Mental Models: Think Better

Shortcuts to clarity.

Cover photo: @jerrysilfwer

To think bet­ter, I often rely on men­tal models.

Charlie Munger, the esteemed Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway and long-time col­lab­or­at­or of Warren Buffett, is renowned for his sharp intel­lect and pro­found wis­dom in invest­ing and busi­ness strategy. 1Charlie Munger. (2023, October 29). In Wikipedia. https://​en​.wiki​pe​dia​.org/​w​i​k​i​/​C​h​a​r​l​i​e​_​M​u​n​ger

A cent­ral aspect of Munger’s approach to decision-mak­ing and prob­lem-solv­ing is his advocacy for using men­tal models.

Here we go:

Mental Models: Think Better

Mental mod­els emphas­ise the import­ance of view­ing prob­lems from mul­tiple per­spect­ives, recog­nising per­son­al lim­it­a­tions, and under­stand­ing the often unfore­seen inter­ac­tions between dif­fer­ent factors. 

Warren Buffett

You only have to do a few things right in your life so long as you don’t do too many things wrong.”

The writ­ings of Charlie Munger, Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway and long-time col­lab­or­at­or of Warren Buffett and many oth­ers, inspire sev­er­al of the below mod­els.2It’s worth not­ing that these mod­els are not exclus­ively Charlie Munger’s inven­tions but tools he advoc­ates for effect­ive think­ing and decision-mak­ing.

List of Mental Models

Here’s a list of my favour­ite men­tal models: 

The iron pre­scrip­tion (men­tal mod­el). Senior advisor Charlie Munger argued: “I have what I call an ‘iron pre­scrip­tion’ that helps me keep sane when I nat­ur­ally drift toward pre­fer­ring one ideo­logy over anoth­er. I feel that I’m not entitled to have an opin­ion unless I can state the argu­ments against my pos­i­tion bet­ter than the people who are in oppos­i­tion. I think that I am qual­i­fied to speak only when I’ve reached that state” (Knodell, 2016). 3Knodell, P. A. (2016). All I want to know is where I’m going to die so I’ll nev­er go there: Buffett & Munger – A study in sim­pli­city and uncom­mon, com­mon sense. PAK Publishing.

The Red Queen effect (men­tal mod­el). This meta­phor ori­gin­ates from Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass. It describes a situ­ation in which one must con­tinu­ously adapt, evolve, and work to main­tain one’s pos­i­tion. In the story, the Red Queen is a char­ac­ter who explains to Alice that in their world, run­ning as fast as one can is neces­sary just to stay in the same place. The meta­phor is often used in the con­text of busi­nesses that need to innov­ate con­stantly to stay com­pet­it­ive, high­light­ing the relent­less pres­sure to adapt in dynam­ic envir­on­ments where stag­na­tion can mean fall­ing behind. 4Red Queen hypo­thes­is. (2023, November 27). In Wikipedia. https://​en​.wiki​pe​dia​.org/​w​i​k​i​/​R​e​d​_​Q​u​e​e​n​_​h​y​p​o​t​h​e​sis 5Carroll, L. (2006). Through the look­ing-glass, and what Alice found there (R. D. Martin, Ed.). Penguin Classics. (Original work pub­lished 1871.)

Ockam’s razor (men­tal mod­el). This prin­ciple sug­gests that the simplest explan­a­tion is usu­ally cor­rect. The one with the few­est assump­tions should be selec­ted when presen­ted with com­pet­ing hypo­theses. It’s a tool for cut­ting through com­plex­ity and focus­ing on what’s most likely true. 6Ariew, R. (1976). Ockham’s Razor: A his­tor­ic­al and philo­soph­ic­al ana­lys­is of sim­pli­city in sci­ence. Scientific American, 234(3), 88 – 93.

Hanlon’s razor (men­tal mod­el). This think­ing aid advises against attrib­ut­ing to malice what can be adequately explained by incom­pet­ence or mis­take. It reminds us to look for more straight­for­ward explan­a­tions before jump­ing to con­clu­sions about someone’s inten­tions. 7Hanlon, R. J. (1980). Murphy’s Law book two: More reas­ons why things go wrong!. Los Angeles: Price Stern Sloan.

