378. The Illusion of Focus: Why We Miss What Matters When it Matters Most (Refreshed Episode)

Welcome to episode 378 of the Brainy Business Understanding the Psychology of why People Buy Today's episode is all about selective attention.

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 from the eight part series I did on all the biases. This one was about our biases for selective attention. We can't focus on everything going on around us all the time, so we have to choose where to give our attention.

Of course, it doesn't always serve us well.

This episode is essentially a rapid fire list of all the biases that fall into this category. Not too much detail on anything, just enough so you know a little about.

Each the reason I chose to refresh.

This one today is because of my interview this upcoming Friday with my friend Nuala Walsh, who's back to talk about her new book, Tune in how to Make Smarter Decisions in a noisy world. TuneIn focuses on the blind spots, deaf spots and dumb spots that result in bad decision making. Missing things that matter when it matters most. For that reason, it felt like the perfect time to refresh this one on selective attention biases to help get you ready for that episode when it comes out in a couple of days. And if you're already intrigued, Nuala's book came out today, so you can support her and the launch by ordering your copy of Tune In Now. There are, of course, links to the book and related past episodes, including the last time Nuala was on the show talking about her research on whistleblowing that was featured in the Harvard Business Review and more. It's 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 378.

All.

Right, let's talk about selective attention biases.

