330. Overcoming the Focusing Illusion to Make Better Decisions (Refreshed Episode)

Welcome to episode 330 of the Brainy Business Understanding the Psychology of why People Buy Today's episode is all about the focusing illusion. Ready? Let's get started.

You are listening to the Brainy Business Podcast where we dig into the psychology of why people buy and help you incorporate behavioral economics into your business, making it more brain friendly. Now, here's your host, Melina Palmer.

Hello. Hello everyone. My name is Melina Palmer and I want to welcome you to the Brainy Business Podcast. Today's episode is all about the focusing illusion. I'll of course tell you all about what that is and why it matters for you in life and business. When we get into the main part of the episode, which originally aired back in late February 2020, whenever I see a date like that, anything in that first part of 2020, I always feel like those episodes are the perfect candidates for for refreshes because as I would.

Assume that date had a pretty visceral.

Reaction for you, you were potentially a bit distracted around that time. Lots going on, and if you did listen to this episode when it came out, you may not have really been able to retain what you learned. So being able to refresh this one today is really great because it's a very important concept for everyone to understand. The reason I chose this one for a refresh today, other than it just deserving one, is because of my interview with Brian Lowry talking about his selfless and that interview is coming out this coming Friday. One of the many things we discussed in that conversation was the focusing illusion, so it felt like the perfect time to bring it back around. It's such a fascinating conversation and book.

All about realizing who we are and.

How our interactions shape the self and.

What is the self.

Anyway, it's definitely an episode to get you thinking, so you'll want to check that one out. If you aren't already subscribed to the Brainy Business podcast, now's a great time to do so. And don't forget that there are links for everything, including your free Focusing Illusion worksheet, links to related past episodes, many of which weren't out when this one first aired, as well as books like Selfless and articles all waiting for you in the show. Notes for this episode, which are found within the app you're listening to and at the brainy business.com 330.

All right.

Let'S talk about the focusing illusion.