Vaguely right vs pre­cisely wrong (men­tal mod­el). This prin­ciple sug­gests it is bet­ter to be approx­im­ately cor­rect than 100% incor­rect. In many situ­ations, seek­ing pre­ci­sion can lead to errors if the under­ly­ing assump­tions or data are flawed. Sometimes, a rough estim­ate is more valu­able than a pre­cise but poten­tially mis­lead­ing fig­ure. 8Keynes, J. M. (1936). The gen­er­al the­ory of employ­ment, interest, and money. London: Macmillan.

Fat pitch (men­tal mod­el). Borrowed from base­ball, this concept refers to wait­ing patiently for the per­fect oppor­tun­ity — a situ­ation where the chances of suc­cess are excep­tion­ally high. It sug­gests the import­ance of patience and strik­ing when the time is right. 9Kaufman, P. A. (Ed.). (2005). Poor Charlie’s alman­ack: The wit and wis­dom of Charles T. Munger. Virginia Beach, VA: Donning Company Publishers.

Chesterton’s fence (men­tal mod­el). G.K. Chesterton: ”In the mat­ter of reform­ing things, as dis­tinct from deform­ing them, there is one plain and simple prin­ciple; a prin­ciple which will prob­ably be called a para­dox. There exists in such a case a cer­tain insti­tu­tion or law; let us say, for the sake of sim­pli­city, a fence or gate erec­ted across a road. The more mod­ern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, ‘I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.’ To which the more intel­li­gent type of reformer will do well to answer: ‘If you don’t see the use of it, I cer­tainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to des­troy it” (Chesterton, 1929). 10Chesterton, G. K. (1929). “The Drift from Domesticity”. Archived 6 November 2018 at the Wayback Machine In: The Thing. London: Sheed & Ward, p. 35

First-con­clu­sion bias (men­tal mod­el). This is the tend­ency to stick with the first con­clu­sion without con­sid­er­ing altern­at­ive pos­sib­il­it­ies or addi­tion­al inform­a­tion. It’s a cog­nit­ive bias that can impede crit­ic­al think­ing and thor­ough analysis.

First prin­ciples think­ing (men­tal mod­el). This approach involves break­ing down com­plex prob­lems into their most basic ele­ments and then reas­sembling them from the ground up. It’s about get­ting to the fun­da­ment­al truths of a situ­ation and build­ing your under­stand­ing from there rather than rely­ing on assump­tions or con­ven­tion­al wisdom.

The map is not the ter­rit­ory (men­tal mod­el). This mod­el reminds us that rep­res­ent­a­tions of real­ity are not real­ity itself. Maps, mod­els, and descrip­tions are sim­pli­fic­a­tions and can­not cap­ture every aspect of the actu­al ter­rit­ory or situ­ation. It’s a cau­tion against over-rely­ing on mod­els and the­or­ies without con­sid­er­ing the nuances of real-world situ­ations. 11Silfwer, J. (2022, November 3). Walter Lippmann: Public Opinion and Perception Management. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​w​a​l​t​e​r​-​l​i​p​p​m​a​nn/

Bell curve (men­tal mod­el). This curve is a graph­ic­al depic­tion of a nor­mal dis­tri­bu­tion, show­ing how many occur­rences fall near the mean value and few­er occur as you move away from the mean. In decision-mak­ing, it’s used to under­stand and anti­cip­ate vari­ab­il­ity and to recog­nise that while extreme cases exist, most out­comes will cluster around the average.

Compounding (men­tal mod­el). Often used in the con­text of fin­ance, com­pound­ing refers to the pro­cess where the value of an invest­ment increases because the earn­ings on an invest­ment, both cap­it­al gains and interest, earn interest as time passes. This prin­ciple can be applied more broadly to under­stand how small, con­sist­ent efforts can yield sig­ni­fic­ant long-term results.

