going through an important project or an important decision may help you identify where you've sort of stepped into a bias or a fallacy Makes sense. So I feel like these are like almost like a governor, you know, like yes, like yeah, it's something that you can refer to to help check your biases and your fallacies as you're making important decisions or having important conversations, especially because it doesn't come natural to us to talk about these things.
Speaker 2:It doesn't, and sometimes you need a third party or somebody on your team to be able to call that out.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that's the beauty of the cards, because the cards aren't personal. Yeah, it's already printed.
Speaker 2:It's here. It's almost like a social story, right? Yeah, it's a. It's already printed.
Speaker 3:It's here it's almost like a social story, right, like I'm exactly like. I'm not saying, greg, that you're biased or Mark. I'm biased, I'm saying we, we, we follow these fallacies and we should probably look and see gosh, this plan that we have. Are we falling into any of these traps? Let's look at, take us down any errant roads. Right, Exactly. Well, thanks for humoring me.
Speaker 2:Well, no, I, I, really I. I always learn something new, um, from you, and that this is a. I think that's a nice little exercise to go through. And and again, we talked about the importance of psychology, um, and really thinking about what are our personal biases, I mean, cause we all have them we all have them, and guides our decision and, a lot of times, very important decisions that we make in leadership, and we need to make sure we're aware of it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and it's so funny. It's easy to see the fallacies and the biases in everybody else's behavior, but not your own. Exactly so. Hopefully the cards present us with an opportunity to help see it in ourselves. Well, very good, Dr.
Speaker 2:Hoffman.
Speaker 3:Dr Coons, what do you say? We?
Speaker 2:wrap this one up, brother, all right. Well, listeners, again, appreciate you tuning in. And again, fourth season. Here we're going strong. So thanks again for listening. Let's make it a great day and let's innovate the USA. And so concludes episode two of season four. Bye, gregory, bye-bye.
