Steven Hennessy: Microblogs for Why We Make Mistakes

Reference Information:

Title - Why We Make Mistakes

Author - Joseph T. Hallinan

Editors - Crown Archetype 2009

Chapter 0

Summary

A Mistake/error is a misunderstanding of the meaning/implication of something or a wrong action/statement preceding from faulty judgement. This is the definition, according to Hallinan of an error/mistake. He talks about the idea that the space we live in accounts for the reasoning behind out mistakes. He believes that the world we live in causes and encourages our mistakes

Discussion

I enjoyed reading this chapter by Hallinan. It was nice to get a different perspective of the idea behind mistakes and errors. I also liked that he talked about many mistakes are encouraged by the world around us. Poor design is the the biggest reason for mistakes and errors in today's world

Chapter 1

Summary

In this chapter, Hallinan discusses the idea of human's being able to look at an object but not necessarily pointing out all of the details. This shows that we can only process a certain amount of data at a time and we only notice what we believe is the important things. This also depends on certain things about a person. Some people are very good observers and others simply have poor vision

Discussion

Hallinan makes some very good points in this chapter. I enjoyed his discussion on the amount of data interpreted depends on the person trying to do so. It was also cool to look at how much people actually see vs what the notice is around them.

Chapter 2

Summary
Hallinan discusses human perception more in the chapter. He explains that humans take more importance in sight and sound than actual details of the scene around them. He uses examples like tongue errors and recall errors to explain his point. Hallinan also explains that we shouldn't have to think so hard to create passwords or they will easily be forgotten.

Discussion
I enjoyed this chapter about memory and settings. I also liked the idea of not thinking to hard when creating passwords. I have created several passwords that at the time seemed unbreakable. They were unbreakable, even I couldn't figure them out.

Chapter 3

Summary

Hallinan continues with his theme in discussion the human mind. He talks a lot about how humans make connections. He brings up the idea of voters using competence to determine which candidate to choose on a ballot. Price on a wine bottle also has an effect on preference as to which bottle people will choose.

Discussion

I enjoyed Hallinan's take on connecting dots for the human mind. It was interesting to look at the wine idea. People think just because it's more expensive, it must be better. I'm no wine expert but there are some not so expensive wines out there that taste just as good as $50 bottles.

Discussion
I thought Hallinan made an interesting point here when dicussing hte idea of the "rose-colored glasses" I know I have pumped myself up in several of my memories, so I can relate to what he is saying in this chapter.

Chapter 5
Summary
Here, the authers begininn talking about multitasking in humans. They propose the idea that we don't really do multitasking, even though we are under the impression that we actually are doing it. Multi tasking, in the end, impairs the human brain and tends to make us forget things. Trying to remmeber things, causes down time which causes us to retry the task we set out to do

Discussion

I completely understand where Hallinan is coming from with this multitasking idea. I currently wait table at a local restraunt and I forget things all the time. I try to mulittask as much as possible but sometimes the brain just gets overloaded with information and can't remember the simple tasks I was trying to do.

Chapter 6
Summary
   Hallinan, in chapter 6, discusses the idea of framming and that we simply use it to get a view of something. He discusses that how much time we use to make the actual decision will go along way in the outcome. He uses the following examples: wine buying using the music, and multple-unit ricing.

Discussion
   I liked Hallinan's discussion in chapter 3. He makes some good points about framing. He also brings up some good examples about decision making and how our surroundings can impact our decision

Chapter 7
Summary
Here, in chapter 7, Hallinan discusses the idea of human's skimming stuff. Just like in chapter 6, he uses alot of examples. His examples involves how we actually do the skiming. He brings up a rookie pianist who found an error that had been going on for any years. Humans actually only read the first couple of letters and then assume the rest. We are only focusing on the content the information provides, not the spelling

Discussion
   This chapter was really cool, I thought. I have seen several of those things online where all the letters are scrambled but the content of the information is still present. None of the words are right but the human brain interprets them to be what they actually should be.

