The Art of Thinking Clearly

by Rolf Dobelli

  In conclusion: Though instantaneous reward is incredibly tempting, hyperbolic discounting is still a flaw. The more power we gain over our impulses, the better we can avoid this trap. The less power we have over our impulses—for example, when we are under the influence of alcohol—the more susceptible we are. Viewed from the other side: If you sell consumer products, give customers the option of getting their hands on the items right away. Some people will be willing to pay extra just so they don’t have to wait. Amazon makes a bundle from this: A healthy chunk of the next-day delivery surcharge goes directly into its coffers. “Live each day as if it were your last” is a good idea—once a week.

  52

  Any Lame Excuse

  “Because” Justification

  Traffic jam on the highway between Los Angeles and San Francisco: surface repairs. I spent thirty minutes slowly battling my way through until the chaos was a distant scene in my rearview mirror. Or so I thought. Half an hour later, I was again bumper to bumper: more maintenance work. Strangely enough, my level of frustration was much lower this time. Why? Reassuringly cheerful signs along the road announced: “We’re renovating the highway for you!”

  The jam reminded me of an experiment conducted by the Harvard psychologist Ellen Langer in the 1970s. For this, she went into a library and waited at a photocopier until a line had formed. Then she approached the first in line and said: “Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine?” Her success rate was 60 percent. She repeated the experiment, this time giving a reason: “Excuse me. I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I’m in a rush?” In almost all cases (94 percent), she was allowed to go ahead. This is understandable: If people are in a hurry, you often let them cut in to the front of the line. She tried yet another approach, this time saying: “Excuse me. I have five pages. May I go before you because I have to make some copies?” The result was amazing: Even though the pretext was (a-hem) paper-thin—after all, everyone was standing in line to make copies—she was allowed to pass to the front of the line in almost all cases (93 percent).

  When you justify your behavior, you encounter more tolerance and helpfulness. It seems to matter very little if your excuse is good or not. Using the simple validation “because” is sufficient. A sign proclaiming: “We’re renovating the highway for you” is completely redundant. What else would a maintenance crew be up to on a highway? If you hadn’t noticed before, you realize what is going on once you look out the window. And yet this knowledge reassures and calms you. After all, nothing is more frustrating than being kept in the dark.

  Gate A57 at JFK airport, waiting to board: An announcement comes over the loudspeaker: “Attention, passengers. Flight 1234 is delayed by three hours.” Wonderful. I walked to the desk to find out why. And came back no more enlightened. I was furious: How dare they leave us waiting in ignorance? Other airlines have the decency to announce: “Flight 5678 is delayed by three hours due to operational reasons.” A throwaway reason if ever there was one, but enough to appease passengers.

  It seems people are addicted to the word “because”—so much so that we use it even when it’s not necessary. If you are a leader, undoubtedly you have witnessed this. If you provide no rallying call, employee motivation dwindles. It simply doesn’t make the grade to say that the purpose of your shoe company is to manufacture footwear. No, today, higher purposes and the story behind the story are all-important, such as: “We want our shoes to revolutionize the market” (whatever that means). “Better arch support for a better world!” (whatever that means). Zappo’s claims that it is in the happiness business (whatever that means).

  If the stock market rises or falls by half a percent, you will never hear the true cause from stock market commentators—that it is white noise, the culmination of an infinite number of market movements. No: People want a palpable reason, and the commentator is happy to select one. Whatever explanation he utters will be meaningless—with frequent blame applied to the pronouncements of Federal Reserve Bank presidents.

  If someone asks why you have yet to complete a task, it’s best to say: “Because I haven’t got around to it yet.” It’s a pathetic excuse (had you done so, the conversation wouldn’t be taking place), but it usually does the trick without the need to scramble for more plausible reasons.

  One day I watched my wife carefully separating black laundry from blue. As far as I know, this effort isn’t necessary. Both are dark colors, right? Such logic has managed to keep my clothes run-free for many years. “Why do you do that?” I asked. “Because I prefer to wash them separately.” For me, a perfectly fine answer.

