| Chapter 8 As humans, we think in terms of causes and effect Yet we live in a complex environment with multiple unknown variables Laws of probabilities are a good way to represent uncertainty People misunderstand probabilities and are bad at using them The probability of an unspecified coincidence is quite high People tend to deny the random components in chance events as if they involved skill and could be controlled Believe that distraction impairs and practice improves prediction of coin toss Believe that things happen in threes: Representative thinking leads us to conclude that sequences including streaks of events are not random and we thus look for a cause; we expect too much alternation Regression toward the mean: extreme scores at one point in time tend to be closer to the mean of the population at a later time Nonregressive predictions: rewarding good performances is followed by poorer performance |
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