Why We Make Mistakes: How We Look Without Seeing, Forget Things in Seconds, and Are All Pretty Sure We Are Way Above Average [Paperback]

"Why We Make Mistakes" is the latest entry in a bumper crop of new books about how people make decisions. The author, Joseph Hallinan, is a former writer for the Wall Street Journal and a Pulitzer-prize winner, and his brisk style makes this book a fast and enjoyable read. Think of it as a lengthy version of an intiguing article in the WSJ, and as a perfect book to read while on a long plane flight.

Hallinan's book is essentially a survey of research into why people act the way they do. It turns out that we are biased, "poorly calibrated" (meaning, we often don't know our own limitations), very quick to judge other people on the basis of appearance alone, prone to sticking with old strategies that work poorly in new situations, and generally a lot more irrational than we think we are. "Why We Make Mistakes" is filled with interesting little oddities, such as the fact that most people have an inordinate preference for the number 7 and the color blue and the fact that our memories are typically much poorer than we realize (explaining why eye witness testimony is so unreliable).

Hallinan makes the good point that we need to understand why we make mistakes before we can do anything to prevent them. In the 1980s, for example, one out of every 5,000 people who received anesthesia died. The key to improving this outcome was to recognize that even highly trained, brilliant anesthesiologists make mistakes. At the time, two major models of machine were used to deliver anesthesia--one had a control valve that turned clockwise, another had a valve that turned counterclockwise. The profession realized that anesthesiologists could easily confuse the two machines, with disastrous results--the fix was to standardize the machines so the valve turned only one way, thus reducing the opportunity for simple human error. Then anethesiologists also took a page from the airline industry--they started using checklists to remind themselves to do important things, and they "flattened the authority gradient" by encouraging nurses and others in the operating room to point out errors. Hallinan reports that deaths due to anesthesia have declined by a factor of 40, to one death per 200,000. Some of the improvement doubtless results from changes in technology and medical knowledge, but Hallinan makes a good case that it was also very important to simply recognize that people are inherently mistake-prone and then take steps to minimize the things that can go wrong.

All of this has important implications for businesses, governments and other group activities. Organizations that brook no dissent, on the theory that the most senior people in the room will never make mistakes, are headed for disaster. As Hallinan explains, novices are often better able to spot errors than the "experts," who tend to skim over mistakes and ignore them because, ironically, the experts assume the mistakes out of the equation. Thus, the "newbie" in the room may spot the embarassing arithmetic error faster than the senior folks who wrongly assume from experience that such an error could never be made.

Organizations that understand that people will make mistakes and then do something to manage and minimize those mistakes are more likely to succeed. This is exactly what the airline industry, an enterprise that has very low tolerance for error, has done with great success. This is not to say that mistakes are no longer a problem, only that they are much rarer than they have been historically.

Other books in this genre include Cordelia Fine's "A Mind of Its Own," Zachary Shore's "Blunder," Burton's "On Being Certain," "Predictably Irrational" and "Sway." There's a lot of overlap between the various books on the subject, but each of them adds something new and interesting to the discussion. In any case, Hallinan's "Why We Make Mistakes" stands out because of its readability and because its a good survey of the topic.

A woman hanged herself in a tree on a busy street. Yet, no one reported the suicide for more than 14 hours even though her body was clearly visible. Why? Because the incident occurred on October 31st and passersby mistook the body for a Halloween decoration. This horrifying example demonstrates the way context - as well as traits that are innately human - plays a role in how people make errors. As Joseph T. Hallinan explains, human beings are biased, overconfident, judgmental, downright irrational creatures of habit who are blissfully unaware of their limitations. All these traits will cause people to make errors - some are silly, such as saying "unicorn" when you mean "unicycle," and some horrendous, such as administering the wrong dose of medicine or flying a plane into the ground. This intriguing book focuses more on why people err than on preventing errors, though it does suggest solid, useful measures. getAbstract recommends it to those who are interested in why they blunder and in how to become more goof-proof. Taking the steps Hallinan outlines could keep you out of a lot of trouble.

