From elearning post - The Storytelling Problem
Malcolm Gladwell, in his new book Blink, takes a look at how people make snap decisions. ....
"We have, as human beings, a storytelling problem. We're a bit to quick to come up with explanations for things we don't really have an explanation for."This becomes quite apparent when we interview experts... When we interview them, we are asking them to peep into their subconscious (their "locked door") and to come up with explanations for their actions. But its difficult for experts to figure out why they do what they do -- they can't open their "locked door" -- so they end up telling us only the most plausible story, which as Gladwell describes, can be far from the truth.
Really enjoyed Malcom Gladwell's Tipping Point and Blink looks like a good buy too.
I remeber that our brains are essentially built o take decisions based on limited data, by looking at previous patterns (experiences) in our lives and matching the current situation (decision point) against them. This is extremely useful in hunter gathering situation as it allows humans to react very quickly and usually correctly.
Nowadays it holds less true becuase situations are often more conplex than they originally appear and people still opt to 'jump' based on limited data.
The Storytelling point is interesting because it means that post hoc we attempt to rationalise the process. I suspect that 'experts' would try to fit the actions to some rational process whereas in reality they probably reacted based on their experience.
Posted by Paul Goodison at January 14, 2005 10:04 AM | TrackBack