Survival of the fit­test (men­tal mod­el). Borrowed from evol­u­tion­ary bio­logy, this men­tal mod­el sug­gests that only those best adap­ted to their envir­on­ment sur­vive and thrive. In a busi­ness con­text, it can refer to com­pan­ies that adapt to chan­ging mar­ket con­di­tions and are more likely to succeed.

Mr. Market (men­tal mod­el). A meta­phor cre­ated by Benjamin Graham rep­res­ents the stock mar­ket’s mood swings from optim­ism to pess­im­ism. It’s used to illus­trate emo­tion­al reac­tions in the mar­ket and the import­ance of main­tain­ing objectiv­ity. 12Graham, B. (2006). The intel­li­gent investor: The defin­it­ive book on value invest­ing (Rev. ed., updated with new com­ment­ary by J. Zweig). Harper Business. (Original work pub­lished 1949.)

Second-order think­ing (men­tal mod­el). This kind of think­ing goes bey­ond the imme­di­ate effects of an action to con­sider the sub­sequent effects. It’s about think­ing ahead and under­stand­ing the longer-term con­sequences of decisions bey­ond just the imme­di­ate results.

Law of dimin­ish­ing returns (men­tal mod­el). This eco­nom­ic prin­ciple states that as invest­ment in a par­tic­u­lar area increases, the rate of profit from that invest­ment, after a cer­tain point, can­not increase pro­por­tion­ally and may even decrease. It’s essen­tial to under­stand when addi­tion­al invest­ment yields pro­gress­ively smal­ler returns. 13Diminishing returns. (2024, November 15). Wikipedia. https://​en​.wiki​pe​dia​.org/​w​i​k​i​/​D​i​m​i​n​i​s​h​i​n​g​_​r​e​t​u​rns

Opportunity cost (men­tal mod­el). This concept refers to the poten­tial bene­fits one misses out on when choos­ing one altern­at­ive over anoth­er. It’s the cost of the fol­low­ing best option fore­gone. Understanding oppor­tun­ity costs helps make informed decisions by con­sid­er­ing what to give up when choosing.

Swiss Army knife approach (men­tal mod­el). This concept emphas­ises the import­ance of hav­ing diverse tools (or skills). Being ver­sat­ile and adapt­able in vari­ous situ­ations is valu­able, like a Swiss Army knife. This mod­el is bene­fi­cial for uncer­tain and volat­ile situ­ations. There’s also a case to be made for gen­er­al­ists in a spe­cial­ised world. 14Parsons, M., & Pearson-Freeland, M. (Hosts). (2021, August 8). Charlie Munger: Latticework of men­tal mod­els (No. 139) [Audio pod­cast epis­ode]. In Moonshots pod­cast: Learning out … Continue read­ing 15Epstein, D. (2019). Range: Why gen­er­al­ists tri­umph in a spe­cial­ized world. Riverhead Books.

Acceleration the­ory (men­tal mod­el). This concept indic­ates that the win­ner mustn’t lead the race from start to fin­ish. Mathematically, delay­ing max­im­um “speed” by pro­long­ing the slower accel­er­a­tion phase will get you across the fin­ish line faster. 16Silfwer, J. (2012, October 31). The Acceleration Theory: Use Momentum To Finish First. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​a​c​c​e​l​e​r​a​t​i​o​n​-​t​h​e​o​ry/

Manage expect­a­tions (men­tal mod­el). This concept involves set­ting real­ist­ic expect­a­tions for your­self and oth­ers. It’s about align­ing hopes and pre­dic­tions with what is achiev­able and prob­able, thus redu­cing dis­ap­point­ment and increas­ing sat­is­fac­tion. Effective expect­a­tion man­age­ment can lead to bet­ter per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al rela­tion­ships and outcomes.