Frankly, until reading this book, I assumed that I understood why people make mistakes. True, several of the causes are obvious: emotional, impulsive decisions made in haste, action without sufficient knowledge, trust in unreliable sources, false assumptions or premises, and so forth. However, most people are vulnerable to basic illusions and/or delusions. (Check out the tabletops illustration devised by Roger Shepard on Page 20.)
As John Hallinan explains so brilliantly in this book, most of the most significant causes are not so obvious and one of them really caught my attention: even when we know we have made a mistake, we reject that fact and often make the same mistake again. Why? Because "we are all afflicted with certain systemic biases in the way we see, remember, and perceive the world around us, and these biases make us prone to commit certain kinds of errors...we just don't know we're biased. Some of these tendencies are so strong that even when we do know about them, we find it hard [if not impossible] to correct for them." Here is a representative selection of phenomena, observations, and insights:

"Understanding the role of context is also extremely important, especially when it comes to remembering things. Memory, it turns out, is often more a reconstruction than a reproduction." (Page 9)

"In one study, radiologists missed up to 90 percent of cancerous tumors that, in retrospect, had been visible `for months or even years.'" (Page 24)

"If we are going to err at something, we would rather err by [begin italics] failing [end italics] to do something." (Page 53)

"It doesn't take much to distract a driver. A two-second glance doubles the risk of an accident." (Page 83)

Note: My first reaction to this item was "So what? What's the big deal?" Then I did a simple calculation and realized that if a car were moving at 60 mph, it would travel 176 feet in only two seconds. Hmmmm....

"As something becomes more familiar, we tend to notice less, not more. We come to see things not as they are but as (we assume) they ought to be." (Page 113)

"Events learned in one emotional state are best remembered when we are back in that happy state. Happy times, for instance, are best remembered when we're happy." (Page 117)

"We often think we're being rational when we're being visceral, and vice versa. When a mistake does happen, we often end up blaming the wrong cause." (Page 211)

"Happy people tend to be more creative problem solvers. They also make decisions more quickly, with less back-and-forth." (Page 218)

Many readers may not neurological infrastructure of the decision-making process, notably the importance of what is generally referred to as the "unconscious mind." That is what Hallinan means when noting that many decisions are made or at least significantly influenced "outside of our consciousness." This fact helps to explain why most of us make mistakes when trying to understand why we make mistakes. Ironically, we demonstrate what we are trying to eliminate.

As indicated by hundreds of citations throughout the book supplemented by extensive References and Bibliography section (Pages 225-237 and Pages 239-273), Hallinan has obviously absorbed and digested an abundance of research data from a wide range of resources. He fully achieves his objective to explain why people make mistakes of all kinds and suggests, especially in the concluding chapter, what can be done to prevent or correct them. He urges his readers to "Think small [because] little things, as the song says, mean a lot." Also, be alert to the fact that "we don't see all that we observe, and yet we sometimes `see' things we don't know we've seen." Therefore, beware of seeing only what you expect to see, not what is. Certain biases such as overconfidence (i.e. hubris) are amenable to correction. On occasion, it also helps to think negatively when making a decision. "What could go wrong?" Hallinan also suggests we can become less error prone by letting our spouse "proofread" our reasoning and by slowing down and sharpening the focus of our attention. "Multitasking is, fir most of us, a mirage. There are strict limits to the number of things we can do at one time, and the more we do [or attempt to do], the greater the chance for error."

Many who read this last paragraph may respond, "Well, duh, that's just common sense." As Joseph Hallinan convincingly establishes in this thoroughly entertaining as well as highly informative book, it would be a serious mistake to assume that common sense is common.

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Even publishers do not always recognize a mistake made. The dust jacket of the copy I have is a case in point. It was not trimmed to proper size nor is the photo of it displayed online by Amazon. You'd think that someone would have corrected it by now.