In previous articles we talked about the complexity of happiness due to the presence of two Selves that take into account different elements to assess the degree of happiness in our life. To this we must add the frequent errors in thinking present in the nature of our mind.
The number of cognitive biases that human beings commit In our daily lives it is highly known and developed by psychologists such as Dan Ariely and Daniel Kahneman due to the limitation of three of our cognitive processes: attention, perception and memory.
However, the bias that humans commit the most when thinking about our happiness is a cognitive error known as the focus illusion.
In his research on happiness, Kahneman adds this bias as a distorting element of our perception of reality which leads us to assess our level of satisfaction with life based on the information most accessible at the present moment.
It is a cognitive bias or error in human thinking that consists of the distortion of the importance that an aspect can have on our happiness at the moment we are thinking about it. In other words, it is the unfortunate fact that we cannot think of any circumstance that affects well-being without distorting its importance.
The question order experiment
A well-known experiment in which this bias and the distortion of our judgments made in the face of specific information shines through is the one in which students are asked to evaluate, in general, the well-being of their lives. They are then asked how many dates they have had in the last month. The correlation between the scores of these questions is insignificant (0.012). The questions are answered independently.
Nevertheless, If we reverse their order and ask first about dating and then about happiness the correlation increases to 0.66. One question influences the other. The order of the questions has affected your answer. A cognitive distortion based on the change of focus.
Through this experiment, the influence of the illusion of focus is reflected, which according to Kahneman can be described with the following phrase: “nothing in life is as important as we think when we think about it.”
Conclusion
No matter how much it bothers us, this thinking mechanism influences all aspects of our life, and leads us to act in ways that may not be close to what truly makes us happy. That is why, on many occasions, we overestimate the importance of buying that car, joining the gym, starting that relationship, investing in a new business, adopting a dog… and the way in which this will increase our degree of well-being when, in In reality, we may be victims of this cognitive bias.
If we can get something clear from this discovery of our psyche, it is that nothing in life is as important as you think it is while you’re thinking about it. Human well-being always depends on the illusion of your approach.
