Repelling the availability bias calls for an empirical approach to a particular decision, one not based on the obscured reality of vivid memory. If there is a low incidence of disaster, like only one out of 100,000 plane landings results in a crash, it is safe to fly to the Canary Islands. If one out of one million people who go out is assaulted, it is safe to go out at night.
要排除“可得性偏差”,就必须在作某一具体决定时,以实证方法所取得的证据为依据,而不是以与现实不太相符的某个鲜明的记忆为依据。如果灾难的发生率很低,比如飞机着陆过程中坠毁的可能性只有十万分之一,那么飞往加那利群岛就仍是安全的。如果人们外出只有百万分之一的几率遭到人身侵犯,那么夜晚出行也就仍是安全的。
The sunk cost fallacy has a periodic application and was first identified by economists. A good example of how it works is the casino slot machine. Gamblers with a high threshold for risk put money into a slot machine hoping for a big return, but with each pull of the lever they lose some money playing the odds. If they have been pulling the lever many times in a row without success, they might decide that they had better keep spending money at the machine, or they will have wasted everything they already put in.
“沉没成本谬误”也时有发生,它最初是由经济学家发现的。其作用机理最好的例证就是赌场老虎机。赌徒们冒着高风险,把钱投入老虎机,期望能够得到很大的回报,但随着一次次拉动拉杆,他们也一次次把钱赌输了。如果他们多次连续拉动拉杆而没有一次成功,他们可能会决定最好还是继续把钱投入老虎机,否则他们之前投入的成本就悉数浪费了。
The truth is that every pull of the lever has the same winning probability of nearly one in a trillion, regardless of how much money has been put in before - the previous plays were sunk costs.
而事实是,不论他们之前投入了多少钱,每一次拉动拉杆的成功几率都同样是极小的——之前投入的那些即为沉没成本。
In everyday life this can lead people to stay in damaging situations because of how much they have already put in, stuck on the erroneous belief that the value of that time or energy they have invested will decay or disappear if they leave. The wisest course is to recognize the effects of the sunk cost fallacy and to leave a bad situation regardless of how much you have already invested.
在日常生活中,这种谬误会导致人们由于顾及之前所投入的成本,而持续停留在损失的状态中,同时困顿于一种错误的观念,即他们害怕自己一旦离开,之前所投入的时间和精力就会贬值或付诸东流。而最明智的办法则是,要充分认识沉没成本谬误导致的结果,离开糟糕的境况,不论之前已投入了多少。
While there are still more biases, the key to avoiding them remains the same: When a decision matters, it is best to rely on watertight logic and a careful examination of the evidence and to remain aware that what seems like good intuition is always subject to errors of judgment.
尽管还有其他更多的偏差,避免这些偏差的关键其实都一样:当涉及重要决策时,最好是依靠严密的逻辑并仔细审查证据;同时,要保持警惕,那些看上去良好的直觉总是很容易导致判断失误。