Chapter 8
Summary
   In chapter 8, Hallinan brings up the idea of straightening things up. People tend to make things simple or just put stuff in random order to help understand them. The author discusses the Seine River as well as New York's streets as a couple examples. Also, Hallinan talks about how people re-tell stories, shorten maps, etc.. Hallinan explains this is a natural occurrance, people don't try and do this, just kind of happens.

Discussion
   I thought chaper 8 was very cool to look at. I have retold stores before and left things out or added them. Also, I feel like maybe I am just a messy person but I do not do a whole lot of tidying up. Just might be the way I am.

Chapter 9
Summary
   As far as chapter 8 goes, Hallinan is discussed the different actions in which women and men. According to Hallinan, men do a better job as actions than women do. Overconfidence is what attributes to this, says Hallinan. It is transformed into more of a risk taking attribute, so men will end up taking more risks in life than women.

Discussion
   Chapter 8 was very interesting to read about. I thought Hallinan did a good job of explaining why it was men did better with certain actions. Overconfidence is something that could very well lead to a person taking more risks than needed or just enough risks to survive.

Chapter 10
Summary
   In Chapter 10, Hallinan discussed the idea that people have different perespectives of themselves. They believe they are better than average and this often leads to overconfidence. He used examples that take advantage of this overconfidence, such as advertising. Hallinan talks about the idea of calibration which is used to judge just how much overconident a person truley is. He later talks about information overload, illusion of control, and the power of feedback.

Discussion
   I really enjoyed chapter 10. Hallinan discussed that everybody who isn't depressed tends to be overconfident. The depreses are more realists which kind of explains it. I also thought it was cool how he talked about people complaining about inaccuracies of weathermen even though they tended to be correct most of the time.

Chapter 11
Summary
   Hallinan, in chapter 11 talked about humans and how they tend to wing things. It is obvious that people hate instruction manuals and want nothing to do with them. After people learn how to do something, they will stick to it no matter what.

Discussion
   I really enjoyed reading chapter 11. I could easily relate to everything mentioned in this chapter. I have had a tendency to not use manuals whenever necessary. I feel that products should be easy enough to use straight out of the box without any instructions.

Summary
   Hallinan, in Chapter 12 talks about both contraints and affordances in this chapter. Hid discusses how affordances give people great insight in how things are used and also how they can aid us. People just need to figure out where to look. Appitude plays a very large role in how many mistakes will occur.

Discussion
    I thought chapter 12 was very interesting as well. Hallinans perspective on constraints and affordances was very cool. The view on doctors vs aviators was also very interesting to look at,

Chapter 13
Summary
   In Chapter 13, Hallinan decided to focus on the idea of people tending to be able to predict just how their emotional reaction will be based on future events. This deals with bias on purchasing gift cards and rebates. When making decisions in life, people tend to look at the incorrect details. Often focussing on individual factors rather than the big picture, tended to be the majority out come. Judging the happiness of others is very difficult while making one's self happy tends to be rather easy.

Discussion
    I really liked Hallinans discussion in chapter 13. Discussing how people make mistakes based on small details is extremely true. For the most part, people don't like looking at the big picture when considering a life change. I know I have made this mistake a few different times in life. I tended to look at small things that could or could not make me happy before making a big decision.

Conclusion
Summary
     The conclusion of the book byHallinan summarized making mistakes. He talked about different mmistakes that are made and even offrred a few different methods that could be used to prevent these mistakes. Considering bad occurances, disregarding habits, sleeping more, and slowing down were all different proposed solutions by Hallinan. Happiness was also talked about. He mentioned the tendency of material needs to create happiness. Money was talked about as Hallinan discusses that is is actually the currency of time not actually life.

Discussion
    I really liked the conclusion section of the book by Hallinan. He offered alot of insight on mistakes and preventing them. I enjoyed all of his proposed solutions to the mistakes. I will defiinelty be using a few of these in my day to day. Slowing down is something I need to take in consideration because I have tried to do everything at once before and this has caused tons of issues.
Chapter 12

Steven Hennessy

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Microblogs for Why We Make Mistakes

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