LifeHabits 4 - The Power of the Mind
Mar 16th, 2008 by lifehabits
The mind is amazingly powerful. We can either control it or be controlled by it. This episode is all about being aware of what your mind is capable of doing when you don’t control it and, once you’re aware of it, to take control. Karel quotes Marcus Aurelius, who said, “You have the power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this and you will find strength”.
Karel gives a few examples of the power of the mind and the ways in which it can take control without our knowledge. He talks about the placebo effect in medical research, the Loftus’s research into reconstructed memories, Dawkins’s work on the difficulty of changing religious beliefs, and Gladwell’s summary of work on the confirmation bias in auditions (click on the links in the previous paragraph to listen to audio segments giving details on each of these). Karel then gives examples of several other biases including the bandwagon effect, base rate fallacy, the illusion of control bias, gamblers fallacy, the planning fallacy, the halo effect, in-group bias, and out-group homogeneity bias, groupthink, and cognitive dissonance. Have a look at a longer list of biases on Wikipedia.
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