Title: Why We Make Mistakes
Author: Joseph T. Hallinan
Publisher: 2009 Crown Archetype
This book discussed the nature of errors and mistakes, and the various ways that they come about and can be dealt with. Each chapter discussed a new kind of mistake, often bringing other ones into context. Each chapter contained many examples to accompany the mistakes.
A mistake/error is a misunderstanding of the meaning or implication of something, or a wrong action or statement that precedes from a faulty judgment. The world is not designed for the way that humans are wired (i.e. machines), so the world encourages people to make mistakes. Often, the wrong person or thing is blamed for a mistake; therefore, it is easy to make mistakes over and over again and difficult to learn from them.
The eye can only see a finite amount of data, and what is recognized depends on the individual. This means that people can look at something and still not see everything. This leads to change blindness (where a person doesn't notice changes), the ability of movie mistakes to go largely unnoticed, and a quitting threshold for noticing details.
Meaning has great importance when dealing with memory. It affects what and how things are remembered, when details such as names are easily forgotten. Therefore, associating emotions and judgment with someone makes a person much more likely to remember them. This also suggests the importance of mnemonics when memorizing things. Similarly, brains often connect meaning without a person realizing it. This means that initial impressions are important and difficult to change. Subtle clues such as scents, prices, and regrets also play a large role in determining a person's actions.
In addition, people often view themselves in a better light when remembering past events. This includes remembering past grades as higher, affects on gamblers, moral/self-licensing (when people demonstrate that they're not corrupt, it makes corruption more likely), and hindsight bias.
Multitasking does not really exist; humans just switch between topics, requiring more time to refocus and presenting more of an opportunity for distraction errors to occur. This results in intentional blindness (not seeing things that are really there) and driver distraction.
Often times, errors occur if a person is in the wrong frame of mind, since they will look at issues the wrong way and will not realize that it is happening. Risk was also discussed, in that if someone expects a loss, they are more prone to take a risk and vis-versa. In addition, the further away the consequences of an action are, the more risks people are willing to take. Anchoring is also an issue, whereby the presentation of something sticks in a person's mind and influences their decisions. To help prevent this problem, people should try reframing, be the first to make an offer, and be wary of sales items.
People tend to only pay attention to those things that matter, such as the beginning of a word, so proofreading errors occur due to not noticing problems with the latter part of the word. Generally, the more expert someone is at a task, the more likely they are to skim and the more details they will not notice. This includes reading, music, and even emotional states. The context of something helps with remembering it, such as finding it difficult to remember a person until that person's context is remembered.
Humans have a tendency to distort irregular details of memories in a way that makes them simpler and smoother. Mapping problems arise, such as short distances being overestimated and distances to a landmark being judged to be less than distances from the landmark. The human mind forms a mental map by organizing information into a hierarchy system. Finally, since memories can be distorted, stories that are told are often tailored to t he audience and the purpose, and conversation becomes more of a means of creating an impression than conveying information.
Men and women have differences in behavior that tend to lead to different errors. Men tend to be more overconfident, which is the leading source of human error. Women are more risk averse, partially due to how they see the rewards of risk, and if someone is less confident about performing a new task, they are likely to use the older, more complex way. Maps and the asking of directions were also discussed, which depends on how wide of a home range the person had as a child.
People tend to think that they are above average and overconfident (except for those that are depressed), which tends to create many human errors. Advertising often takes advantage of overconfidence, counting on people to overestimate their self-control (i.e. gym memberships). Calibration is used to judge how overconfident someone is, and it measures the difference between actual and perceived abilities. The power of feedback, the illusion of control, and information overload were also discussed.
There is a human tendency to not read instruction manuals and to just try to figure stuff out on the fly. When it comes to tasks of judgment, experts are often worse than believed, practice to form a library in the mind is essential to becoming an expert, and cognitive maps are used to solve everyday problems. Also, once people learn a particular way to do something, they are likely to stick with it, even if there is a simpler method.
Constraints and affordances can be used to eliminate errors. Selecting things that are easily recognizable, eliminating uncertainty, simplifying things, and determining the source of error can all be used to reduce error. A person's attitude plays a large role in the occurrence of mistakes, since overconfidence is a large cause of error.
People have a tendency to be unable to accurately predict how they will feel about things in the future, leading to projection bias regarding items such as gift cards and rebates. People focus on the wrong details when making decisions, exaggerating the importance of individual factors and ignoring the major factors. Personal happiness does not require much, and people often have a difficult time judging the happiness of others.
Finally, after discussing all of these mistakes, the author offered solutions to prevent them. These included thinking small, thinking negatively (considering what bad consequences could happen), letting non-experts take part in things, disregarding habits, slowing down, and getting sleep. The affect of happiness was discussed, including the fact that people that are happier increase their tendency to see relations between material and overcome habits. Finally, the author suggested that money is not the currency of life, but time is.
Discussion
I thought this book was very interesting. Unlike the other books that we have read for this class, it focused less on the design, and more on the actual behavior of people. I found it to be very informative regarding mistakes. I had no idea that many of those mistakes actually existed, and while I was reading it, I often found that I do many of those things, too. The examples provided were very helpful to understanding the author's point. With the information about what kinds of mistakes people make and why, I can be more aware of my own mistakes and try to adjust my own behavior to fix some of them. More importantly, though, this information can be applied towards designing systems that are easier to use and that prevent more user errors by eliminating common causes of mistakes.