On a previous episode of the podcast, I talked about a study on happiness which found that when asked if people thought they would be happier if they were to suddenly wake up and be a paraplegic, or suddenly wake up and realize they won the lottery. Most everyone believes they would be happier winning the lottery, and significantly less so to lose the use of their limbs. And in actuality, these two groups of people, paraplegics and lottery winners, are essentially just as happy as anyone else. One reason people predict this incorrectly and misrepresent how happy they would be is because of the focusing illusion. By focusing on one piece of a giant puzzle and giving it far too much weight, losing the use of your legs or winning the lottery are just one small piece of an entire life. There are so many factors that play into happ, and while these pieces are significant and impactful in many ways, they don't tend to have the impact on overall happiness like we think that they would. Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman did a test back in 1998 and he was the first one to recommend the focusing illusion as a concept. So he did this study to find out if Californians or Midwesterners were happier with their lives. Even though I just told you about the focusing illusion and how it works, I bet your gut reaction was to say that Californians were happier, right? Both the Midwesterners and the Californians who participated in the study thought the same thing, but of course they were wrong. And the question is why you and they were victim to focusing illusion bias, which puts a disproportionate amount of weight on things like sunshine and a seemingly laid back lifestyle. To say that those people must be happier than everyone else in reality, it's just not true. People adapt to their surroundings and those in California are no more likely to be happy than the rest of us. There are so many other factors that impact happiness, and we can't think about that many things at once in our conscious processing. So those get put to the wayside and we overly dramatize the importance of a few key items. One of my favorite quotes from the research on the focusing bias is nothing in life is quite as important as you think it is while you're thinking about it. This goes for you and for your customers, co workers, significant others, children. We are all impacted by the focusing illusion all the time. And oh, children, as always, they are the prime example to look at understanding any of these brain concepts. The unfiltered subconscious shining through. When a child loses a toy or disappoints someone or steps in a puddle or pretty much anything else negative, it is the end of the world. They'll never be happy again. It can never be replaced Everything will be awful until the end of time, until a new shiny object enters their life. And now they will be happy forever until something happens to that shiny object. Focusing on something, not surprisingly, puts a whole bunch of attention on it. If you're trying to declutter, you may have clothes that you never wear, files you never check, books you never read, and you're generally happy not thinking about them. Then the idea of getting rid of them. When you focus on them, you start to think about how terrible and awful it would be if this thing were gone. How would you possibly live without it? How angry or sad would you be if you needed this thing and you had gotten rid of it? If you're an an avid listener, you may be noting that the focusing illusion is combining with counterfactual and pre factual thinking in this case to maintain your status quo bias and keep you stuck. Your entire happiness in the rest of your life seems tied to that item when you're thinking about it, so you decide to keep it and promptly forget about it again for another six months. This is why tactics like putting the things you haven't used in a bag that you give to a friend and if you don't ask for them in over six months, they can throw it all away or donate it to charity. It's why that works. When you're asked to think about how happy someone would be, or how angry something would make you, or how satisfied you are or would be, your brain will focus way too much on a few key aspects and answer in a way that's just not in alignment with reality. This shows the points when your subconscious and conscious brain just can't properly communicate with one another. And it sheds light on that big issue with traditional survey methods. When you ask someone how upset they would be if a feature went away, or how much they care about baking soda being in their toothpaste, they may have a huge reaction and say it's incredibly important to them. They could complain publicly and say how terrible it all is, but still buy from you and not actually change their habits. Because in reality it isn't truly as big of a factor as they think it is. It's interesting to consider how this ties in with social proof, which was the focus of episode 87. People are more likely to take action based on the thoughts and actions of others. They're also likely to weigh a few key items as the most important indicators of their happiness, even if those don't really play into overall satisfaction. And remember from the Californians and Midwesterners example, both Groups thought the Californians would be happier. The perception of happiness was greater in both cases. Or perhaps those living in California assumed everyone else must be less happy than they were due to those same factors of sunshine and a leisurely lifestyle. So being a part of the group and focus doesn't mean that you won't still be impacted by the same bias as everybody else. And I'm assuming that those who have won the lottery think that they must be happier than everybody else, even though we know now that they're not. So if you read a review for a restaurant saying that the floor was dirty, you may believe that would significantly impact your liking of it overall or happiness after eating there. You're focused now on this one thing that could have been a single instance in a day when it was pouring rain outside and people had mud on their shoes. Does your enjoyment of a sandwich change because there's mud on the floor? Probably not. But if you read a review that the place was dirty, does it set an expectation? And are you skeptical and looking for reasons to validate that the restaurant might not be good quality when you haven't been there before? Now that you're focusing on this one thing, yeah, that's very possible. Remember, our brains are split up into those two processing systems. The subconscious is super busy filtering through 11 million bits of data per second, while the conscious can only handle 40 bits per second. If you tell your brain to focus on finding negative examples of a dirty floor and how that ties into your overall experience of a restaurant, it will sort through all the stimuli to find what validates that thing you've asked it to focus on. If you read a review about how it was the greatest sandwich in existence and how people drive 50 miles out of their way to eat there, you may be so excited that you don't even notice the dirt on the floor or care it may be part of their charm or prove what a great find it was. Anything you want to believe that all important first impression will be supported by by the focusing illusion. Kahneman has another really great example in Thinking Fast and Slow. And I'm going to read a quick excerpt of it for you now, which shows how the halo effect ties into all this. All right, here we go. You meet a woman named Joan at a party and find her personable and easy to talk to. Now her