Why Smart Women Podcast
Welcome to the Why Smart Women Podcast, hosted by Annie McCubbin. We explore why women sometimes make the wrong choices and offer insightful guidance for better, informed decisions. Through engaging discussions, interviews, and real-life stories, we empower women to harness their intelligence, question their instincts, and navigate life's complexities with confidence. Join us each week to uncover the secrets of smarter decision-making and celebrate the brilliance of women everywhere.
Why Smart Women Podcast
Why is Annie always right?
The power of confirmation bias lies in its invisibility – we don't even know we're doing it. This cognitive trap shapes everything from how we view our pets to why we fall for scams, yet remains largely undetected in our daily thought processes.
So then what happens is she takes this anger out into the world and she finds things that she can hang the anger on. It's like she's got an anger dress right. She's got an anger dress in her hand and what she's doing is looking for coat hangers Wherever she goes that she can hang the dress on right. You are listening to the why Smart Women podcast, the podcast that helps smart women work out why we repeatedly make the wrong decisions and how to make better ones. From relationships, career choices, finances, to faux fur jackets and kale smoothies. Every moment of every day, we're making decisions. Let's make them good ones.
Speaker 1:I'm your host, annie McCubbin, and as a woman of a certain age, I've made my own share of really bad decisions. Not my husband, I don't mean him, though. I did go through some shockers to find him, and I wish this podcast had been around to save me from myself. This podcast will give you insights into the working of your own brain, which will blow your mind. I acknowledge the traditional owners of the land in which I'm recording and you are listening on this day. Always was, always will be Aboriginal land. Well, hello, smart women, and welcome to this week's episode of the why Smart Women podcast. I'm your host, annie McCubbin, and today I am joined by Yo-Yo the black girdle. Hello, yo-yo, she just walked into the studio.
Speaker 2:Evil black girdle. She's not evil David.
Speaker 1:She's just a poor little black girdle.
Speaker 2:She's disappointing.
Speaker 1:And my partner, David. Hello, and today we are going to be talking about the ubiquity of confirmation bias.
Speaker 2:I knew you were going to use that word, Dan.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's confirmation.
Speaker 2:bias Ubiquity that's one of your favorite words.
Speaker 1:Well, it's true, though, isn't it? So you think that you're using confirmation bias to say that I use ubiquity?
Speaker 2:all the time. I knew you were going to say that. I knew you were going to describe confirmation bias as ubiquitous. You always do.
Speaker 1:Well, of all the cognitive biases that are out there, it has to be the mother of all of them, doesn't it? Okay, I'm going to shush you Right. I'm just going to read the. This is from Britannica and this is the explanation of confirmation bias. Confirmation bias people's tendency to process information by looking for or interpreting information that is consistent with their existing beliefs. This biased approach to decision making is largely unintentional, so it's happening all the time. We don't know what's happening. That's me talking, not Britannica, and it results in a person ignoring information that is inconsistent with their beliefs. So these beliefs can include a person's expectations in a given situation and their predictions about a particular outcome. And their predictions about a particular outcome. People are especially likely to process information to support their own beliefs when an issue is highly important or self-relevant.
Speaker 2:Do you think that people are going to be impressed by you quoting Britannica?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, isn't that confirmation bias as well? Why? Well, you know why. Britannica, I mean what it sounds Britannica, what yeah. Britannica, I mean what it sounds Britannica, what yeah, britannica.
Speaker 1:Because, well, it sounds British and important.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it must be true.
Speaker 1:A heuristic, a mental shortcut. So it must be true. Shut up, David, I haven't finished.
Speaker 2:It's a real rabbit hole, this confirmation bias. Shush, I'm still speaking. I'm sorry, I thought you'd done.
Speaker 1:Confirmation bias is one example of how humans sometimes process information. Did I just read that bit? No, in an illogical, biased manner. The manner in which a person knows and understands the world is often affected by factors that we are mysteries to ourselves and we don't actually know what drives us. Would you agree with that, david?
Speaker 2:Yes, I would.