  Never leave home without “because.” This unassuming little word greases the wheels of human interaction. Use it unrestrainedly.

  53

  Decide Better—Decide Less

  Decision Fatigue

  For weeks, you’ve been working to the point of exhaustion on this presentation. The PowerPoint slides are polished. Each figure in Excel is indisputable. The pitch is a paradigm of crystal-clear logic. Everything depends on your presentation. If you get the green light from the CEO, you’re on your way to a corner office. If the presentation flops, you’re on your way to the unemployment office. The CEO’s assistant proposes the following times for the presentation: 8:00 a.m., 11:30 a.m., or 6:00 p.m. Which slot do you choose?

  The psychologist Roy Baumeister and collaborator Jean Twenge once covered a table with hundreds of inexpensive items—from tennis balls and candles to T-shirts, chewing gum, and Coke cans. He divided his students into two groups. The first group he labeled “deciders,” the second, “non-deciders.” He told the first group: “I’m going to show you sets containing two random items and each time you have to decide which you prefer. At the end of the experiment I’ll give you one item you can take home.” They were led to believe that their choices would influence which item they get to keep. To the second group, he said: “Write down what you think about each item, and I’ll pick one and give it to you at the end.” Immediately thereafter, he asked each student to put their hand in ice cold water and hold it there as long as possible. In psychology, this is a classic method to measure willpower or self-discipline; if you have little or none, you yank your hand back out of the water very quickly. The result: The deciders pulled their hands out of the icy water much sooner than the non-deciders did. The intensive decision making had drained their willpower—an effect confirmed in many other experiments.

  Making decisions is exhausting. Anyone who has ever configured a laptop online or researched a long trip—flight, hotels, activities, restaurants, weather—knows this well: After all the comparing, considering, and choosing, you are exhausted. Science calls this decision fatigue.

  Decision fatigue is perilous: As a consumer, you become more susceptible to advertising messages and impulse buys. As a decision maker, you are more prone to erotic seduction. Willpower is like a battery. After a while it runs out and needs to be recharged. How do you do this? By taking a break, relaxing, and eating something. Willpower plummets to zero if your blood sugar falls too low. IKEA knows this only too well: On the trek through its mazelike display areas and towering warehouse shelves, decision fatigue sets in. For this reason, its restaurants are located right in the middle of the stores. The company is willing to sacrifice some of its profit margin so that you can top up your blood sugar on Swedish treats before resuming your hunt for the perfect candlesticks.

  Four prisoners in an Israeli jail petitioned the court for early release. Case 1 (scheduled for 8:50 a.m.): an Arab sentenced to thirty months in prison for fraud. Case 2 (scheduled for 1:27 p.m.): a Jew sentenced to sixteen months for assault. Case 3 (scheduled for 3:10 p.m.): a Jew sentenced to sixteen months for assault. Case 4 (scheduled for 4:35 p.m.), an Arab sentenced to thirty months for fraud. How did the judges decide? More significant than the detainees’ allegiance or the severity of their crimes was the judges’ decision fatigue. The jud
ges granted requests 1 and 2 because their blood sugar was still high (from breakfast or lunch). However, they struck out applications 3 and 4 because they could not summon enough energy to risk the consequences of an early release. They took the easy option (the status quo) and the men remained in jail. A study of hundreds of verdicts shows that within a session, the percentage of “courageous” judicial decisions gradually drops from 65 percent to almost zero, and after a recess, returns to 65 percent. So much for the careful deliberations of Lady Justice. But, as long as you have no upcoming trials, all is not lost: You now know when to present your project to the CEO.

  54

  Would You Wear Hitler’s Sweater?