name comes up as someone who could be asked to contribute to a charity. What do you know about Joan's generosity? The correct answer is that you know virtually nothing because there's little reason to believe that People who are agreeable in social situations are also generous contributors to charities. But you like Joan, and you will retrieve the feeling of liking her when you think of her. You also like generosity and generous people. By association, you are now predisposed to believe that Joan is generous, and now that you believe she's generous, you probably like Joan even better than you did earlier because you have added generosity to her pleasant attributes. Real evidence of generosity is missing in the story of Joan, and the gap is filled by a guess that fits one's emotional response to her. In other situations, evidence accumulates gradually and the interpretation is shaped by the emotion attached to the first impression. In an enduring classic of psychology, the Solomon Asch presented descriptions of two people and asked for comments on their personality. What do you think of Alan and Ben? Allen is intelligent, industrious, impulsive, critical, stubborn, envious. On the other hand, Ben is envious, stubborn, critical, impulsive, industrious, and intelligent. If you're like most of us, you viewed Alan much more favorably than than Ben. The initial traits in the list changed the very meaning of the traits that appear later. The stubbornness of an intelligent person is seen as likely to be justified and may actually evoke respect, but intelligence in an envious and stubborn person makes him more dangerous. The halo effect is also an example of suppressed ambiguity. Like the word bank, the adjective stubborn is ambiguous and will be interpreted in a way that makes it coherent with the context. There have been many variations on this research. Participants in one study first considered the first three adjectives that describe Allen. Then they considered the last three, which belong to they were told another person when they had imagined the two individuals. The participants were asked if it was possible for all six adjectives to describe the same person, and most of them thought it was impossible. The sequence in which we observe characteristics of a person is often determined by chance. Sequence matters, however, because the halo effect increases the weight of first impressions, sometimes to the point that subsequent information is mostly wasted. When you're focusing on something, a particular aspect, you build it up in your mind and it changes your perception, expectations, experience, and memory of an experience. I get asked often about doing survey work or helping businesses with their research, and this is something I do in my business all the time. One of the things I tell people is that while it may be incredibly easy in the age of surveymonkey to create and send out a survey, anyone can do this very quickly. The likelihood that you will create bias in the questions asked and the responses you receive is just as high. Asking is Anna Kind will create different examples than if I ask, is Anna unkind? If you had a negative first impression of someone, you're more likely to let that color every impact of your interactions with them. Every story or tidbit you think about them. Getting back to the Alan and Ben example where the first words to describe Alan were intelligent, industrious, impulsive, and the first words for Ben were envious, stubborn, critical. When you hear a story of someone doing something bad at work and that it was either Alan or Ben, you'll automatically think of Ben because you're focusing on finding examples to back up your brain's earlier perceptions. This is confirmation bias in action as well. When people tell you that Ben is a really nice guy and your perception is off, you'll continue to focus on those negative things and it will color every interaction you have. Even if he does something really generous or kind, you'll probably say something like, I'm sure he's just trying to get in good with us so he can pull a fast one. He's a super smart guy and impulsive. His true colors will show up eventually. You've had those people in your life where you just can't win with no matter what. Your boss, your mother in law, your coworker, you know that you're a nice person. What's their problem? They're constantly assuming the worst of you. It's not even worth trying. Do you see how this becomes a self fulfilling prophecy? You treat them differently and focus on the things that validate the negative experience you see with them. All you see is bad, so you're cold and distant with them and then their perceptions are easier to validate and it becomes a vicious cycle. This can also be a virtuous cycle that may not be deserved for someone you have a positive filter for. In general, it's good to take a step back and ask yourself if your bias may be guiding your interactions, especially if everyone else has a different perspective than you on an individual or a business opportunity or anything else. This actually brings me to a story that was the inspiration for doing this episode right now. It's actually a bit of a compilation of stories, but there's one particular statement that really pushed me over the edge and made me realize that I wanted to talk about this right now. I'm guessing that this is associated with age, but I've had a lot of people close to me diagnosed with serious illnesses or ailments recently, various forms of cancer, Ms. or other really difficult life changing stuff. Either people I know are directly getting those diagnoses or my friends or colleagues or having someone close to them diagnosed with something Recently I reconnected with an old friend who mentioned to me that her mom was diagnosed with cancer a few years ago. They had an up and down relationship over time, how many of us could honestly say we don't have an up and down relationship with our parents or other members of our immediate family? So she said to me that her relationship had changed since the diagnosis and said something to the effect of can you imagine how different things are and what each meeting is like when you know it could be the last time? I agreed and like I do, posed the response of in reality. Isn't that the case with everyone you interact with at any given time? It doesn't always feel like it, and often a big diagnosis brings things into perspective. As they say, this is the focusing illusion, forcing you to face the reality that it could be the last time because it feels much closer and more real than you previously thought. But that potential. It's always there. Who knows what could happen tomorrow or five minutes from now or right after you hang up the phone or get out of the car at the airport to fly home after a trip to see your parents? There's nothing that keeps you from focusing on that aspect of the every relationship anytime you have a conversation or interaction with those around you. The grudges and fights, even for big stuff, don't need to be the most important thing. Small stuff you've been holding onto and the focus you've had toward others in your life. Maybe you don't even remember the initial negative stuff anymore. How would it change if you knew this was the last interaction you would ever have with them? Why not live that truth and focus on that now? I don't need to get too serious and dig in on this, but just remember, your brain will focus on what you want it to. If you want to have a better relationship with your mom or sister or ex best friend or co worker or people you meet on the street, look for the good stuff and focus on.

