An area where my actions don’t seem to correspond to my stated beliefs? How about luck? I’ve come to the embarrassing conclusion that although I believe in disbelief, I might actually believe in luck.
All my life people have constantly told me how lucky I am, and my family jokes that I have two guardian angels.
No matter how many risks I take, bad things just don’t seem to happen to me like they do to other people. People are constantly warning me not to do things, I acknowledge their warnings have merit, but I do them anyway. I seem to believe that I’m just “lucky” in certain ways.
1) I lived in Guatemala City for 15 months, a place with a high crime rate. The vast majority of my American and Guatemalan friends were robbed on the street at least once during my time there, despite being far, far more cautious than I was. I was never robbed (or murdered, but this fits the probability since there were only 3 murders among thousands of passerby on the short street where I lived). Alone, I regularly took the “dangerous” red buses, walked through “dangerous” neighborhoods and alleys even at night (as a white female), rode in “dangerous” white taxis, and shopped at the “dangerous” markets. I left cash unattended in plain sight. I walked around with my ipod visible. Nothing ever happened.
2) I tend to forget it when I drive alone, but I’m an awful driver. I’m impulsive and daily make very obviously illegal u-turns or similar bad driving decisions just to save like 20 seconds. And even when I’m in no hurry, my default highway speed is 18 mph over the limit. I’ve never gotten a ticket, and I drive quite a lot.
3) My family has an old board game with a “gamble” card, that can swing the game 20 points in either direction. When 2 people gamble, they each roll the dice, and the higher number wins. We’ve played this game dozens and dozens of times over the years, and I have won every gamble. If I get the gamble card, even if I’m winning and losing the gamble could bump someone else ahead of me, I’ll still use it. When someone else gets the gamble card, I’ll try to cajole them into gambling with me, and in hopes of breaking my streak, they will. But I never lose, and what’s worse, I seem to really believe I have a lower than 50-50 chance of losing this one gamble per game.
4) I treat my internal clock as if it’s infallible. I might be lying in bed, realize I forgot to set an alarm for the next day (even if I’m about to get only a few hours of sleep) and still not bother to get up to set it, somehow just believing I’ll be “lucky” and wake up just in time. And then I always do. Also, if I have to leave the house at 1:40, I might lose track of time and go several hours without bothering to check the time, and then look with shock to see it’s 1:35-1:40… so far, I’ve never happened to look too late, and I’ve never overslept and missed class or any event.
Most things other people call me lucky for, I think are based on rational risk-reward calculations. For example, I rarely go to the bank. When paid in cash, I’d let it pile up in my dresser for months before bothering to deposit it. When coming back from Guatemala with the several thousand dollars in cash I had saved from the last few months of working, I put it in my baggage rather than paying $25 for a wire transfer.
Stuff like visiting the bank infrequently makes sense to me, but yikes, what’s up with the other examples? The risks seem high and the rewards seem so negligible that I would never recommend others make the same decisions, yet I seem to figure I might as well continue to make them until something bad actually happens to me.
So this is a weird example, but it’s all I could come up with. Either I’m really hungry for something interesting to happen to me, or my actions don’t correspond to my professed disbelief in luck.
As a rationality exercise, maybe you could play a special version of the game where someone takes the gamble against you over and over again until you lose, so that you can really feel on a gut level that there is no Fortune Fairy protecting you from bad luck. (And if you’re really patient, maybe by playing a few times a day for a long time, then you could keep track of your win/loss ratio and watch as it tends toward 1:1.) You might also be selectively remembering times that you were fortunate because they’re more available and they confirm your Fortune Fairy hypothesis.
You know, I think I might actually describe all of my “risk-taking” behavior as a giant rationality exercise, trying to test my so-called luck.
As for your special version idea, it wouldn’t be the same game. It’s not like I act like I’ll win every luck-related game.
My family would confirm that none of them have ever won a gamble against me in dozens of games. If I lost, it would be pretty memorable, so I don’t think it’s confirmation bias as much as a case of things with low probability actually occurring sometimes. And despite this game not being my favorite, I always wanted to play it, “just for the gamble” because my win streak was so bizarre to me.
Anyway, this is silly. It’s not like I actually admit I think I have a > 50-50 chance of winning. My insistence on gambling every time was probably just out of having nothing to lose in most cases, and an even longer and more fun win streak to gain.
So now, I’d no longer say my actions don’t correspond to my professed disbelief. I’d say my actions are attempts to prove my professed disbelief correct.
Honestly, kid, I don’t see anything in this description which would count as evidence against the hypothesis that this is a simple example of confirmation bias.
