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My most recent focus on mafia tells deals with Cognitive bias and very specifically the differences in how it is handled idiosyncratically. I figure on a very basic level that bias is what we hunt for between alignments and how its handled is very telling.
Without rambling on about the mental gymnastics going on in my head on the subject I am curious if anyone has thoughts on the subject.
This might be a stupid question to ask but what exactly is a cognitive bias?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but in other words, you're asking if people have thoughts on the functioning of human reasonings... which is a large and unspecific question, to say the least. Perhaps this would need to be more specific.
Attachment 27643Quote:
Originally Posted by Oberon
Edit: the list on Wiki is much larger. Would be interesting to see someone filter them by relevance to Mafia. Though the Wiki list has the same story as Logical Fallacies for me - you learn your fallacies but then you go to wiki and see a list of so many you don't even recognize
Edit2: In my opinion, the term "Cognitive Bias" is a perverse one due to the "Cognitive" part being redundant. It's all just "Biases" with no distinction made between emotional and logical. The "Cognitive" part (imo) is only there to emphasize on the fact that the biases interfere with / hinder rational thoughts. How are "biases that hinder your rational thoughts" relevant to tells in Mafia? You got me there, idk..
As Scum: it's hard to imagine what is and isn't obvious to the town. As such, I can unnecessarily/preemptively bus my Scum mates. @Oberon experienced this first hand if he can remember something from so long ago.
As Town: it's easy for me to get invested in a theory (presumably due to me actually doing a lot of investment of time and energy in it). You might as well call be stubborn who's incapable of changing his mind. Confirmation bias is strong in my town for this reason also.
Offtopic, but slightly on topic: I am more town read as scum and scumread as town because people can have better conversations with me when I'm scum due to me understanding where they're coming from while as town I see possible evil intent behind every action.
Well, I looked up the definition. I think some examples of it might be when someone joins a cult with a doomsday date and the date passes and they continue to make rationalizations for why the cult is correct even as it continues to make incorrect predictions. Or someone who doesn't want to believe they're being cheated on repeatedly ignoring evidence. Basically, systematically dismissing evidence that clashes with a narrative in your head.
I think the most common example of that is with someone's own skill. When they get a bunch of reads wrong, rather than acknowledging their reads aren't as right as much as they'd like to think, they start pulling out excuses or blaming others, rather than just adapting their reads or accepting the limitations of their own judgement. Humility is rly important in this game, as well as acknowledging when a player is better than you or knows better.
Sometimes certain ideas about the game can become community gospel, and players who fail to respect that gospel or have a style that is scummy according to the gospel just get lynched over and over, game after game. That was definitely the case with secondpassing a few years ago imo, who had unconventional thought processes which the community stubbornly refused to adapt to or accept.
That's not to say that all ppl who get mislynched over and over fall into that category. Some players think they're that, but are in fact probably exhibiting cognitive bias themselves ^^.
And to make sure this isn't interpreted as some glib jab, I should mention it's been a long time since I saw a player that actually qualified for what I'm describing at the end there. The prior points are a lot more common.Quote:
Originally Posted by yzb25
p;edit, I just realized this is specifically about how cognitive bias may serve you in reading others. Apparently I can't read myself! I'm sorry for my semi-irrelevant posts XD