Techlash (men­tal mod­el). This men­tal mod­el acknow­ledges that while tech­no­logy can provide solu­tions, it almost always cre­ates fore­seen and unfore­seen prob­lems. It’s a remind­er to approach tech­no­lo­gic­al innov­a­tions cau­tiously, con­sid­er­ing poten­tial neg­at­ive impacts along­side the bene­fits. 17Silfwer, J. (2018, December 27). The Techlash: Our Great Confusion. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​t​e​c​h​l​a​sh/

World’s most intel­li­gent ques­tion (men­tal mod­el). This men­tal mod­el refers to repeatedly ask­ing “Why?” to delve deep­er into a prob­lem and under­stand its root causes. By con­tinu­ally ask­ing why some­thing hap­pens, one can uncov­er lay­ers of under­stand­ing that might remain hidden.

Regression to the mean (men­tal mod­el). This stat­ist­ic­al prin­ciple states that extreme events are likely to be fol­lowed by more mod­er­ate ones. Over time, val­ues tend to revert to the aver­age, a concept rel­ev­ant in many areas, from sports per­form­ance to busi­ness metrics.

False dicho­tomy (men­tal mod­el). This logic­al fal­lacy occurs when a situ­ation is presen­ted as hav­ing only two exclus­ive and mutu­ally exhaust­ive options when oth­er pos­sib­il­it­ies exist. It over­sim­pli­fies com­plex issues into an “either/​or” choice. For instance, say­ing, “You are either with us or against us,” ignores the pos­sib­il­ity of neut­ral or altern­at­ive positions.

Inversion (men­tal mod­el). Inversion involves look­ing at prob­lems back­wards or from the end goal. Instead of think­ing about how to achieve some­thing, you con­sider what would pre­vent it from hap­pen­ing. This can reveal hid­den obstacles and altern­at­ive solutions.

Psychology of human mis­judg­ment (men­tal mod­el). This men­tal mod­el refers to under­stand­ing the typ­ic­al biases and errors in human think­ing. One can make more ration­al and object­ive decisions by know­ing how cog­nit­ive biases, like con­firm­a­tion bias or the anchor­ing effect, can lead to flawed reasoning.

Slow is smooth, smooth is fast (men­tal mod­el). — Often used in mil­it­ary and tac­tic­al train­ing, this phrase encap­su­lates the idea that some­times, slow­ing down can lead to faster over­all pro­gress. The prin­ciple is that tak­ing delib­er­ate, con­sidered actions reduces mis­takes and inef­fi­cien­cies, which can lead to faster out­comes in the long run. In prac­tice, it means plan­ning, train­ing, and execut­ing with care, lead­ing to smooth­er, more effi­cient oper­a­tions that achieve object­ives faster than rushed, less thought­ful efforts. 18Silfwer, J. (2020, April 24). Slow is Smooth, Smooth is Fast. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​s​l​o​w​-​i​s​-​s​m​o​o​th/

Because you are worth it (men­tal mod­el). This men­tal mod­el focuses on self-worth and invest­ing in one­self. It sug­gests recog­nising and affirm­ing one’s value is cru­cial for per­son­al growth, hap­pi­ness, and suc­cess. This can involve self-care, edu­ca­tion, or simply mak­ing choices that reflect one’s value and potential.

Physics envy (men­tal mod­el). This term describes the desire to apply the pre­ci­sion and cer­tainty of phys­ics to fields where such exactitude is impossible, like eco­nom­ics or social sci­ences. It’s a cau­tion against over­re­li­ance on quant­it­at­ive meth­ods in areas where qual­it­at­ive aspects play a sig­ni­fic­ant role.

Easy street strategy (men­tal mod­el). This prin­ciple sug­gests that sim­pler solu­tions are often bet­ter and more effect­ive than com­plex ones. In decision-mak­ing and prob­lem-solv­ing, seek­ing straight­for­ward, clear-cut solu­tions can often lead to bet­ter out­comes than pur­su­ing overly com­plic­ated strategies. 19Silfwer, J. (2021, January 27). The Easy Street PR Strategy: Keep It Simple To Win. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​e​a​s​y​-​s​t​r​e​e​t​-​p​r​-​s​t​r​a​t​e​gy/

Scale is key (men­tal mod­el). This concept high­lights how the impact of decisions or actions can vary dra­mat­ic­ally depend­ing on their scale. What works well on a small scale might not be prac­tic­al or feas­ible on a lar­ger scale, and vice versa.

