Earlier on this blog, I mentioned hearing about a new book called, Sway, The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior. I thought it was important for a person writing about fictional characters to understand.
I finally got the book by Ori Brafman and Rom Brafman and found it interesting. They are concerned with “How often… do we turn a blind eye to objective information.” (p. 3) One of the ways we become irrational is over avoiding loss: “The word loss alone… elicits a surprisingly powerful reaction in us.” (p. 20)
As Columbia Business school professor Eric Johnson explained to us, the more meaningful a potential loss is, the more loss averse we become. In other words, the more there is on the line, the easier it is to get swept into an irrational decision. (p. 21-22)
Nobel Prize-wining economist Daniel Kahneman, who together with Amos Tversky, first discovered and chronicaled the phenomenon of loss averson, offers a telling reflection of our psychology during such situations. ‘To withdraw now is to accept a sure loss… and that option is deeply unattractive. When you combine this with the force of commitment, the option of hanging on will therefore be relatively attractive even if the chances of success are samll and the cost of delaying failure is high.’ (p. 39)
They go from talking about how we become irrational in our decisions that involve loss and commitment to how we judge people. “Once we attribute a certain value to a person or thing, it dramatically alters our perceptions of subsequent information.” (p. 55) And then they quote Dan Ariely, study author who has found, “expectations change the reality we live in.” (p. 56)
We do need to attach labels, however, we need to be aware of what we are doing it seems.
Each day we’re bombared with so much information that if we had no way to filter it, we’d be unable to function. Psychologist Franz Epting… explained… ‘Once you get a label in mind, you don’t notice things that don’t fit within the categories that do make a difference.’ (p. 75) …explained Epting: ‘The baggage that comes with labeling…. causes us to distort or even ignore objective data.” (p. 75)
To get over the sway caused by commitment, the advice is:
When we find outselves unsure about whether or not to continue particular approach, it’s useful to ask, ‘If I were just arriving on the scene and were given the choice to either jump into this project as it stands now or pass on it, would I choose to jump in?’ If the answer is no, then chances are we’ve been swayed by the hidden force of commitment. (p. 175)
And then there is the fairness sway where we are so focused on someone else not being fair that we ignore our own goal just so that person doesn’t get away with being unfair.
When it comes to the fairness sway, our emotional reaction can be… intractable and difficult to set aside. One way to counter the fairness sway is to try to weigh things objectively and not succumb to emotional maneuvers or moral judgments (would I rather achieve my goals or teach the other person a lesson?). (p. 178)