Speaker 1:That's all we've got to say. Shush now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was going to say that there's a much more concise way of saying it.
Speaker 1:Go on.
Speaker 2:And that is that you will only believe things to be true if you already believe them to be true.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's good, so okay, all right, I'll stop reading that. I'll now read from David's book my book. Well, yeah, you know I'm referring to your brain as a book. Oh okay, yeah, so go on, say that again, that was good.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm saying that, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:You only believe things to be true if you already believe them to be true. Yeah, so, okay. So what we do is we, for instance okay, let's look at our dogs.
Speaker 2:Oh, do we have to? I mean, I'm happy to look at Ryder because he's lovely and handsome, okay, so we have two Groodles, one is golden. Magnificent.
Speaker 1:And we got him when he was a little puppy and he could. Honestly he was so little and I don't know. She said he'd grow into some sort of medium-sized dog, but actually he's like over 30 kilos. He's enormous and perfect, and perfect.
Speaker 2:Yes, I mean, you know, picture the most perfect dog you know, with the most beautiful nature, the best habits, the most impressive run. You know he's like the new Ray off of Groodles. He's so graceful.
Speaker 1:And then we have our second dog, who came later, and she's the sweetest dog ever and her name is Yo-Yo.
Speaker 2:Mad as a cut snake.
Speaker 1:And David is not as intrinsically fond of her.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's.
Speaker 1:Anyway, the thing is that, for instance, when the gigantic Groodle, the big one, ryder, is, she just did the loudest fart, she is.
Speaker 2:Microphone probably didn't pick that up.
Speaker 1:She is just a farter, that dog I mean she's a lovely dog, but she's just horrendously flawed.
Speaker 2:She's not perfect like Ryder.
Speaker 1:She's not perfect. So Ryder, for instance, has a penchant for chewing up. Even at five, he will still chew up and swallow cushions, won't he?
Speaker 2:He'll do it. Yes, well, you know the ratty cushions.
Speaker 1:Oh, so the dog selective, is he? Yeah?
Speaker 2:yeah, I mean, it's a very deep instinct, and a healthy dog is a dog that is able to exercise his instincts.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, okay, what if she chews?
Speaker 2:up a cushion. Oh, she's a maniac Okay. I mean have you seen the way she tears them apart?
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, so this is confirmation bias in action. So David, because he has decided that Ryder is the perfect dog, looks at all that Ryder's behaviors, positive and negative, through that lens, yo-yo, because David has decided she is a less than perfect dog.
Speaker 2:She's a maniac.
Speaker 1:See, looks at all her behaviours through the filter that support his belief that she is a maniac. So what happens? Yeah, so if Ryder attacks which he does do when he's on a lead.
Speaker 2:Well, he's being protective.
Speaker 1:See perfect. So, when Ryder goes a dog, which he does when he's on a lead and the other dog's on a lead and he's 30 kilos and I can barely contain him and I come home and I complain to you about his behaviour. What do you say about?
Speaker 2:that? Well, he's looking after the family, isn't he? I mean what Would you like? To be assaulted in the street?
Speaker 1:No, I'm not going to be assaulted in the dog park. I know because you're with Ryder what I'm not going to be assaulted by another dog.
Speaker 2:It's a noble instinct to protect.
Speaker 1:Okay, so what if she goes a dog, which she has done in the backyard?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, they call them a bitch for a reason.
Speaker 1:David.
Speaker 2:Well, they do, they do, and she's got a big dose of that and she's absolutely savage.
Speaker 1:Is she protecting me?
Speaker 2:I don't know, I don't know, I think it's just her nastiness, you know. It's the mean it's the black side of her, you know.
Speaker 1:Oh, my God. Okay, I have to take off my jacket now. Alright, so here we have it. Confirmation bias. So I wrote something dreadfully intelligent about it, which I'm now going to read to you.
Speaker 2:I should say that I'm not unfond of. Yo-yo, in fact, I'm very fond of her, I love her. Yeah, yes, I love her as well, with all her flaws.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right, and there's the confirmation bias, so I wrote this. The idea is that this is me Sounds incredibly accurate.
