I have a friend who joined a diet cult.
Her new ‘high fat, low carb’ lifestyle seemed to work wonders. She’s lean, healthy and happy. The trouble? She is pretty bullish on letting everyone else know that’s the way they should be eating as well.
Taking myself as an example to illustrate the flaw in this. I know through genetic testing that I don’t metabolise saturated fat particularly well, and I’ve experienced, through testing, an overall negative reaction to this style of eating when compared to a more balanced approach. I’m by no means bashing high-fat diets. But in the context of my goals for body composition and desire to be competitive at endurance sport, they don’t work for me. Or a good many other people for that matter.
But this isn’t a post about eating styles. It’s a post about heuristics, bias, and ‘potentially’ bad generic advice.
- “You need to be more empathetic as a manager.” might lead the already over-empathetic individual to internalise the stress of their team even more.
- “Take more risks!” Might be good advice for some, but terrible for the person who continually and catastrophically throws caution to the wind.
- “Get organised!” Someone obsessed with planning and goal setting probably doesn’t need another productivity tool.
- “Don’t be so self-critical.” If you’re failing in multiple areas of your life, perhaps you should look at yourself more critically.
As humans, we establish heuristics to make our lives easier. Simple frameworks for acting that mean we don’t have to continually analyze every variable and make decisions anew each time we are faced with decisions. The problem? Because these heuristics work for us most of the time, after a while, we begin to unconsciously think of them as ’true’. And by proxy, if they are true for us, they must be true for others as well.
This kind of blanket advice has also become ever more pervasive due to the decline in traditional journalism. The need to attract eyeballs for the sake of ad dollars is putting pressure on journalists and publications to play to base human craving for certainty and direction. Promising quick and simple answers to what can be complex and nuanced topics.
We may not have the power to affect the actions of publications (except perhaps to vote with our eyeballs and our dollars). But consider these two takeaways that might improve your life and the lives of those around you.
On giving advice
Consider this a call for nuance. Be aware of your own bias, ask questions, seek to understand, present options, encourage critical thinking and contextual judgment.
On receiving or seeing advice
Be aware of the bias and motivations of others, consider how appropriate the advice is to your unique context. Perhaps consider a low-risk experiment if you’re unsure.
If there is one piece of canned advice you should listen to, it’s to stop mindlessly giving and receiving canned advice.