This “trying to believe” tactic is much more explicitly used in areas where there is randomness or unpredictability.
My business is finance. As a financial advisor, I am constantly “trying to believe” in things like regression to the mean, long term performance of the market vs. short term volatility, the efficacy of asset allocation.
But each day I am faced with evidence that causes me to doubt my rationally held beliefs about investing.
I think baseball players may have similar issues with batting. They may rationally know that it’s only practice and talent that improve their performance, but they still notice that when they where the red underwear they hit better. So they may be “trying to believe” that the red underwear doesn’t really affect their batting behavior.
As with many of the issues we raise, this all boils down to having a brain that’s made of multiple systems each trying to do something a little different. We have a pattern matching part of our brain and we have our prefrontal cortex, theorizing about the world.
This “trying to believe” tactic is much more explicitly used in areas where there is randomness or unpredictability.
My business is finance. As a financial advisor, I am constantly “trying to believe” in things like regression to the mean, long term performance of the market vs. short term volatility, the efficacy of asset allocation.
But each day I am faced with evidence that causes me to doubt my rationally held beliefs about investing.
I think baseball players may have similar issues with batting. They may rationally know that it’s only practice and talent that improve their performance, but they still notice that when they where the red underwear they hit better. So they may be “trying to believe” that the red underwear doesn’t really affect their batting behavior.
As with many of the issues we raise, this all boils down to having a brain that’s made of multiple systems each trying to do something a little different. We have a pattern matching part of our brain and we have our prefrontal cortex, theorizing about the world.
Sometimes these systems can be in conflict.
Hope this contributes to the discussion.
David