So what do I mean when I talk about selective attention biases? If you've been listening to this series so far, you know we've talked about how our brains are biased toward ourselves, the way we think about others, our memories, and past versus future biases. Today we're going to dig into all those biases that have to do with how we focus our attention and how that can color our impression of the world around us. As I'm sure you can gather there are some overlaps here with the other categories and as I said when I started this eight part series, I chose these categories based on my listeners and what I thought would be most useful for you. Others have grouped these differently and I debated with a few on which category they would go in. So know I've grouped them in a way I thought would be most useful for you, and it's more about you knowing they exist than what group they go in per se. In this episode, I've broken selective attention into three categories where we focus our attention, how that impacts the decisions we make, and how it colors our perception when looking back. These are biases in addition to those covered in the memory episode, as I didn't want to duplicate a bunch of concepts for you. All right, let's dig into where we focus our attention. The most common concept, and one I'm guessing you're very familiar with even if you don't know the name of it, is called the frequency illusion, selection bias, or the Baader Meinhof effect. This is the illusion that when something has come to your attention, the maybe it's a word or a phrase or an image, it seems to be everywhere after you first heard about it. This could be when you're thinking about buying a blue car and you start seeing them everywhere. When I started my master's program, I remember seeing the word panacea for the first time. That spelled P A N A C E A. And then I saw it again and again and again. The first paper I read it in, I remember commenting to my husband that it appeared a disproportionate amount for such an obscure, obscure word. In fairness, I try not to repeat the same word half a dozen times in a few paragraphs if I can help it. But I started noticing it all over the place and it really is quite common in academia and in other writing. I had just never noticed it before, and once I stopped to learn the word, I get why it's used. And if you too are unfamiliar with panacea, it means a solution or remedy for all difficulties or disease. The less academic term for this would be a cure all or a magic bullet. Anyway, after I became aware of the word, I started noticing it all over the place. And that's how this bias works. This is very similar to the recency illusion, which would be my thinking that the phenomenon of the word panacea being everywhere is because it's a brand new word everyone has just started using or thinking that all the blue cars out there must be brand new. Our brains think they're very powerful and observant, so something out there must have changed versus this only coming to my attention because I'm aware of it now. For a business example, let's say someone just used scheduling software like Calendly Acuity or Schedulicity for the first time and then starts telling everyone about it as if it were a brand new innovation because it's new to them. The software has been around for a long time, but because of the recency illusion, many people are quick to assume something is brand new to everyone simply because it's brand new to them. This is similar to availability, which was the focus of episode 15. We humans put more weight and importance on things we can recall easiest and think they're more likely to happen than they might actually be. For example, I want you to try and think of as many words as you can that start with the letter K and then as many as you can where K is the third letter in the word. Which type of word do you think there are more of? If you're like most people, you probably said words that start with K because it's much easier for you to recall those. The third letter in is difficult to retrieve as we don't typically sort words that way in our brains. This is also a lazy brain example which we'll get to in a couple weeks. In reality, there are about twice as many words with K as the third letter, like the word ask for example, or I guess as I look at it now, the word like then the number of words that start with K. But because of availability bias, our brains have a hard time believing it's Again, you can listen to episode 15 for more on this and how to use it in your business. This can lead to the availability cascade, which is a self reinforcing process where hearing and seeing something more and more makes it feel more and more true or real. You've probably heard this explained as say something long enough and it will become true. And once we become familiar with things or concepts, we're much more likely to like or believe them because of the mere exposure effect. Consider the know, like and trust factor we hear about in business all the time. People are more likely to do business with people they know like and trust. And good news, people are more likely to like you once they get to know and see you a lot, assuming you aren't a total jerk or untrustworthy of course. But also think about that song you hated when you first heard it and now you can't stop singing along to it. That's the mere exposure effect at work. This can combine with the way we perceive things around us to create a compounding effect. For example, selective perception is when our expectations impact the way we perceive things. For example, if you expect a sales call to go badly, it probably will and you'll pick up on all the bad things. If you say it's going to be a bad day, your brain uses selective perception to give you what you expect. There's a lot of power in shifting what you focus on, which is why many people have gratitude journals or practice looking for the positive in things or the silver lining. In most cases, it truly is as easy as shifting your expectations and your focus. And this selective attention and being aware of these biases I'm telling you about will hopefully help you to notice when they're impacting your day to day life and your business and how you might be able to step over them and be more consciously aware. This is very similar to attentional bias, which is when our perceptions are impacted by recurring thoughts and the focusing effect, which is when we place too much importance on one aspect of an event. Let me give you an example of how this can create a negative spiral at work. If you think that your boss doesn't like you and never gives you a chance, you may focus your thoughts on all the things he might say to belittle whatever you do. A passing glance he makes will put you on edge and wonder what he may have noticed. Is there a stain or wrinkle in your shirt? Oh man, of course he would notice. I bet he's thinking about how sloppy I am. He just looked again. I'll never get that promotion now and I better not speak up in this meeting because then everyone else will notice the stain and they'll think I'm a loser. If only they would all just give me a chance to shine, I could show them all. Sound familiar? We all spiral like that from time to time. But did you notice that was all a conversation inside the person's own head? Choosing not to participate and speak up was based on their own biased focus when focusing on something else might have helped give them the confidence to speak. For example, the glance in their direction could have triggered great, he's looking at me so I can indicate I have something to add and the whole meeting could have shifted. You've heard me talk a lot on the podcast about small changes and small steps. Little things that make a big difference. Your life and experience in it, your business, your interactions with people are all just really small choices and ways that you focus added on top of each other. So changing one small thing like that may seem like it's not enough to make an impact, but it's just one small thing at a time. And changing the way that you focus and what you