Speaker 1:Quoted by Quoting Annie McCubbin Quoting Annie McCubbin, the idea is that humans, for whatever reason, experience an emotional state like anger, disappointment, etc. Then the brain, which is biased and irrational, goes looking for examples in the environment which support the emotional state. So the more emotional you are about something, the higher the care factor, the more likely you are to engage in confirmation bias. The brain also discounts incidents which don't align with the emotional state. Right, yes, so, for instance, one of my friends was at the gym really, really nice lady and she began to have negative feelings about the the gym she was complaining, wasn't she?
Speaker 1:yeah, she was sort of complaining and saying that, that that she felt marginalized and she felt left out and and they were only, um, focusing on the younger, younger folk because we're not young and that, um, she felt that the focus of the gym was all in that other area and she just didn't feel included anymore and she really loved going to the gym, and now she didn't. And she was quite vociferous in her, um, her experience of the gym anyway. So it was super interesting what happened. She sort of was talking to people in the gym and some people would say to her yeah, yeah, I find that it's not the same as it was. They've got all these new people, they've got all these young people, and I'm just also feeling, you know, sort of left out of the whole process and sort of less than a bit marginalized.
Speaker 1:Anyway, this went on for a while. This went on for a while and then I said to her are you angry at the moment? And she said yeah, yeah, I am, I am angry. I said okay, well, because she said I'm going to leave the gym, I'm thinking of going somewhere else, and I said, okay, so you're angry? This is not a story about how amazing I am Right. So, yes, I'm angry, okay, okay.
Speaker 1:So she's angry, right, just in herself, for whatever reason. Who knows why this person? There's things going on in her life, she experiences anger, right. So then what happens is she takes this anger out into the world and she finds things that she can hang the anger on. It's like she's got an anger dress, right, she's got an anger dress in her hand and what she's doing is looking for coat hangers Wherever she goes that she can hang the dress on right, right, right. She's got an anger dress in her hand and what she's doing is looking for coat hangers Wherever she goes that she can hang the dress on right, right, right. And what's happened is she's moved into the gym, come to the gym and what we do is and what she did was she cherry picked the environment to draw out instances where she believed that she was being left out of the process and didn't notice the instances where that wasn't true, because that notion, then it supported the idea that she was being marginalised and they were only interested in the young people, right? Does that make sense?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So I said to her it's interesting because I'm also of a certain age. I don't feel left out. I don't feel that they're focusing on the young people. I don't feel marginalised. I don't feel that they're focusing on the young people. I don't feel marginalized. I'm actually, it's the same to me, I'm just happy to be here and in my viewpoint it's a very collaborative, very egalitarian environment.
Speaker 1:And then I said to her you might like to look at the fact that this is just confirmation bias, because if you don't look at that, you're going to take this anger and you're going to go to the next gym. You're going to take the anger with you. Maybe not the beginning, you might see different things, but the anger is the fundamental thing, not the environment. And to her, this is more what the story is about than me saying that To her absolute, you know, enduring credit. She came to me a couple of days later and said yeah, you're right, I'm angry and I'm just seeing it everywhere.
Speaker 1:It's not the environment, it's me Now, within, saying that and I want to be super clear about this not everything is about attitude and not everything is about people's emotional environment. Situ, situations are absolutely critical. I want to be super clear about that, because what I can't stand um sort of is this idea that everything is about the way you see it. We know for a fact um so david and I live a you know, a pretty easy middle class life um a lot of people don't.
Speaker 2:Speak for yourself. Easy for you maybe.
Speaker 1:Hang right on there, David.
Speaker 2:I have to deal with this crazy dog.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right. So for some people, the situation is genuinely terrible. I'm not saying that it's all confirmation bias, but bias. But if what you find is that, as you look out into the world, you are looking for things that confirm what you already think and ignoring things that don't support it, then you are in the thrall of confirmation bias and we're mysteries to ourselves and we do it all the time.
Speaker 2:I mean it.
Speaker 1:I need a drink of water now, after that diatribe.