Circle of com­pet­ence (men­tal mod­el). This concept involves recog­nising and under­stand­ing one’s areas of expert­ise and lim­it­a­tions. The idea is to focus on areas where you have the most know­ledge and exper­i­ence rather than ven­tur­ing into fields where you lack expert­ise, thereby increas­ing the like­li­hood of success.

Fail fast, fail often (men­tal mod­el). By fail­ing fast, you quickly learn what does­n’t work, which helps in refin­ing your approach or pivot­ing to some­thing more prom­ising. Failing often is seen not as a series of set­backs but as a neces­sary part of the pro­cess towards suc­cess. This mind­set encour­ages exper­i­ment­a­tion, risk-tak­ing, and learn­ing from mis­takes, emphas­ising agil­ity and adaptability.

Correlation does not equal caus­a­tion (men­tal mod­el). This prin­ciple is a crit­ic­al remind­er in data ana­lys­is and sci­entif­ic research. Just because two vari­ables show a cor­rel­a­tion (they seem to move togeth­er or oppose each oth­er) does not mean one causes the oth­er. Other vari­ables could be at play, or it might be a coincidence.

Critical mass (men­tal mod­el). This men­tal mod­el emphas­ises the import­ance of reach­ing a cer­tain threshold to trig­ger a sig­ni­fic­ant change, wheth­er user adop­tion, mar­ket pen­et­ra­tion, or social move­ment growth. This mod­el guides stra­tegic decisions, such as resource alloc­a­tion, mar­ket­ing strategies, and tim­ing of ini­ti­at­ives, to effect­ively reach and sur­pass this cru­cial point. 20Silfwer, J. (2019, March 10). Critical Mass: How Many Social Media Followers Do You Need? Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​c​r​i​t​i​c​a​l​-​m​a​s​s​-​f​o​l​l​o​w​e​rs/

Sorites para­dox (men­tal mod­el). Also known as the para­dox of the heap, this para­dox arises from vague pre­dic­ates. It involves a sequence of small changes that don’t seem to make a dif­fer­ence indi­vidu­ally but, when accu­mu­lated, lead to a sig­ni­fic­ant change where the exact point of change is indis­cern­ible. For example, if you keep remov­ing grains of sand from a heap, when does it stop being a heap? Each grain does­n’t seem to make a dif­fer­ence, but even­tu­ally, you’re left with no heap.

The power of cycle times (men­tal mod­el). Mathematically, redu­cing cycle times in a pro­cess that grows expo­nen­tially (like con­tent shar­ing on social net­works) drastic­ally increases the growth rate, lead­ing to faster and broad­er dis­sem­in­a­tion of the con­tent, thereby driv­ing vir­al­ity. The com­bin­a­tion of expo­nen­tial growth, net­work effects, and feed­back loops makes cycle time a crit­ic­al factor. 21Let’s say the num­ber of new social media shares per cycle is a con­stant mul­ti­pli­er, m. If the cycle time is t and the total time under con­sid­er­a­tion is T, the num­ber of cycles in this time is T/​t​. … Continue read­ing 22Silfwer, J. (2017, February 6). Viral Loops (or How to Incentivise Social Media Sharing). Doctor Spin | the PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​v​i​r​a​l​-​l​o​op/

Non-lin­ear­ity (men­tal mod­el). This men­tal mod­el recog­nises that out­comes in many situ­ations are not dir­ectly pro­por­tion­al to the inputs or efforts. It sug­gests that effects can be dis­pro­por­tion­ate to their causes, either escal­at­ing rap­idly with minor changes or remain­ing stag­nant des­pite sig­ni­fic­ant efforts. Understanding non-lin­ear­ity helps in recog­nising and anti­cip­at­ing com­plex pat­terns in vari­ous phenomena.

