The recent horizon programme on BBC2 regarding the psychology of bias, demonstrates that every decision you have, every action you take there is a conflict between intuition and logic. As I am interested in creative thinking, I found the programme enlightening when it comes to problem solving.
Professor Kahneman and his colleague Amos Tversky performed a series of psychological tests that demonstrated that we have two systems of thinking. A logical, practical part that is fantastic at analysing and solving a problem. It is the part that you are most aware of but it is slow and lazy compared to your second system. This was demonstrated by subjects being giving a complicated question while walking. Nearly all of them had to stop and think because this part of the brain can’t keep you walking while you were thinking.
The second system in your mind is intuitive, fast and automatic and is responsible for most of the things you do. A quick way to demonstrate how these two systems work can be shown by asking yourself ‘do you like marmite?’ Yes or No?
Yes or No doesn’t really matter. Now ask yourself ‘why’. You can actually feel the slow part of your mind go ‘mmmmmm’ and pause before a serious of answers to justify your like or dislike of marmite.
This intuitive side of our mind forms our first impressions, our beliefs and opinions. It has been shown to make us spend impulsively and be overly influenced by what others think. As shown by the quick marmite test most of our beliefs and opinions come from come from an automatic response which just pops into our mind. But then your logical mind invents a reason why you think or believe something.
Kahneman and Tversky also showed that these two systems make mistakes and they are know by psychologists as cognitive biases. For creative problem solving it provides interesting insights in how a client brief is approached. Consider what happens when you read the following words
thief careless prison
It is very likely that you quickly imagine a story about a thief who got caught by the police and ended in prison. We do this even when there is no grammatical connection between these three words because it confirms our ‘intuitive’ system that this is what happens to thieves who are careless. Now compare these three words.
happy money holiday
Did you think of a lottery win? So, in a practical sense this ‘intuitive’ belief system influences our decision making far quicker and in such a hidden way, that we don’t actually realise it’s happening. For example, a teacher who believes that she has a class of ‘stupid’ students will have her beliefs confirmed by her ‘bias’ to notice stupid behaviour. She may ask questions that elicit a stupid response or provides situations so that the students behave stupidly. For creative problem solving we need to understand our innate ‘bias’ and try to work with this bias by using our more ‘logical, slower’ thinking system.
A client who’s briefs we may have found difficult or challenging in the past, we need to put aside these prejudices and always think of the brief in a fresh, clear, untroubled way or you risk always thinking that this particularly brief or client is always challenging. Understanding our ‘bias’ allows us to work with these situations and provide fresh creative problem solving for our clients.