Speaker 2:What you're describing there. Correct me if I'm wrong. It's another way of describing the way that confirmation bias actually sort of manifests, and that is that the brain does not like a vacuum, like if you've got a feeling. If you've got that strong feeling, there must be a reason for that strong feeling.
Speaker 1:Right, that's good, that's good, that's good.
Speaker 2:Rather than apply critical thinking which, as we know, takes discipline, it takes effort, it takes energy sometimes rather than apply critical thinking and actually look at what is going on, but what is not immediately apparent.
Speaker 1:So you have to go in search of it. That's the effort.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the brain could actually find something that it already believes to be true. So it doesn't have to invent anything it doesn't have to, it doesn't have to deduce anything. It can just go. Oh, this is it. You know, this is the easy story, this is the convenience story that fits the feeling.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And therefore I will now only you know, see, feel and experience things that Support that story. That story, yeah, that makes that story true.
Speaker 1:There's a number of people that say to me that there is no sense of community anymore. Right yeah me that there is no sense of community anymore. Right yeah, that we're all isolated and lonely and there's just no sense of people reaching out to their neighbours, and it's just this very fractured sense of society. I personally do not find that in any shape, way or form. No, and do you know why? I don't. Why? Because I'm friendly no, and do you know why I don't.
Speaker 2:Why.
Speaker 1:Because I'm friendly. Yeah, it's true. So I am more like you know, if you go out into the world and you do feel disenfranchised, angry, grumpy, then that is what you're going to bring into a relationship. Again, I'm not saying that for some people they don't genuinely have things that are disturbing and traumatic for them, makes their life difficult. But, you know, maybe your life's okay, but you still go out into the world with this sense that nothing's ever right, people aren't supportive, society has fractured, community has gone. I'm on my own. That is what you will see.
Speaker 2:And so, I guess, are you saying that confirmation bias can actually be the inverse of what you've just described? Can you explain what you mean? So are you saying, as you're describing this, when you go out into the world, you don't find that community is broken down, you do find that people are warm and helpful, friendly.
Speaker 2:And friendly? Yeah, Do you think that that's your positive version of confirmation bias? I mean, we look at characters in literature like Pollyanna, you know, who played the glad game she would go in search of things that made her happy. Yeah, that it's possible to actually. I mean, all of these cognitive errors and logical fallacies, all of these sort of critical thinking things. They exist.
Speaker 2:They simply exist as potential for the human brain Are you open to the possibility that you can actually be in the thrall of confirmation bias In a positive way, like a Pollyanna.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it can work for you. Yeah, well, I am Pollyanna-ish, aren't I? In that regard?
Speaker 2:Yeah, in some contexts you are.
Speaker 1:In some contexts I'm, you know.
Speaker 2:Highly suspicious.
Speaker 1:I'm highly sceptical, but I yeah, I do. I anticipate that upon my journey through the world, that I will meet other friendly people, that I will meet other friendly people and that it will be easy for me to make friends and to form community. And my reality is that is true.
Speaker 2:That's right I do. It is true of you, it's also true of me, but it actually got me into big trouble once upon a time.
Speaker 1:Okay, tell me about that.
Speaker 2:Well, I was on a flight from Sydney to Melbourne.
Speaker 1:Oh, not him. Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.
Speaker 2:And this friendly fellow sat down next to me and asked me all about the business and what I was doing and where I was going.
Speaker 1:I'm going to have to have a lie down after this episode.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and he started sort of describing to me what he did and he would work with young entrepreneurs I was young at the time, young entrepreneurs like myself and he would be an advisor and he would make connections and he would connect you to the capital that you know we might need in order to grow the business. And I thought, oh well, you know, that sounds interesting. We had a meeting in a. A few weeks later we actually had a meeting in a one of the big big Melbourne law firms right on the Yarra River and so the law firm would have given you the confirmation bias that the guy was legit.
Speaker 1:Well, absolutely yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean, and you know he said he had a special relationship with the managing partner and he was there to you know, sort of bring projects in and and there I was being served, you know nice smoked salmon, sandwiches and cappuccinos, and all of that good stuff you know, it's making me hungry now. It must be true it must be true, yeah.
