Impact Bias Or Imagination Creates Monsters

A cognitive bias is an error our brain makes when processing information. This error is due to the fact that, unconsciously, we take shortcuts taking as a reference knowledge or experiences acquired. The problem is that these shortcuts do not always lead us to the correct conclusions, that is, they do not always mean a true saving of energy and time. This time we will talk about one of the most frequent biases: the impact bias.

Impact bias is an information processing error that leads to the assumption that negative situations will be much worse than they really are. Or that the positive ones will be better than they actually end up being. In other words, think about future situations imagining that they may demand more resources than we have, when in reality they do not.

An example of this is a visit to the dentist. It is common for many patients, before going through the consultation, imagine that they are going to suffer a lot. Fortunately, the technical means have advanced and this has meant that a good part of the suffering that patients previously suffered in their orthopedic chairs has disappeared or decreased significantly.

However, the idea that has remained in the collective unconscious (the figure of the dentist as torturer) can make the patient imagine suffering for a long time. However, when it does go, none of the negatives you envisioned are likely to actually occur. In that case there was an impact bias.

Impact bias and awareness

These forecasts of the future , which we make so frequently, tend to be unreliable, precisely because of the impact bias. People tend to overestimate the emotional reaction we are going to have to future events, both in a positive and negative sense.

All of this escapes consciousness , because in the future projections that we make, the emotional component influences more than the product of logic. When we look ahead to tomorrow, our fears, insecurities, or fantasies outweigh our ability to evaluate variables and make reliable predictions.

In fact, we not only imagine that negative situations will be worse or positive ones better than they actually end up being, but we also assume that they will last longer. For example, many believe that if we win the lottery, we will have a lifetime of fulfillment. In practice, those with that fortune cease to see it as something exceptional not long after they have been graced with the stroke of luck.

The future and anxiety

At the core of anxiety is always a negative expectation of the future. Much of the anxiety is unleashed because we expect something to go wrong in the short, medium or long term. That is precisely the root of a pre-occupation: a negative projection towards what will happen. That perspective makes us sow a seed of unease.

Thinking ahead easily leads to so-called “rumination.” A constant return to the same idea, imagining possible outcomes or visualizing different paths, without this leading to action. Thinking about “what will happen if” becomes a mechanical exercise … Something that “neuroticizes” us.

This is something very different from forecasting. In the forecast we seek to anticipate the possibility of certain eventualities and we take measures in this regard. We protect ourselves or take actions to neutralize threats. We also try to be ready for good opportunities. We act according to a real probability. The key is that: we act, instead of thinking.

Imagination creates monsters

It was the great painter Francisco de Goya y Lucientes who made an impressive engraving which he entitled The Dream of Reason Creates Monsters. In the image, a person is seen gathered in on himself and surrounded by phantasmagorical and threatening beings. The image says it all and corresponds to something that psychology detected long after the work was made.

This is basically what happens in the impact bias, particularly in the face of negative forecasts. If a person falls into the trap of obsessively thinking about negative events or suffering that they may experience in the future, in the end they will end up carrying extra pain that is foreign to the situation itself.

We speak of self-generated suffering in oneself, most of the time automatically. The future scares us to some extent, because it is unknown. Also because death is on the horizon.

If we focus on the future and the painful possibilities that inhabit it, it is most likely that we will end up living with an unbearable number of ghosts. Sheets with eyes that look at us from a very particular point: the one to which we seem to be heading inexorably.

The shock bias causes us to flood all our anticipations with a tragic fragrance: a habit that wears much. Hence, it is always better to look ahead, keeping in mind not so much what will happen but our capacity – that of society, that of the dentist, that of the person who evaluates us … – to face it.