Skeptisaurus

There is a distinct difference between knowing and the feeling of knowing.

I’ll modify an example from On Being Certain to illuminate the difference. Take a moment to read the following paragraph.

Pause here. Try and make sense of what you just read. Any idea what it means?

Let’s reread the paragraph but with the following word in mind:

Kite. 

Notice how you feel - confused to confident. I suspect it feels like the pieces fell into place. What was once effectively gibberish is now so apparent as to be obvious. With the introduction of a single data point, you went from feeling confused to feeling like you know.

Yes, feeling. Because what appears to be the answer is simply a possibility. To see what I mean, here’s another word:

Fishing.

See what I mean? The shift from confused to confident was so swift that you interpreted an answer for the answer. The introduction of a suitable alternative at best shifts you from confident to confounded, but if you’re like most people, that initial “aha” moment is hard to give up. You may have even gone back to reread the paragraph to prove to yourself that flying a kite makes way more sense than fishing in that context.

This is a silly but essential example of how we process information. In our quest to resolve uncertainty in our minds, we will cling to the first narrative that fits what we’re seeing. If the situation in question is emotionally charged - political, familial, etc. - different narratives will appeal to different people, but the process is ultimately the same.

Daniel Kahneman refers to this phenomenon as What You See Is All There Is (WYSIATI). In his book, Thinking Fast and Slow, he uses the following example:

To some degree, this is all inevitable. We cannot evolve to be a skeptisaurus - our brains are wired to err on the side of intuition because it’s not possible (nor practical) to be skeptical of everything you read, see, and hear. Plus, who wants to be around someone who questions everything?

We have to be cognitive of the difference between knowing and feeling when it counts. If you believe Ronald Reagan originated the phrase “Trust, but verify?” does it require validation? Paradoxically, probably not - the stakes are low, and unless you’re submitting a peer-reviewed paper, you can rely on a quick Google search and move on.

When the stakes are high, however, we can do a few things to identify what gap exists between how we feel and what we know.

1. Consider three alternatives. A good rule of thumb is to strive for three plausible explanations before settling on any particular one. Why three? Two makes it too easy to say one is better than the other, whereas the third requires you to rank them. The positives and negatives of each become more apparent when it’s not a simple head-to-head.

2. Wrap it in context. We fool ourselves when we accept data supporting a narrative without the underlying context. Doubling year-over-year sales sounds impressive in an established, aging business…unless last year’s sales were halved because the entire sales team had quit. Likewise, how disappointed you are with a CEO’s impact on the stock price should be somewhat anchored to how similar companies in the industry are performing. When we ask why we think the data matters, it becomes clear what additional information we need to feel confident in our knowledge.

3. Ask why? As discussed in The Homer Paradox, we need to appreciate our ability to tell stories with data is limited by our propensity to be unreliable narrators. When we start with data and then wrap a narrative on top, the story looks plausible until you ask why that would be true. Said another way, just because the data tells a story doesn’t mean it’s a nonfictional one.