Speaker 2:And so it went. And of course you know, being an advisor, you pay for advisory services. I think by the end of it all I paid him something like $30,000 in fees and introduction fees and things like that something like $30,000 in fees and introduction fees and things like that when the story began to unravel somewhat.
Speaker 1:Hang on. So, if we can just go back a bit, because this is very, very interesting to look at scamming through the lens of confirmation bias and motivated reasoning right, because you wanted to believe him absolutely motivated reasoning. This narrative sounded really good and we are very prone, are we, not to believe things through a narrative lens? Because how we understand the world's, how it's calibrated, so you were motivated to believe him. Now, what was my response to him?
Speaker 2:well, you didn't like him much right from the start.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right from the start. Now, that's interesting because I'm friendly, as unless something is at stake, and for me, so I'm skeptical. You are not skeptical, you were not skeptical by nature. I am skeptical by nature and I didn't like him, yes, but your parents did yeah, I mean, you know how.
Speaker 2:How's this for audacity? You know he met my parents, you know, came and had a barbecue in in in the, in the park you know, they were enchanted by him because he was charming yeah, he was charming and he. He spoke very highly of me, and so you know my confirmation bias. Yeah, someone likes my son.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and he must be highly of me, and so you know my Confirmation bias.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's right. Someone likes my son. Yeah, he must be okay.
Speaker 1:And, of course, as we know, critical thinking is suspended in the face of charm. And he was. He had a good story to tell. He was such a liar. He said that he needed a Kidney transplant. Was it kidney or was it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think he had a kidney. I think that was the story anyway. Such a liar One of those organs.
Speaker 1:And he had to have a transplant and apparently, because he said he was on the board or something, he had like a fast tracking, he could get it wherever he wanted. Anyway, interestingly enough, as soon as I met him, I didn't like him. I didn't like him, I didn't, I didn't believe him and and we haven't had very many um contentious issues in our long marriage have we to deal with really that was.
Speaker 2:That was.
Speaker 1:That was probably the big one that was the big one, because I kept saying I don't like him and then and of course me not liking him hit up against your motivated reasoning because you so wanted it to be right, and you know he organized it. You're brave to tell this, by the way.
Speaker 2:You know he organized. We had a meeting with a mezzanine capital provider, you know, and that all sounded good. But then came the letter from them.
Speaker 1:You know these would be our fees on top of it and no guarantee that um capital would be raised and and we walked out of that meeting and they said we'd need to put the house because he said it would need. Was it later than that?
Speaker 2:yeah, well then then there was the meeting that we had a Macquarie bank and he said that you know that he'd lined up, you know these guys, and the capital was all there and all we had to do was to.
Speaker 1:And we didn't need any security. The house.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then we sat down for that meeting and the first question from the banker was so tell us about your business? And that was obvious. That was not what I was expecting, because he had sold himself as someone who would have already let these guys know that had convinced them that we were a horse worth backing to the hilt, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And then they said we'd need the House of Securities. And I remember walking out of that meeting and he said, oh, I don't know what happened then because they were all. They were all lined up. I don't know why. They said about the house and I said, well, clearly, clearly, you have led us astray. And he didn't like that. And then what did he say to you about me, your wife's the problem.
Speaker 2:Yeah, not quite as directly as that, but yeah, I mean, it was even worse than that. You know, he, he, he expressed, um, uh, sympathy and compassion, that, um, that I didn't have a supportive wife you know that that that she didn't believe in me as much as he did god, I hated him yeah, yeah, yeah and.
Speaker 1:And then he disappeared, right Well.
Speaker 2:I mean, I called the managing partner of the law firm that we'd had the meeting in and I said look, I just wanted to ask about your relationship with such and such. And he said who are you talking about? Yeah, who.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so I mean, you know, with all the confirmation bias and motivated reasoning that had preceded this moment, there was actually no way that the story could stand up, and that's when I absolutely knew that I'd been scammed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you'd been scammed, taken for a ride. And then the next thing, about 18 months later, the Victorian police rang me and said you're on our list of people that this guy has. Can we say his name? No, yeah, fuck him, greg Rowe. You're on the list of people that he has scammed.