  Contagion Bias

  Following the collapse of the Carolingian Empire in the ninth century, Europe, especially France, descended into anarchy. Counts, commanders, knights, and other local rulers were perpetually embroiled in battles. The ruthless warriors looted farms, raped women, trampled fields, kidnapped pastors, and set convents alight. Both the Church and the unarmed farmers were powerless against the nobles’ savage warmongering.

  In the tenth century, a French bishop had an idea. He asked the princes and knights to assemble in a field. Meanwhile, priests, bishops, and abbots gathered all the relics that they could muster from the area and displayed them there. It was a striking sight: bones, blood-soaked rags, bricks, and tiles—anything that had ever come in contact with a saint. The bishop, at that time a person of respect, then called upon the nobles, in the presence of the relics, to renounce unbridled violence and attacks against the unarmed. In order to add weight to his demand, he waved the bloody clothes and holy bones in front of them. The nobles must have had enormous reverence for such symbols: The bishop’s unique appeal to their conscience spread throughout Europe, promoting the “Peace and Truce of God.” “One should never underestimate the fear of saints in the Middle Ages and of saints’ relics,” says American historian Philip Daileader.

  As an enlightened person, you can only laugh at this silly superstition. But wait: What if I put it to you this way? Would you put on a freshly laundered sweater that Hitler had once worn? Probably not, right? So, it seems that you haven’t lost all respect for intangible forces, either. Essentially, this sweater has nothing to do with Hitler anymore. There isn’t a single molecule of Hitler’s sweat on it. However, the prospect of putting it on still puts you off. It’s more than just a matter of respect. Yes, we want to project a “correct” image to our fellow humans and to ourselves, but the thought puts us off even when we are alone and when we convince ourselves that touching this sweater does not endorse Hitler in any way. This emotional reaction is difficult to override. Even those who consider themselves quite rational have a hard time completely banishing the belief in mysterious forces (me included).

  Mysterious powers of this kind can’t simply be switched off. Paul Rozin and his research colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania asked test subjects to bring in photos of loved ones. These were pinned to the center of targets and the subjects had to shoot darts at them. Riddling a picture with darts does no harm to the person in it but, nevertheless, the subjects’ hesitation was palpable. They were much less accurate than a control group that had shot at regular targets beforehand. The test subjects behaved as if a mystic force prevented them from hitting the photos.

  The contagion bias describes how we are incapable of ignoring the connection we feel to certain items—be they from long ago or only indirectly related (as with the photos). A friend was a longtime war correspondent for the French public television channel France 2. Just as passengers on a Caribbean cruise take home souvenirs from each island—a straw hat or a painted coconut—my friend also collected mementos from her adventures. One of her last missions was to Baghdad in 2003. A few hours after American troops stormed Saddam Hussein’s government palace, she crept into the private quarters. In the dining room, she spotted six gold-plated wineglasses and promptly commandeered them. When I attended one of her dinner parties in Paris recently, the gilded goblets had pride of place on the dining table. “Are these from Galeries Lafayette?” one person asked. “No, they are from Saddam Hussein,” she said candidly. A horrified guest spat his wine back into the glass and began to splutter uncontrollably. I had to contribute: “You realize how many molecules you’ve already shared with Saddam, simply by breathing?” I asked. “About a billion per breath.” His cough got even worse.

  55

  Why There Is No Such Thing as an Average War

  The Problem with Averages

  Suppose you’re on a bus with forty-nine other people. At the next stop, the heaviest person in America gets on. Question: By how much has the average weight of the passengers increased? Four percent? Five? Something like that? Suppose the bus stops again, and on gets Bill Gates. This time we are not concerned about weight. Question: By how much has the average wealth risen? Four percent? Five? Far from it!

  Let’s calculate the second example quickly. Suppose each of fifty randomly selected individuals has assets of $54,000. This is the statistical middle value, the median. Then Bill Gates is added to the mix, with his fortune of around $59 billion. The average wealth has just shot up to $1.15 billion, an increase of more than two million percent. A single outlier has radically altered the picture, rendering the term “average” completely meaningless.

