gauge would make no error, and realizes that cognition mimics perception in

being misled by mere contrast, he is well on the way toward understanding, not

only how magicians fool one, but also how life will fool one. This can occur,

through deliberate human manipulation or otherwise, if one doesn’t take certain

precautions against often-wrong effects from generally useful tendencies in his

perception and cognition.

 

Man’s—often wrong but generally useful— psychological tendencies are quite

numerous and quite different. The natural consequence of this profusion of

tendencies is the grand general principle of social psychology: cognition is

ordinarily situation-dependent so that different situations often cause

different conclusions, even when the same person is thinking in the same general

subject area.

 

With this introductory instruction from ants, magicians, and the grand general

principle of social psychology, I will next simply number and list

psychology-based tendencies that, while generally useful, often mislead.

Discussion of errors from each tendency will come later, together with

description of some antidotes to errors, followed by some general discussion.

Here are the tendencies:

 

1. Reward and Punishment Superresponse Tendency

 

2. Liking/Loving Tendency