selectively put your attention on can really impact the way that everything goes in a day. I challenge you to test some of these out in your own life and see how you might be able to, one step at a time, make a difference. The next concept I want to tell you about is called the von Restorff effect, where something that sticks out is more likely to be remembered than everything else. I still remember my first review at the credit union. My boss let me know everyone had positive things to say and she had to beg people to provide some areas to work on. And she finally got someone to provide feedback on a project where I could work on doing better in the next year. And she told me not to focus too much on it because again, she had to really draw it out of somebody. I don't remember everyone who provided positive comments on that review or what they said, but that area of improvement, you can be darn sure that I remember exactly who said it and the gist of what was said. And like I said, she told me not to focus on it. Much like a judge might tell a jury to disregard a comment. But we can't. Our brains don't work that way. So remember that things that stick out and are different are more likely to be different, disproportionately remembered than everything else. For the positive side, if your company goes out of its way to surprise and delight a customer with something unexpected, it will be much more likely to be remembered than the other run of the mill interactions. I mentioned juries there briefly, and I want you to take a moment and try to remember the OJ Simpson trial. If you watched it when it was on tv, if you didn't, the story is still relevant. I'm not going to get into the innocent or guilty debate or what should or should not have happened, but do you remember the phrase that OJ's lawyer Johnnie Cochran made famous during that trial? If the gloves don't fit, you must acquit. That was never a rule before, and probably not one that has been said since. But why did it have so much impact? Due to the rhyme as reason effect, we believe statements that rhyme to be more truthful than those that don't. It's ridiculous when you think about it, and I've talked about this on the podcast before, in that same episode on availability, does an apple a day really keep the doctor away? No, but it sure sounds good, which made it easier for all of us to believe. And due to the belief bias, we also base the logical strength of an entire argument on the believability of the conclusion. When people give you reports with a recommendation that seems really logical and easy to believe, you're more likely to think that all the foundation of the argument is logical, even if it isn't. This is why you need to do your due diligence and not become victim to herding. I've linked to the episode on Booms, Bubbles and Busts as well as the one on herding, which have a lot more information on what happens when this goes awry. We also tend to think that adding items to make something more specific makes it more likely to happen than a more general situation due to something called conjunction fallacy. Kahneman and Tversky had a great example of this, which I'll read to you now. Linda is 31 years old, single, outspoken and very bright. She majored in philosophy as a student. She was deeply concerned with issues of discrimination and social justice and also participated in anti nuclear demonstrations. Which is more likely Linda is a bank teller or Linda is a bank teller and is active in the feminist movement? What do you think? 85% of those asked chose option two that Linda is a bank teller and and is active in the feminist movement. But in reality number one is more likely because option two has the word and she's both a bank teller and active in the feminist movement. It's become more specific and easier for us to focus on. It seems we really want to describe her more, but it's really less likely than her simply being a bank teller, which is part of both options. This is similar to base rate fallacy or base rate neglect, where we tend to ignore generic or general information, also known as base rate information, to focus on more specific information that only pertains to a certain case. The classic example would be using a town with two cab companies, green and blue. Blue is the dominant cab company, making up 85% of the cabs in town. There was a hit and run accident involving a cab and the witness believed the cab was green. Witnesses are 80% accurate at being able to tell the difference between blue and green cabs. So what's the chance that the cab is green? Many people would say 80% or something close to it because they ignore the base rate. The chance it was green is actually about 41%. This could have definitely been part of the math is hard bias episode or lazy brain, which is coming in a couple weeks. But I felt it was relevant in the way we think about focus and decision making. And if you have a hard time believing it's truly 41%, even after hearing the explanation of why, that's okay. It's part of what makes us human. These types of calculations are more complex than our lazy brains want to take on most of the time because of all these biases. The last item in this section, which leads nicely into our next category, is called exaggerated expectation. People tend to predict and expect more extreme outcomes than what actually happened, and if you expect a more extreme outcome, it will likely impact the decisions you make, which is the next category of selective attention. Our brains get what they expect, but that doesn't always mean it's the most accurate representation of what happened. For example, because of the Semmelweis reflex, people tend to reject new evidence that contradicts their perspective, paradigm or expectation. Even when there's overwhelming evidence that goes against what you believe, you'll have a harder time believing it than things that support what you believe to be true. And because of the biases I've already talked about in the episode, you'll be more likely to focus on, remember and validate those items that support your belief than those that don't. This can also impact scientists or those doing studies, in which case it's called experimenters or expectation bias. This is the tendency for someone to believe, certify, and publish data that aligns with what they expected to see and to disbelieve, discard, or downgrade the corresponding weightings for data that appear to conflict with those expectations. This can also lead to observer expectancy effect or subject expectancy effect, which is when a researcher unconsciously manipulates an experiment or misinterprets data in order to find what they're looking for. This can of course happen outside the lab and occurs in businesses all the time. I tell my clients frequently that it's easy to find the right answer to the wrong question. When we're doing traditional brainstorming and searching for answers about what we expect, we're coloring the results. We find it's best to try and be open minded and get input from those who disagree with us, try to poke holes in theories and it's why researchers go through training to help us be unbiased because it goes against our natural tendencies. If you want more tips on how to be a better questioner, listen to episode four Questions or Answers. This can also lead to illusory correlation, which is when someone will inaccurately perceive a relationship between two unrelated events. One common example of this would be stereotyping, which I talked about in episode 46 on how we look at other people. Someone may think everyone who lives in a certain area is snobby or who went to a certain school is rude when those things aren't actually correlated or true. You can see how this kind of attitude can impact the workplace if someone thinks incorrectly about groups of customers or potential customers. If you think everyone in a certain area can't afford your services, for example, and you don't market there when they could be great clients for you, if you were able to lift that bias. This is similar to subjective validation, where someone sees something as being