There’s a saying which describes people like you: “young and invincible.” There has been no need to coin the corresponding “old and invincible” saying which you would expect to exist. Ponder that.
Honestly, adult, I’m not admitting to actually believing in luck. Just saying that my actions make it seem like I do.
And of course there is no evidence against the confirmation bias hypothesis in my description… If normal unlucky stuff happened to me, and I could recognize it or other people could point it out to me, there would have been no description in the first place.
Most things other people call me lucky for, I think are based on rational risk-reward calculations. For example, I rarely go to the bank. When paid in cash, I’d let it pile up in my dresser for months before bothering to deposit it. When coming back from Guatemala with the several thousand dollars in cash I had saved from the last few months of working, I put it in my baggage rather than paying $25 for a wire transfer.
That seems irrational because it has a chance of leading to civil forfeiture if you’re in the US. (The Federal government can still confiscate money directly, even though it has recently been cut down for states.)
Also, you need to count the interest that the money could have earned while in the bank against the cost of the wire transfer, as well as the risk of being burglarized and having your money stolen.
Civil forfeiture? Yikes, I never knew this could happen. Maybe if I had heard of this happening, it would have influenced my decision.
This wasn’t a ton of money, just my checking account balance of $8,000, so it wasn’t earning anything in the bank. The only cost I really considered was the risk of being burglarized, which I figured was smaller than 1/320th.
In just a few months? Yikes, I really should have pay more attention to money matters.
I did invest the money within one week of getting back to the US, but honestly, I hadn’t really been expecting much money to have piled up at all. I was in Guatemala mostly for a long, fun vacation, and my small part-time teacher’s salary was just a bonus. My bank receipts never listed my current balance, and I was kind of curious about how much I had, but not curious enough to stand in the 20 minute line at the other half of the bank where people inquired about such things (Guatemala isn’t known for efficiency). When I finally withdrew, I realized I had spent literally none of it.
Anyway, you’ve just reminded me that I should get my past four months of untouched nanny salary invested as soon as possible, so thanks!
I was thinking on the order of a year. Here you can get 4% savings rates with a little bit of trickery, which would be $75 after three months, $320 after a full year.
Even if it’s just $50, those $50 add up over time. And if you’re disciplined to always add more than you take out from savings, the effects of compounding are huge. You’re probably leaving a lot more money on the table than you realize.
An area where my actions don’t seem to correspond to my stated beliefs? How about luck? I’ve come to the embarrassing conclusion that although I believe in disbelief, I might actually believe in luck.
All my life people have constantly told me how lucky I am, and my family jokes that I have two guardian angels.
No matter how many risks I take, bad things just don’t seem to happen to me like they do to other people. People are constantly warning me not to do things, I acknowledge their warnings have merit, but I do them anyway. I seem to believe that I’m just “lucky” in certain ways.
1) I lived in Guatemala City for 15 months, a place with a high crime rate. The vast majority of my American and Guatemalan friends were robbed on the street at least once during my time there, despite being far, far more cautious than I was. I was never robbed (or murdered, but this fits the probability since there were only 3 murders among thousands of passerby on the short street where I lived). Alone, I regularly took the “dangerous” red buses, walked through “dangerous” neighborhoods and alleys even at night (as a white female), rode in “dangerous” white taxis, and shopped at the “dangerous” markets. I left cash unattended in plain sight. I walked around with my ipod visible. Nothing ever happened.
2) I tend to forget it when I drive alone, but I’m an awful driver. I’m impulsive and daily make very obviously illegal u-turns or similar bad driving decisions just to save like 20 seconds. And even when I’m in no hurry, my default highway speed is 18 mph over the limit. I’ve never gotten a ticket, and I drive quite a lot.
3) My family has an old board game with a “gamble” card, that can swing the game 20 points in either direction. When 2 people gamble, they each roll the dice, and the higher number wins. We’ve played this game dozens and dozens of times over the years, and I have won every gamble. If I get the gamble card, even if I’m winning and losing the gamble could bump someone else ahead of me, I’ll still use it. When someone else gets the gamble card, I’ll try to cajole them into gambling with me, and in hopes of breaking my streak, they will. But I never lose, and what’s worse, I seem to really believe I have a lower than 50-50 chance of losing this one gamble per game.
4) I treat my internal clock as if it’s infallible. I might be lying in bed, realize I forgot to set an alarm for the next day (even if I’m about to get only a few hours of sleep) and still not bother to get up to set it, somehow just believing I’ll be “lucky” and wake up just in time. And then I always do. Also, if I have to leave the house at 1:40, I might lose track of time and go several hours without bothering to check the time, and then look with shock to see it’s 1:35-1:40… so far, I’ve never happened to look too late, and I’ve never overslept and missed class or any event.
