Today is March 23 and the Navigate the Chaos question to consider is “How often do you remind yourself of the focusing illusion?”
Navigating the chaos requires one to maintain an open mind, consider various viewpoints, and challenges one's beliefs and assumptions about how the world works.
One such tool to help maintain an open mind is known as the focusing illusion.
The focusing illusion is also known as the focusing effect and is a cognitive bias that occurs when people place too much importance on one aspect of an event, causing an error in accurately predicting the utility of a future outcome.
In his 2011 book, Thinking Fast and Slow, the 2002 Nobel Prize recipient in Economics, Daniel Kahneman, discussed his concept of the focusing illusion and defined it as meaning “Nothing in life is as important as you think it is while you are thinking about it.”
To identify the focusing illusion you have to think hard. Since people “are not accustomed to thinking hard, they are often content to trust a plausible judgment that quickly comes to mind.”
He applied the focusing illusion to education and wrote, “Education is an important determinant of income—one of the most important—but it is less important than most people think.”
Perhaps, nowhere is the focusing illusion more apparent than in the discussion between one’s college major and future earnings income potential. Evidence suggests little correlation between one’s level of education or academic major and long-term income potential.
“In one recent survey over 90 percent of employers agree that a candidate’s demonstrated capacity to think critically, communicate clearly, and solve complex problems is more important than their undergraduate major.”
Daniel Hamermesh of the University of Texas concluded that “Perceptions of the variations in economic success among graduates in different majors are exaggerated. Our results imply that given a student’s ability, achievement and effort, his or her earnings do not vary all that greatly with the choice of undergraduate major.”
Focusing solely on education prevents the consideration of the myriad of other factors that determine income.
When you fall into the focusing illusion trap you believe that one degree is better to have than another.
When you realize “that nothing in life is as important as you think it is while you are thinking about it” you can accept the fact that no one degree is necessarily better than another when moving up the corporate ladder or earning potential.
As you go about your day consider asking yourself how often do you remind yourself of the focusing illusion?