true if their previous beliefs demand it to be true. This can lead to the individual making connections between coincidences that aren't really there. So if you added a new marketing outlet and started seeing growth in another area and assumed those two things were related when they coincidentally happened at the same time, these biases can lead to the backfire effect or the continued influence effect, which is when someone will disconfirm evidence that is presented by strengthening their previous beliefs. So if somebody says this thing is untrue, let me show you, they will just buckle down and really dig into what they believe and shut everything out. We also suffer from confirmation bias, which is when we search for, interpret, remember, or focus on information that confirms our preconceptions. This is because of the biases I talked about in episode 45 on how we think about ourselves. Our brains are trained to believe we are the smartest and that we have a complete and accurate picture of everything around us. So anything that's being said or that shows differently than what we expected to see or what we've seen before, it must be wrong. It can't be us, it must be the information. And if I dig a little deeper, I'll find the thing that proves what I'm trying to prove and find. And that's really just not how the world works. The size of the space being searched can also cause a researcher to observe something that seems statistically significant, but that actually wouldn't be if the parameters had been set correctly because of the look elsewhere effect. This is similar to congruencies bias, where a researcher will directly test their hypothesis instead of testing possible alternatives. Think about this in a business perspective. So if you're trying to determine if Facebook advertising works, and so you go to a bunch of people who, you know, have had success, success with Facebook advertising and you ask them about it, and you also ask people who sell Facebook advertising and you watch a bunch of videos about how Facebook advertising works, you're going to have a biased perspective on whether it works or not. And if you were to go the other way of if you are sure Facebook ads don't work and so you look and say Facebook ads can't possibly work, how can I frame my question to be finding other people that are saying the same thing? Not that directly, is not how your brain is stating it to you on a conscious level, but really that's what your subconscious is looking for. It wants things that will validate what it already believes to be true. And you might be putting your perspective too narrowly to find enough information from the right sources to get an accurate picture of what's really going on. Essentially, the thing for you to do is remember that your brain is biased to get what it expects and do anything that it can to confirm what it's expecting to find. If left to its own devices, your brain is biased to confirm what it thinks it already knows. And the same thing goes for everyone around you. If you want to be more innovative and open to the opinions of others and to finding real results, it requires focus and working outside your subconscious Biases the last two biases in this section are information bias, which is when we keep seeking more and more information even when it can't affect our actions. This is when you tend to get paralyzed by looking for more and more information before making a choice, even when it can't have a positive impact on the decision at hand. To combat this, consider asking yourself, will this answer impact the decision I'm making? Lastly is distinction bias, where if you're comparing two things at once, you're more likely to see what is different about them than if you were to evaluate each on its own. So if you're trying to evaluate options, results, opportunities, whatever, take the time to look at them in multiple ways to ensure you're getting an accurate picture before making a decision. When making a choice on your own or with others, try to remember these biases and how they impact everything from your evaluations to the way you set things up to look at the questions you're trying to answer. They would likely be set up to validate your own preconceived notions if you aren't careful. Our last section on selective attention biases is about looking back and how we have a biased view of the past. Due to hindsight bias or the I knew it all along effect, we tend to see past events as being more predictable than they actually were. Again, think about how your selective attention and the areas you focus on can impact what you see when you look back and how that can impact future decisions as well as it's a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy. This is a lot like outcome bias which is when we judge a decision based on the outcome instead of the quality of the decision at the time it was made. Let's say you decided to buy a car and made the best decision you could at the time with the information available to you. The car you bought ended up being a lemon and its engine blew up about 45 days after you got it and it wasn't covered by the warranty. You may look back and judge the choice you made then when you couldn't have possibly known the engine would fail based on the information you have now instead of what you knew at the time you made the choice. This can cause the misinformation effect where our memories are less accurate because of information that comes about after the event is over. So you might remember your choices and evaluation differently after the outcome is done. For more on memory biases, listen to episode 48. And lastly we have consistency bias where you remember your past attitudes and behavior incorrectly believing they would be in alignment with the way you think and act now, even if that's not how you thought and acted back when you made those choices. As I said in that episode on memories, hindsight is not always 2020, so know that your memory of an event or decision is biased in many ways and the same goes for everyone else. Documentation can go a long way in helping you to have a more accurate picture of the past. And remember when making decisions, evaluating options, and just the way you see the world around you, it's biased by your brain. When the decisions are really important, do what you can to evaluate them from multiple angles and overcome your own biases to make the best possible decision. And once you know the outcome of that decision, don't judge yourself too harshly.

So what got your brain buzzing as you learned about selective attention biases today? For me, I really like these episodes that have a super light touch on a bunch of different biases. They're so different than my natural tendency to really dig in on one thing and tell you everything about it that might matter. It's good practice for me to be quicker and I think it makes for a fun experience for you, the listener.

To have a variety of episodes.

I've toyed around with doing more shorter content.

Not sure if that would be short.

Little Brainy Bites episodes in audio format. Maybe reels or YouTube shorts or even just short videos on YouTube or LinkedIn.

What do you think? Would you like that?

Might they be something that you would want to devote your limited and selective attention to? Let me know on social media, you'll find me as the Brainy Biz pretty much everywhere and as Melina Palme Palmer on LinkedIn. You can also send an email to melinathebrainybusiness.com to let us know. And to make it easy, there are links in the show notes along with links for related past episodes, books, a timestamp summary of the episode, and more. It's all waiting for you in the app you're listening to and atthe brainy business.com 378 and just like that, episode 378 on selective attention Biases is done. Join me Friday for a brand new episode with Nuala Walsh discussing her book Tune in. 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. Molina offers virtual strategy sessions, workshops and other services to help businesses be more brain friendly. For more free resources, visit thebrainybusiness.com.