Dr. Death🩸✙
"There are more old drunkards than old doctors."
—Benjamin Franklin
> delusional optimism | glitch doctor
In a 1982 study, researchers made a startling revelation. They showed how vulnerable even doctors could be to cognitive biases and errors.
These are shortcuts our minds take to reach decisions fast. But they sacrifice facts for speed. We have little conscious control over them.
Doctors in the study were asked if they would recommend a surgical procedure with a 90% success rate. Most said they would. 🏥
Then the doctors were told the same procedure had a 10% mortality rate, rather than a 90% success rate.
- This time, the number of doctors who recommended the procedure plummeted.
- The facts never changed. There's no difference between the two choices other than the words used.
Psychologists describe these undetected errors in our thinking as "framing effects."
Renowned psychologist Daniel Kahneman wrote about the phenomenon in his bestselling 2011 book, "Thinking, Fast and Slow." The words "survival" and "mortality" are emotionally loaded, he says:
>> "An important finding of the study is that physicians were just as susceptible to the framing effect as medically unsophisticated people. Medical training is, evidently, no defense against the power of framing."
Such cognitive misfires help explain why shoppers in a hurry may wrongly see a difference between "10% fat" and "90% fat-free" on a product label.
This is how junk food is sold. This is how presidents are sold. This is how ideologies are sold. $$$
- next time "At an auto lot, the fixed-point sticker price anchors us."
- listening David Bowie "Heroes"
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