That for a while.

I'm linking to episode 76 in the show, Notes on How to Filter for Gratitude. It gets into this piece a bit deeper and the benefits of focusing on good stuff and how that actually makes people happier. Remember, as I said earlier in the episode, and you've probably heard me say before, your subconscious is filtering through 11 million bits of information per second and your conscious can only handle 40. That means that for every single piece of data that made it through to Your conscious awareness, 275,000 other things didn't make it through because they didn't fit your filter. Change the filter, change the focus. Change your life. Now that I've addressed the personal side, I want to talk about what this means for you in business. Of course, fixing relationships with co workers is important in your career. It can make it so your whole demeanor changes and people are more likely to want to work work with you. But there are other ways to apply this in business. Think about your approach to a project, what you focus on, the way you do things or the way the company always does things. What are you not noticing that someone else with a different filter might how could you ask different questions or approach a problem from different angles to get a different outcome? The first answer you come to, the first problem you see, or solution you come up with aren't necessarily the right ones. The focusing effect could be putting more weight on a certain process or pain point or benefit that doesn't actually matter in the grand scheme of things. Remember the questions about happiness? Everyone thinks they would be happier winning the lottery than if they suddenly lost the use of their limbs, but it simply isn't true. And Californians aren't actually happier than anyone else. The problem that's facing you may not be as big of a deal as it seems, and something you aren't even aware of could create a much bigger impact if you took the time to look for it. I remember back to my undergrad many moons ago, there was a case study talking about the benefits of observational research. I forget the exact company, but it was a laundry detergent brand of some kind of they asked customers about using the product in focus groups, what they liked about it, what they would like to see, different things about the competition and all these things that they should change, what was important, how they used it. And then eventually they did some observing when nothing really of note came out of those focus group and survey pieces. Observational research basically means you follow people around and watch how they interact with the product. The company found that everyone, customer after customer, was struggling with pouring the liquid out of the bottle without creating a big giant mess. People were setting up workarounds to make it less messy, but it was an obvious pain point that no one had ever articulated before when asked about it and why they never mentioned it. People essentially said it, well, it's not that big of a deal. They'd always done it this way. All the brands were like that, and they don't think about it too much, but the brand was able to see a clear problem and fix it by creating a pourable spout on the top of the bottle, something pretty much every bottle of detergent uses today. Communicating that benefit in their advertising when they launched with the new bottle helped people to focus on the problem they didn't realize they had and that they now needed fixed. There was only one supplier at the time who had this pourable spout, so their sales increased. Listing out all the features of a product or service will never resonate with a potential customer because it's too much information. There's too much to try and focus on, so the lazy brain opts out. If instead you find the one or two points of value and talk about those, all the other features and benefits are extra. They're frosting on the cake and keeping in mind that it could be perceived benefits like the sunshine in California which makes you think you'll be happier even if it doesn't have the impact. Or maybe it's an actual pain point that people don't realize they have yet. What you want to ask yourself in your business is what should people be focusing on when they think about your brand or its offerings? What would your ideal customer care about and what would motivate them to take action? Focus on that one thing and make it incredibly clear to your target market. I want to revisit the example by Will Leach and his book Marketing to Mind States, specifically of the men who want to get healthier to walk their daughters down the aisle. This is a combination of a goal being healthier to walk the daughter down the aisle, and it means their motivation is one of nurturance. But as Will explained, that isn't enough to really resonate. You want to showcase the mind state they're in, what they're feeling, focusing in on, and what messages will hit home for them. This is why you need to know if their approach is optimistic, maximizing the gains and saying that you're going to be healthier, eat better, be happier, or if they're coming from a cautious focus point which is minimizing the losses, so avoiding bad things like eating carbs. The mind state guides the focusing effect and what the subconscious is looking for and filtering what gets in and what gets phased out. Narrowing your message makes it more likely to resonate because it aligns with the brain of your customer and what they are focusing on, what they think is important and what's going to get them to actually take the action to buy from and choose you.

So what got your brain buzzing as you learned about the focusing illusion today?

For me, I like to keep the.

Focusing illusion in mind whenever I have a gut reaction to something that may not be serving me well. Because you're human and I'm guessing you've had these come up for you at least once or twice. Those moments where you think why would he say that? Or how rude. Or they hated that presentation, I suck or she hates me, I'm never going to get anywhere or anything else.

It doesn't necessarily have to be true.

And just because it felt that way doesn't mean they actually said or did whatever you thought in that moment or after the fact. The focusing illusion might be impacting your perception and you don't want to let it run rampant and control everything. You can be in control of your own experience. Not every experience, every time, but you can choose to see something different if whatever you've been focusing on isn't serving you. Personally, I've always liked that mindset and how it can keep me moving forward instead of dwelling and spiraling, which we humans can be wired to do. As I said at the top of the episode, I chose to refresh this one today on the Focusing Illusion because of my conversation this coming Friday with Dr. Brian Lowry to talk about his book Selfless. We do talk specifically about the Focusing illusion and it's just such an interesting perspective on who we really are and how we're a product of those around us and all our experiences. Just really thought provoking stuff and I thought you'd really enjoy and this episode on the Focusing Illusion felt like the perfect primer going into that one coming out on Friday. You don't forget there are links in the show notes for everything, including your free Focusing Illusion worksheet, links to related past episodes, books like Selfless, a timestamp summary of the episode, and more. It's all waiting for you in the app you're listening to and@the brainybusiness.com 330 and just like that episode 330, another milestone on the Focusing Illusion is done. Join me Friday for a brand new episode with Dr. Brian Lowry to talk about his book Selfless. It's going to be a lot of fun. You don't want to miss it. Until then, thanks again for listening and learning with me and remember to be thoughtful.

Thank you for listening to the Brainy Business podcast. Melina offers virtual strategy sessions, workshops and other services to help businesses be more brain friendly. For more free resources, visit thebrainybusiness.com.