Jesse Barber
English 122
Professor Drown
November 7th, 2019
Simple Mistakes that re hard to fix. fixed easily
Recently in English class, we have been looking at overconfidence and how it affects our day to day lives. By doing this I have come to realize that you can’t always trust your own decision making and in looking at this it got me thinking of how maybe I could have improved some things I have done in my life so I have come up with a story that perfectly represents what I have learned and how I could have improved it.
It was October of my first semester in college and it was time for midterms. The first of my two midterms was my English midterm. In English class, I was doing somewhat poorly. I really needed to improve and do well on the test. I thought I was ready and that I knew the material that would be covered in my exam well enough that I did not need to study that much so the night before I briefly put together a practice exam but did not finish it or check the answers. So the next morning I walked to class with my backpack on thinking oh yeah I got this I got to class at 8:55 saw everyone pulling out there laptops and instantly knew I messed up I had decided that I did not need my laptop for class because we were taking an exam and you usually need just a pencil for an exam never your laptop but I was mistaken I then asked my professor “can I get my laptop I left in my room”.
He responded, “probably a good idea”. so I quickly left the room and went back down two flights of stairs and then sprinted to my resident hall ran up the four flights of stairs that I had just gone down not even fifteen minutes ago threw open the door to my room and grabbed the laptop from my desk and then went back down the four flights of stairs left my resident hall and ran back to class and reentered the room within a few minutes and sat down in the first seat that was open and began working through the exam. During the exam, I took my time and answered every question and felt mostly confident about my answers. I finished the test and moved on with my day without giving it a second thought. First, I went to math took a math test and then proceeded to my next class writing lab in writing lab the teacher (not the same teacher as my English teacher) this teacher asked me how I did, and I was like “I did great”.
Too, which she said, “really, well I hope you did as well as you think you did”. We moved on from this and began the lesson reading an article published by the New York times written ironically about overconfidence after this class I didn’t really think too much about my English exam for the rest of the day and went on normally until Wednesday when first thing in the morning I got hit with a 56% and realized I messed up.
This story is a perfect example of how overconfidence in one’s own Judgement and how it can influence their decision making and cloud their vision. however, this overconfidence is not just limited to Just you and me it is much bigger than that, with psychologist all over the world doing studies on it one psychologist, in particular, I would like to mention is Daniel Kahneman he is an American Israeli psychologist that is most famous for his philosophies on judgement. In his 2011 article in the New York times, he goes over his philosophies about judgment and how he came to understand them. In the article he covers seven terms that he came up with however it will only be necessary for right now to know three of the seven. But first, in order to understand the terms, we must establish what a cognitive fallacy is. a Cognitive fallacy is false beliefs and mistakes in judgment due to these beliefs. The reason you must understand what a cognitive fallacy is because all the terms that will be referenced are cognitive fallacies and in order to fully understand them you need to understand cognitive fallacy. The first of Kahneman’s terms is the illusion of validity, this is the idea that no matter how useless the thing you are doing is will continue to do it if you feel like it is important to you. The illusion validity is best demonstrated by me doing the practice exam and not finishing it or checking the answers for the exam to make me feel better for the exam. The second term Kahneman calls the illusion of skill, which means that people mistake luck for skill. A good example of this would be when I neglected to really study for the exam because I in high school could get by on Just kind of understanding the concepts that we had been taught. The 3rd and final term is an acronym that Kahneman created to describe the phrase what you see is all there is or W.Y.S.I.A.T. both mean that in order to really see someone for who they are you must see past what’s on the surface. this would be when you just meet someone and construct an opinion on them, based on outer looks and maybe a small interaction without really getting to know them. Generally, I agree with Kahneman’s Ideas and they are true, and once tour aware of them you can easily see them in everyday life. However, it should be mentioned that these terms can overlap and are not black and white.
What initially lead to the decision of not really studying when I am terrible at English, and then leaving my laptop in my room when in English I have used my laptop the most out of any class. The first decision I think Kahneman would classify it as overconfidence and then go even further and call it the illusion of skill because I was overconfident in my abilities due to the illusion of skill that I developed in high school making me think that I could get by with just barley understanding some of the material, however, I was proven wrong by the 56% I received on the exam. The second decision I succumb to W.Y.S.I.A.T.I because of previous knowledge from other midterms exams causing me to make a poor assumption about the exam, which lead to me showing up unprepared to class. Plus, on an exam, If you have one wrong move such as showing up without your stuff it can spell the end for you mentally without even starting the exam. But how could I have prevented myself from falling victim to these decisions? The first poor decision there was nothing I could have done except realize my mistake of not actually studying and start studying, however if I’m being honest there was no way for me to realize this without first failing on the actual test so I could be snapped out of this mindset, and come to the realization that for all test I can’t just rely on some kind of “intuition” that I think I have instead of actually studying. The second decision could have been prevented by just thinking a little bit more deeply and realizing that this class was not like all the other classes and that I would need my computer for the exam.
The illusion of skill, the illusion of validity, and W.Y.S.I.A.T.I all these cognitive fallacies so how do we as students not fall prey to these? Well there is one solution that guarantees that we will never become prey to these fallacies ever again but in order for it to work you must already have been controlled by one or all of these fallacies, and this solution is failure no matter what you’re doing failure will break this mindset and keep you from doing it again because you will never want to make the same mistake again, however this is only a last resort solution and should try to prevent this at all costs. What are some other solutions? First is to take a step back and examine how you came to this conclusion in your mind for example if I had taken a step back and looked hard and saw that there was no evidence proving that I could pass a test on wits alone in English then I would have realized that I should study and if for some reason your still stuck in the mindset then look for any evidence that refutes or reinforces this behavior for example after taking a step back and seeing the error I could have look at previous grades and they would have shown me that I needed to study. Hopefully, this information proves invaluable in your future endeavors.
Works Cited
Kahneman, Daniel. “Don’t Blink! The Hazards of Confidence.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 19 Oct. 2011, www.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/magazine/dont-blink-the-hazards-of-confidence.html.
