I remember, one day, on a fest day, I was 8, I had sort of Piggy Bank in which I was collecting money from people who were visiting home to congratulate my family.
As any algerian kid, it was one of our happiest days, every adult visitor would ask us how many days we fast and give us money to encourage us.. 50 dinars coin from an uncle, a 100 dinar paper from my grandfather, 20 DA from my father's friend and so on.. and all what I was doing was counting the pieces and coins. the more coins and bills I had the happier I was. and as any kid, I was protecting this money and making sure I counted it on every coin I got to adjust my planning to what I was going to buy.
We had a small store at our place that was managed by my uncle. my uncle sold little toys, and souvenirs for the little kids at this occasion. Stores like the one that my uncle owned have a problem, they need to have as much fractional coins to return. if the store did not have return, he simply could not do the transaction and unfortunately had to refuse it, it was not good for business!! when no exchange was possible my uncle would search and ask for small money so the BUSINESS could continue. He knew that day that I had collected enough so that I could cover all his transactions in the day, so he proposed a deal to me.
my uncle: give me all the small coins that you have and I will give you back the equivalent in bigger money bills
I give him: 5 + 10 + 50 + 5 + ....... + 20 + 10 + 5 + 5 + 5
He gives me: a bill of 200 and one of 100
You can imagine if you were a kid what reaction you would have.. bills take less space? No.. I have less to carry with me? No it will be easier to keep count of? NOO... I had so much and now I have way less was my first reaction.
As a kid, at the mercy of my very instincts and biases, my thoughts were :
- big is more valuable, so less volume means less money
- large amount of coins is more valuable
- If my piggy bank produces more sound it means that the value of my money is bigger
- If my piggy bank is heavier than I have more money.
Well, the story ended with me crying and asking my uncle for the money coins back.
The Illusion Persists
Story aside, this reminds me of many circumstances in which I thought the same way but in different and subtle contexts. In our daily life, it is not as defined and clear as it was with the coins value in my childhood. with ideas and concepts, we find ourselves keeping that same tradition of thinking.
Example: will sleeping less make you more efficient than somebody who sleeps enough? will studying more hours make you learn more than somebody who studies less but better? will talking more in a meeting mean you contributed more than somebody who said less? will running more kilometers make you fitter than somebody who runs smarter? will having more followers make you more influential than somebody who has less but more engaged ones? will owning more things make you happier than somebody who owns less? will going to the gym more often make you stronger faster than somebody who trains less but with more focus?
concepts that seem to attract this linear bias like these often hide some parameters that we were not aware of, or that our brain simply decided to unsee, just to make a lazy and fast assumption. it is easier to grab the one variable we can count and ignore the ones we can't.
Take the example of working and the output of work. actual time spent working does correlate with the volume of output, but it is not the only thing at play. quality of work matters just as much, so does focus, so does the frequency of disturbance while working, so does how rested you were before you even started. reduce all of that into one number, hours worked, and you get the same trick my eight year old self played on himself with the coins.. counting the piece that was easiest to count, and calling it the whole truth.