Proportionality bias leads people to seek logical explanations for events like the death of Princess Diana, suggesting that the royal family was involved. This bias is linked to ideas of manifestation, where individuals believe they can influence outcomes through mindset. While mindset can affect outcomes, it is exploited by some 'manifestation gurus' who take advantage of people's innate biases and fears to profit from selling courses and books promising to change their lives.
Raise your hand if you've ever belittled a stranger online, made a decision based on astrology, or, heaven forbid, fallen for a conspiracy theory. No? Well, then, consider yourself lucky. And if your hand is raised, don't feel bad, because it turns out in our Information Age the cognitive biases that kept us alive a few millennia ago now make us susceptible to bouts of extreme irrationality. How this happened, and what we can do about it, is the subject of a brand new book by linguist Amanda Montell called "The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality."