Watch Out!

Mind traps ahead!

So why do so many people believe the myth? Perhaps it is because they have all fallen victim to all the mind traps out there.

The first is the confirmation bias. Confirmation bias is a selective type of thinking. One will look for the information that supports what they already believe to be true and ignore the information that does not. For example, imagine if you believed that all dogs were too wild to live inside your home. While doing research, you would ignore all the information that pertained to calm quiet dogs and focus all your attention on the stories of dogs that tore apart their owner’s couch. Obviously that is enough to make you never let a dog in your house. Many people can fall into this trap when thinking about the birth order myth. If you have a trait in mind about another person, then you will seek the evidence that fits into what you already believe. Doesn’t make sense? Say I already know that my little sister gets along with just about everyone that she meets. If I look into the myth and see what her traits supposedly are, I will come across the notion that she is said to be loveable and ignore the manipulative trait also associated with the youngest.

Next there is the self serving bias. This is by far the easiest one to fall into. Self serving bias is only noticing the information that benefits you personally and your successes. Basically, everything good said about you is totally true. Unfortunately, as I said before, my brother and sister fell victim to this the second I read them their first traits. And why wouldn’t they? Doesn’t everyone want to believe that every redeeming quality read about them is one hundred percent true? But I bet that not everyone would jump all over the chance to believe this myth if their bad qualities were brought into the light the way us poor neglected middle children have ours.

And finally there is inferring causation from correlation. This says that because A came before B, A must have caused B. Wrong. Let’s all pretend for a minute that my brother is the smartest of us three. He is the oldest, and he is the smartest. But he is not the smartest BECAUSE he is the oldest. The two facts just happen to coincide with each other.