  “Don’t cross a river if it is (on average) four feet deep,” warns Nassim Taleb, from whom I have the above examples. The river can be very shallow for long stretches—mere inches—but it might transform into a raging torrent that is twenty feet deep in the middle—in which case you could easily drown. Dealing in averages is a risky undertaking because they often mask the underlying distribution—the way the values stack up.

  Another example: The average amount of UV rays you are exposed to on a June day is not harmful to your health. But if you were to spend the entire summer in a darkened office, then fly to Barbados and lie in the sun without sunscreen for a week solid, you would have a problem—even though, on average over the summer, you were not getting more UV light than someone who was regularly outside.

  All this is quite straightforward and maybe you were aware of it already. For example, you drink one glass of red wine for dinner every evening. That’s not a health issue. Many doctors recommend it. But if you drink no alcohol the entire year and on December 31 you gulp 356 glasses, which is equivalent to sixty bottles, you will have a problem, although the average over the year is the same.

  Here’s the update: In a complex world, distribution is becoming more and more irregular. In other words, we will observe the Bill Gates phenomenon in ever more domains. How many visits does an average website get? The answer is: There are no average websites. A handful of sites (such as the New York Times, Facebook, or Google) garner the majority of visits, and countless other pages draw comparatively few. In such cases, mathematicians speak of the so-called power law. Take cities. There is one city on this planet with a population of more than thirty million: Tokyo. There are eleven cities with a population of between twenty and thirty million. There are fifteen cities with a population of between ten and twenty million. There are forty-eight cities between five and ten million inhabitants. And thousands (!) between one and five million. That’s a power law. A few extremes dominate the distribution, and the concept of average is rendered worthless.

  What is the average size of a company? What is the average population of a city? What is an average war (in terms of deaths or duration)? What is the average daily fluctuation in the Dow Jones? What is the average cost overrun of construction projects? How many copies does an average book sell? What is the average amount of damage a hurricane wreaks? What is a banker’s average bonus? What is the average success of a marketing campaign? How many downloads does an average iPhone app get? How much money does an average actor earn? Of course you can calculate the answers, but it would be a waste of time. These seemingly routine scena
rios are subject to the power law.

  To use just the final example: A handful of actors take home more than $10 million per year, while thousands and thousands live on the breadline. Would you advise your son or daughter to get into acting since the average wage is pretty decent? Hopefully not—wrong reason.

  In conclusion: If someone uses the word “average,” think twice. Try to work out the underlying distribution. If a single anomaly has almost no influence on the set, the concept is still worthwhile. However, when extreme cases dominate (such as the Bill Gates phenomenon), we should discount the term “average.” We should all take stock from novelist William Gibson: “The future is already here—it’s just not very evenly distributed.”

  56

  How Bonuses Destroy Motivation

  Motivation Crowding

  A few months ago, a friend from Connecticut decided to move to New York City. This man had a fabulous collection of antiques, such as exquisite old books and handblown Murano glasses from generations ago. I knew how attached he was to them, and how anxious he would be handing them over to a moving company, so the last time I visited, I offered to carry the most fragile items with me when I returned to the city. Two weeks later I got a thank-you letter. Enclosed was a $50 bill.

  For years, Switzerland has been considering where to store its radioactive waste. The authorities considered a few different locations for the underground repository, including the village of Wolfenschiessen in the center of the country. Economist Bruno Frey and his fellow researchers at the University of Zurich traveled there and recorded people’s opinions at a community meeting. Surprisingly, 50.8 percent were in favor of the proposal. Their positive response can be attributed to several factors: national pride, common decency, social obligation, the prospect of new jobs, and so on. The team carried out the survey a second time, but this time they mentioned a hypothetical reward of $5,000 for each townsperson, paid for by Swiss taxpayers, if they were to accept the proposal. What happened? Results plummeted: Only 24.6 percent were willing to endorse the proposal.