No Stupid Questions 67. How Can You Escape Binary Thinking?
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Sep 19, 2021 Explore the pitfalls of binary thinking and its oversimplifications in politics and healthcare. Discover how embracing a spectrum of choices can enhance decision-making, especially in mental health. Delve into the intriguing world of transactional utility and how perceived discounts influence our happiness and spending habits. Through personal anecdotes, uncover the complex relationships between frugality, identity, and value perception. Finally, enjoy a playful take on expressing non-binary ideas, reflecting the shades of complexity in everyday life.
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Binary Bias
- Binarizing is fundamental; cognitive scientists document how we categorize continuous data.
- This binary bias distorts how we summarize evidence, creating mental extremes not present in the data itself.
Binarizing and Action
- Binarizing has a functional purpose, much like other cognitive biases.
- It simplifies decision-making for action, which is often binary (fight or flight).
Doctor's Categorization
- Doctors categorize patients (medication or not) based on continuous data (blood pressure).
- This illustrates how life demands decisions and actions, which are inherently categorical.