Diagnosticians At-Large

Since 1984, when Robert Cialdini’s Influence was published, the idea of cognitive bias has become ever more well-known. Between Danny Kahneman’s Nobel Prize in 2002, the Publication of Nudge (Thaler and Sunstein) in 2008 and then Thinking Fast and Slow (Kahneman) in 2011, behavioral economics and its taxonomy of cognitive biases has permeated the reading classes. It was used in policy-making and punditry, and by the time Obama began his second term in 2012, we were all part-time behavioral economists.

I think it’s worth asking ourselves why we are still interested in the subject. Yes, it is intriguing and we love learning about ourselves —especially if it can shed light on our own uniqueness and the quirkiness that makes humans so wonderfully flawed.

Ostensibly, our interest is self-serving inasmuch as we want to think better. We are all looking inwardly at our own decisions, to find the flaws in our judgment.

If you listen to most behavioral scientists, and to those who promulgate their work, you would get the idea that we are a population of highly self critical learners, anxious to better our own performance. And obviously, I am highly supportive of that particular orientation. My entire career is based on that mission.

There Must Be a Cure

In general, we are deeply curious about ourselves and crave a vocabulary to describe behavior or symptoms we don’t understand.

If you have ever had an unusual illness, you know this from experience. For example, I got Bell’s Palsy in June 2022. But, unlike most cases, mine did not recover in a matter of weeks. And so 18 months later, I probably qualify for an honorary medical degree in this subject. The level of my curiosity and relentless digging on the subject approaches pathology.

Many of the same people who dug into the language of cognitive bias would behave much as I have…looking for explanations, descriptions and solutions.

When we are medically in-need, that curiosity is ignited because we have something tangible at-stake. Physicians will tell you that they are in constant competition with Dr. Google. Sometimes to the patient’s detriment as a GP must try to convince his patient that he does not have leprosy, but instead, poison ivy.

But the medical profession also lets us down. The answers we are given disappoint—or seem lazy. Watch a parent when given a terrible diagnosis for a child. They will stop at nothing to find a treatment, clinical study, alternative therapy — anything, if it offers hope.

Policy Critique

But, it is hypocritical to suggest that we are so improvement-oriented that our sole interest in these tools is as a means to find our own errors and correct them. In fact, that is very much a secondary way that we use most of what we learn about cognitive bias—as well as about psychology.

Think about the pandemic. As controversy over treatments and policies exploded, we saw every side accuse the other of confirmation bias, over-confidence, and not-built-here bias.

And in fact, some of that may have been well-founded. In a well-known decision, the FDA refused to allow public health agencies to test for CoViD until they themselves had created a test. There were already multiple reliable tests available. Their refusal was classic ‘not-made-here” bias. The decision delayed testing and probably gave the pandemic a significant head-start.

Public policy is a perfect fodder for our knowledge of cognitive biases. And hopefully, when possible, behavioral economists are working with policy-makers to avoid such bias in their decision-making. Our own post hoc bias diagnosis (like mine, above) are solely descriptive. They are too late to help avert consequences.

You Need Professional Help

Unfortunately, we do not limit our diagnostic urge to public policy. While it may not make a difference there, at least voicing our opinions does not damage anyone or anything.

But we also diagnose those we know, those we love, the people we work with, our bosses, our politicians, and the obnoxious guy behind us who is leaning on his horn 1 millisecond after the light turns green.

During the 2016 US presidential election, we all became well-versed in personality disorder language as those not voting for Donald Trump felt compelled to offer psychological diagnoses. Most of the people offering their armchair assessments had never studied psychology, perhaps have never been to a psychologist, and likely learned what they said on Twitter.

Where this becomes most problematic is in our work and relationships. Using our knowledge about various ways to describe sub-optimal thinking inures us to engaging with those who have different points of view than we do. If we cast our colleague’s idea as a function of confirmation bias, then we don’t have to engage with the idea on its merits. That could cost us the benefits of what might have been a great idea.

But there is a further problem with this weaponising of cognitive bias and psychological diagnosis. It invalidates everybody against whom we use it. As soon as you cast a person’s thinking as biased, you have invalidated them and dismissed them from the conversation. And we do this constantly. In our families, we disregard a spouse’s input because we believe he or she has some psychological limitation or other. That justifies our running roughshod over their input.

When we don’t get what we need or want from a partner, rather than communicating, negotiating or collaborating, we diagnose them as sociopathic, or lacking in empathy. That diagnosis stops the action. It guarantees that the complaint will survive; and likely, that the relationship will not.

In our work, we do the same when we feel we haven’t gotten the credit we deserve, or that someone else has gotten what we were owed. Instead of (again) communicating, negotiating and collaborating, we describe and diagnose. Now, we have an explanation. But we still have neither the attention, promotion, raise or relationship.

Why This Matters

Frequently, when a new client comes to me and describes their challenge or goal, it begins with the description of the obstacle. And that obstacle is often another person. Every few new prospective clients I talk to begins their story by giving me a description or diagnosis of a person who is obstructing them. They will explain that they believe their boss is “on the spectrum” and that’s why they aren’t getting useful feedback. Or, that their colleague is a narcissist and is therefore hogging attention and stealing credit. Many times I consider that as a signal against working with them—but not always.

Often, if I can distinguish with them that diagnosing the other person is probably not going to help their case, then we will continue to work together.

But I always see these conversations as cautionary tales for myself. That I need to be awake to anyplace where I may be looking outside of myself to find fault, rather than looking to my own behavior and performance to explain my results. And I think that we ought to all consider that caution. Learning about cognitive biases ought not be an exercise in collecting weapons.

That isn’t to say that it’s easy to identify our own biases in action. It is extremely difficult—and often impossible without very well-honed tools.

Those tools will be the subject of my next blog newsletter. You can subscribe at my website and get it straight to your inbox!

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