Quick definition: a cognitive bias is a thinking flaw that effects ALL human thinkers. These flaws are "hard wired" into our brains due to human evolutionary history.
Cognitive biases are well studied, well understood, but still occur commonly - even experts who study them professionally freely admit that they fall for them.
One of these thinking flaws is the "Framing Bias."
The idea of the framing bias is that people will interpret the same data in different ways, depending on how the information is given (i.e.: the way it is framed).
Example:
70% = 70,000 /100,000 = 70/100 = 7/10 = 7 out of every 10. Statistically speaking, each of the listed ratios mean exactly the same thing - they are entirely equivalent.
Let's imagine that a person has an annoying, but NOT life threatening medical problem.
This person goes to the doctor who says "There is a surgery available. It is considered very effective, in fact, out of every one hundred thousand people, seventy thousand make a complete recovery, 20% recover with no measurable improvement, and only 10% die during the surgery."
This sounds really good - 70,000 people get better, a few people are unaffected, and a only a tiny number die.
HOWEVER, if the doctor says "Imagine you are in a room with ten people who are getting this surgery. Seven people in the room will get better, two of them will go through the surgery and recovery without any improvement, and one of them will die. Which one will you be?"
That doesn't sound so good. Now, it's personal - Will I be the one out of ten who die? Will I be one of the two out of ten who pays to be cut open, sewn back together, with the expense and time off work and discomfort, who gains absolutely nothing? Or will I be one of the lucky ones?
Same info, same data, same statistics - two very different interpretations.
Explanation: People evolved in small family/clan units. We easily grasp numbers of people up to about 10, but shortly past 10, people stop understanding individuals and switch to "a lot."
The monster, Stalin is often quoted as saying "The death of one man is a tragedy; the death of a million is a statistic." Don't know if Stalin actually said that, but, unfortunately, it happens to be true.
Cognitive biases are well studied, well understood, but still occur commonly - even experts who study them professionally freely admit that they fall for them.
One of these thinking flaws is the "Framing Bias."
The idea of the framing bias is that people will interpret the same data in different ways, depending on how the information is given (i.e.: the way it is framed).
Example:
70% = 70,000 /100,000 = 70/100 = 7/10 = 7 out of every 10. Statistically speaking, each of the listed ratios mean exactly the same thing - they are entirely equivalent.
Let's imagine that a person has an annoying, but NOT life threatening medical problem.
This person goes to the doctor who says "There is a surgery available. It is considered very effective, in fact, out of every one hundred thousand people, seventy thousand make a complete recovery, 20% recover with no measurable improvement, and only 10% die during the surgery."
This sounds really good - 70,000 people get better, a few people are unaffected, and a only a tiny number die.
HOWEVER, if the doctor says "Imagine you are in a room with ten people who are getting this surgery. Seven people in the room will get better, two of them will go through the surgery and recovery without any improvement, and one of them will die. Which one will you be?"
That doesn't sound so good. Now, it's personal - Will I be the one out of ten who die? Will I be one of the two out of ten who pays to be cut open, sewn back together, with the expense and time off work and discomfort, who gains absolutely nothing? Or will I be one of the lucky ones?
Same info, same data, same statistics - two very different interpretations.
Explanation: People evolved in small family/clan units. We easily grasp numbers of people up to about 10, but shortly past 10, people stop understanding individuals and switch to "a lot."
The monster, Stalin is often quoted as saying "The death of one man is a tragedy; the death of a million is a statistic." Don't know if Stalin actually said that, but, unfortunately, it happens to be true.
