The streetlight effect — A policeman sees a drunk man searchi | Professor M

The streetlight effect

— A policeman sees a drunk man searching for something under a streetlight and asks what the drunk has lost. He says he lost his keys, and they both look under the streetlight together. After a few minutes, the policeman asks if he is sure he lost them here, and the drunk replies, no, and that he lost them in the park. The policeman asks why he is searching here, and the drunk answers, “this is where the light is.” (Wikipedia)

Searching in the wrong place may feel easier than looking in the right place. In other words, the prospect of comfort or pleasure influences the way we tackle a problem and may send us toward a dead end. But it gets deeper.

Occasionally, we get sidetracked because of our desire to use familiar tools. After all, we’ve spent all this time mastering them. The sunk cost fallacy screams that it would be wasteful not to deploy these skills whenever we can.

The ultimate sunk cost fallacy applies to our identities. What if you see yourself as a person who does things a certain way? Doing things differently would threaten the very sense of who you are.

— A patient tells a surgeon: “Doctor, my stomach hurts.” Surgeon: “No problem. We should cut off your ears.” The patient runs away in fear and talks to a general practitioner next: “Doctor, my stomach hurts, and the surgeon wanted to cut off my ears!” General practitioner: “Surgeons! All they think about is cutting! Let me prescribe some pills to you, and the ears will fall off by themselves.”

If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. If you don’t know that hammers exist, or don’t care about getting one, or don’t see yourself as a person who uses hammers, you may never hit the nail on the head.