Most things other people call me lucky for, I think are based on rational risk-reward calculations. For example, I rarely go to the bank. When paid in cash, I’d let it pile up in my dresser for months before bothering to deposit it. When coming back from Guatemala with the several thousand dollars in cash I had saved from the last few months of working, I put it in my baggage rather than paying $25 for a wire transfer.
Stuff like visiting the bank infrequently makes sense to me, but yikes, what’s up with the other examples? The risks seem high and the rewards seem so negligible that I would never recommend others make the same decisions, yet I seem to figure I might as well continue to make them until something bad actually happens to me.
So this is a weird example, but it’s all I could come up with. Either I’m really hungry for something interesting to happen to me, or my actions don’t correspond to my professed disbelief in luck.
As a rationality exercise, maybe you could play a special version of the game where someone takes the gamble against you over and over again until you lose, so that you can really feel on a gut level that there is no Fortune Fairy protecting you from bad luck. (And if you’re really patient, maybe by playing a few times a day for a long time, then you could keep track of your win/loss ratio and watch as it tends toward 1:1.) You might also be selectively remembering times that you were fortunate because they’re more available and they confirm your Fortune Fairy hypothesis.
On the other hand, if you keep winning...
You know, I think I might actually describe all of my “risk-taking” behavior as a giant rationality exercise, trying to test my so-called luck.
As for your special version idea, it wouldn’t be the same game. It’s not like I act like I’ll win every luck-related game.
My family would confirm that none of them have ever won a gamble against me in dozens of games. If I lost, it would be pretty memorable, so I don’t think it’s confirmation bias as much as a case of things with low probability actually occurring sometimes. And despite this game not being my favorite, I always wanted to play it, “just for the gamble” because my win streak was so bizarre to me.
Anyway, this is silly. It’s not like I actually admit I think I have a > 50-50 chance of winning. My insistence on gambling every time was probably just out of having nothing to lose in most cases, and an even longer and more fun win streak to gain.
So now, I’d no longer say my actions don’t correspond to my professed disbelief. I’d say my actions are attempts to prove my professed disbelief correct.
Honestly, kid, I don’t see anything in this description which would count as evidence against the hypothesis that this is a simple example of confirmation bias.
There’s a saying which describes people like you: “young and invincible.” There has been no need to coin the corresponding “old and invincible” saying which you would expect to exist. Ponder that.
Honestly, adult, I’m not admitting to actually believing in luck. Just saying that my actions make it seem like I do.
And of course there is no evidence against the confirmation bias hypothesis in my description… If normal unlucky stuff happened to me, and I could recognize it or other people could point it out to me, there would have been no description in the first place.
That seems irrational because it has a chance of leading to civil forfeiture if you’re in the US. (The Federal government can still confiscate money directly, even though it has recently been cut down for states.)
Also, you need to count the interest that the money could have earned while in the bank against the cost of the wire transfer, as well as the risk of being burglarized and having your money stolen.
Civil forfeiture? Yikes, I never knew this could happen. Maybe if I had heard of this happening, it would have influenced my decision.
This wasn’t a ton of money, just my checking account balance of $8,000, so it wasn’t earning anything in the bank. The only cost I really considered was the risk of being burglarized, which I figured was smaller than 1/320th.
The risk of civil forfeiture is the risk of being robbed.
You could have been invested, or had a CD or high yields savings account which would have at least yielded a few hundred dollars.
In just a few months? Yikes, I really should have pay more attention to money matters.
I did invest the money within one week of getting back to the US, but honestly, I hadn’t really been expecting much money to have piled up at all. I was in Guatemala mostly for a long, fun vacation, and my small part-time teacher’s salary was just a bonus. My bank receipts never listed my current balance, and I was kind of curious about how much I had, but not curious enough to stand in the 20 minute line at the other half of the bank where people inquired about such things (Guatemala isn’t known for efficiency). When I finally withdrew, I realized I had spent literally none of it.
Anyway, you’ve just reminded me that I should get my past four months of untouched nanny salary invested as soon as possible, so thanks!
I was thinking on the order of a year. Here you can get 4% savings rates with a little bit of trickery, which would be $75 after three months, $320 after a full year.
Even if it’s just $50, those $50 add up over time. And if you’re disciplined to always add more than you take out from savings, the effects of compounding are huge. You’re probably leaving a lot more money on the table than you realize.