Speaker 2:I think there are plenty of people who have that name.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if you're out there, greg, you're revolting. He wouldn't be listening to anything, he'd be over somewhere else. I mean, it's like the Tracy Hall story. They're all the same and, unfortunately, in terms of red flags, confirmation bias is what makes us discount red flags, because there were definitely things along the way that alerted you and what the brain does, so it doesn't devolve into this cognitive dissonance, which is uncomfortable. To try and hold two competing states at the same time is one has to be wrong. So there would have been red flags along the way, but your brain goes no, it might not even notice them. Right, it doesn't even notice them.
Speaker 2:I mean, the biggest red flag was that the story was just too good to be true and that he took a fairly flimsy business case that I had put together because I was quite clueless at that stage a fairly flimsy business case and was saying to me that that's all that was necessary, that that was all that was required and we could make a whole lot of money.
Speaker 1:Yeah, easy to do. God knows all of us, every single one of us, can fall prey to confirmation bias at any tick of the clock, yep. So I thought I'd now play an excerpt from my second book, why Smart Women Buy the Lies, where Kat, the central character, enters the bathroom at her workplace and hears sobbing in the toilet. You enter the bathroom, someone is sobbing in the toilet cubicle. You don't know who it is. The sobbing is rising and falling in cadence. With every drop in intensity you creep towards the exit, only to be drawn back to the sink by another bout of weeping. The cubicle door opens. Lisbeth one of your direct reports emerges. She's dabbing at her eyes with toilet paper.
Speaker 4:You OK.
Speaker 1:Lisbeth. She may have heard redundancy whispers that you've been unaware of. This sets off a highly unhelpful train of thought about the security of your own position. What is it you ask?
Speaker 3:I hate Ryan.
Speaker 1:There are two Ryans in your team Ryan Schmidt and Ryan Craft. It's the cause of much confusion. Right yep, she is now examining herself in the mirror. Her crying has transmuted from a keening to a hiccuping sobbing. I'm angry she says, blowing her nose into the toilet paper.
Speaker 3:Right, but I can't access it, so I cry. I cry when I'm angry.
Speaker 4:Yep, me too Really.
Speaker 1:She says, looking at you keenly through swollen eyes.
Speaker 3:I can't imagine you getting angry.
Speaker 1:You are her manager. You feel that to have authority, your direct report should at least be able to imagine you getting angry.
Speaker 4:No, I do get angry, really angry.
Speaker 1:Lisbeth has lost interest in whether or not you get angry.
Speaker 3:Can you believe that behaviour in the meeting this morning?
Speaker 4:She says I wasn't in the meeting this morning. I had a conference call with Melbourne.
Speaker 3:Well, I walked in and the meeting went dead silent. I was only five minutes late, so nobody else is ever late. So I look at Ryan, because it's his meeting, and I smile and he stonewalls me. I'm sure they were talking about me, ryan and Sarah, sarah. No, I tell you, I don't think she can be trusted. She's an underminer. I'm going to ask to move teams.
Speaker 1:You don't want her to ask to move teams. It's not good for your reputation. You need to be able to manage problems between your team members.
Speaker 4:Oh right. Well, Ryan's a bit short-sighted so maybe he couldn't see you smiling.
Speaker 3:Two things Not that Ryan, and whose side are you on.
Speaker 4:Well, nobody's until I find out what happened. I just told you what happened.
Speaker 3:Why don't you believe me?
Speaker 1:Your conflict resolution training flickers at the edge of your brain. You hear Michelle the trainer saying keep your counsel, Do not roll over and immediately agree with the first person's interpretation of the event. What would Michelle know? She's not standing in the bathroom with swollen-eyed Lisbeth.
Speaker 3:I'm leaning in your direction you say I'm so polite to everybody she says If somebody smiles at me, I smile back. How hard is it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, you're super friendly.
Speaker 3:Yes, I am, and where does it get me?
Speaker 1:You start to answer, then realise the question is rhetorical. You want to leave the bathroom. The door to the bathroom opens. You are pleased. It's Adele, your team's project manager.
Speaker 4:Adele, hi, how's your snake?
Speaker 1:You say you never thought you'd willingly engage Adele in conversation about her pet snake, but these are desperate times. She's great. Kat Want to see a picture? She approaches you with her phone, looks up and notices Lisbeth. What's up, lisbeth? Lisbeth shakes her head. Adele puts her arm around her. You are relieved at the intervention but worried about the lack of safe social distancing.
Speaker 3:Everyone's talking about me behind my back and Ryan completely ignored me says Lisbeth, Don't take that personally.
Speaker 1:says Adele, giving Lisbeth an encouraging hug before entering a store. He's really short-sighted.
Speaker 4:Not that, Ryan you say Ryan Craft and Sarah.
Speaker 3:It was humiliating.
Speaker 1:She says, bursting into fresh tears. Okay, says Adele, emerging from the stall. What happened? You can't bear to hear the retelling again.
Speaker 4:She thinks everybody was talking about her because the room went silent when she entered the team meeting this morning. I don't think they were.
Speaker 3:I know they were says Lisbeth so rude.
Speaker 1:You notice Lisbeth is now successfully accessing her anger. The door to the bathroom opens again. It's Sarah Lisbeth straightens Hi guys says Sarah, she looks at Lisbeth.
Speaker 5:Are you okay?
Speaker 1:Yes, says Lisbeth.
Speaker 5:I'm fine, okay, good, look, sorry to be stalking you, but I'm doing a quick whip around for Ryan.
Speaker 1:Says Sarah, which Ryan Says Adele.
Speaker 5:Ryan Craft. He's having a bad day. He bought his girlfriend an engagement ring, paid five grand, so much more than he can afford. It's a fake, no.
Speaker 1:Says Adele.
Speaker 5:It arrived in the mail cubic zirconia worth about 50 bucks. So when did you find out?
Speaker 1:Says Lisbeth.
Speaker 5:In that meeting this morning you were there, or was it just before you came in there is a sharp intake of breath from Lisbeth. Anyway, he's devastated. We all just sat there in silence. Right, you say so we thought we could all chip in, buy him something to cheer him up.
Speaker 1:This is a beautiful example of confirmation bias, where Lisbeth, the character who was sobbing in the toilet, has walked into a meeting, is greeted with silence and draws the conclusion, erroneously using confirmation bias, that the silence is due to her, that it's something to do with her, they don't like her or they're judging the fact that she's late. The actual truth of the matter is that the character who was leading the meeting has been scammed. He spent thousands on a diamond and when it's arrived it's a cubit zirconia. So there you have itation bias. We spend our lives merely looking for examples to confirm what we already think. So thank you so much for tuning in wherever you are all over the world, and see you later from here on the northern beaches of Sydney, australia. See you later, bye. Thanks for tuning into why Smart Women with me.
Speaker 1:Annie McCubbin, I hope today's episode has ignited your curiosity and left you feeling inspired by my anti-motivational style. Join me next time as we continue to unravel the fascinating layers of our brains and develop ways to sort out the fact from the fiction and the over 6,000 thoughts we have in the course of every day. Remember, intelligence isn't enough. You can be as smart as paint, but it's not just about what you know. It's about how you think.
Speaker 1:And in all this talk of whether or not you can trust your gut, if you ever feel unsafe, whether it's in the street, at work, car park, in a bar or in your own home please, please, respect that gut feeling. Staying safe needs to be our primary objective. We can build better lives, but we have to stay safe to do that. And don't forget to subscribe, rate and review the podcast and share it with your fellow smart women and allies. Together, we're hopefully reshaping the narrative around women and making better decisions. So until next time, stay sharp, stay savvy and keep your critical thinking hat shiny. This is Annie McCubbin signing off from why Smart Women. See you later. This episode was produced by Harrison Hess. It was executive produced and written by me, annie McCubbin.