Checklists (men­tal mod­el). This men­tal mod­el stresses the import­ance of sys­tem­at­ic approaches to pre­vent mis­takes and over­sights. Using check­lists in com­plex or repet­it­ive tasks ensures that all neces­sary steps are fol­lowed and noth­ing is over­looked, thereby increas­ing effi­ciency and accur­acy. 23Silfwer, J. (2020, September 18). Communicative Leadership in Organisations. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​c​o​m​m​u​n​i​c​a​t​i​v​e​-​l​e​a​d​e​r​s​h​ip/

Lollapalooza (men­tal mod­el). Coined by Munger, this term refers to situ­ations where mul­tiple factors, tend­en­cies, or biases inter­act so that the com­bined effect is much great­er than the sum of indi­vidu­al effects. It’s a remind­er of how vari­ous ele­ments can con­verge to cre­ate sig­ni­fic­ant impacts, often unex­pec­ted or unprecedented.

Limits (men­tal mod­el). This men­tal mod­el acknow­ledges that everything has bound­ar­ies or lim­its, bey­ond which there can be neg­at­ive con­sequences. Recognising and respect­ing per­son­al, pro­fes­sion­al, and phys­ic­al lim­its is essen­tial for sus­tain­able growth and suc­cess. In the words of “Dirty Harry” Callahan, “A man’s got to know his limitations.”

The 7Ws (men­tal mod­el). This men­tal mod­el refers to the prac­tice of ask­ing “Who, What, When, Where, Why” (and some­times “How”) to under­stand a situ­ation or prob­lem fully. By sys­tem­at­ic­ally address­ing these ques­tions, one can com­pre­hens­ively under­stand an issue’s con­text, causes, and poten­tial solu­tions, lead­ing to more informed decision-mak­ing. 24Silfwer, J. (2020, September 18). The Checklist for Communicative Organisations. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​c​h​e​c​k​l​i​s​t​-​f​o​r​-​c​o​m​m​u​n​i​c​a​t​i​v​e​-​l​e​a​d​e​r​s​h​ip/

Chauffeur know­ledge (men­tal mod­el). This men­tal mod­el dis­tin­guishes between hav­ing a sur­face-level under­stand­ing (like a chauf­feur who knows the route) and deep, genu­ine know­ledge (like an expert who under­stands the intric­a­cies of a sub­ject). It warns against the illu­sion of expert­ise based on super­fi­cial know­ledge and emphas­ises the import­ance of accur­ate, deep understanding.

Make friends with emin­ent dead (men­tal mod­el). This men­tal mod­el advoc­ates learn­ing from the past, par­tic­u­larly from sig­ni­fic­ant his­tor­ic­al fig­ures and their writ­ings. Studying the exper­i­ences and thoughts of those who have excelled in their fields can yield valu­able insights and wisdom.

Seizing the middle (men­tal mod­el). This strategy involves find­ing and main­tain­ing a bal­anced, mod­er­ate pos­i­tion, espe­cially in con­flict or nego­ti­ation. It’s about avoid­ing extremes and find­ing a sus­tain­able, middle-ground solu­tion. Also, centre pos­i­tions often offer the broad­est range of options.

Asymmetric war­fare (men­tal mod­el). This refers to con­flict between parties of unequal strength, where the weak­er party uses uncon­ven­tion­al tac­tics to exploit the vul­ner­ab­il­it­ies of the stronger oppon­ent. It’s often dis­cussed in mil­it­ary and busi­ness contexts.

Boredom syn­drome (men­tal mod­el). This term refers to the human tend­ency to seek stim­u­la­tion or change when things become routine or mono­ton­ous, which can lead to unne­ces­sary changes or risks. Sometimes, tak­ing no action is bet­ter than tak­ing action, but remain­ing idle can be difficult.

Survivorship bias (men­tal mod­el). This cog­nit­ive bias involves focus­ing on people or things that have “sur­vived” some pro­cess and inad­vert­ently over­look­ing those that did not due to their lack of vis­ib­il­ity. This can lead to false con­clu­sions because it ignores the exper­i­ences of those who did not make it through the pro­cess. 25Silfwer, J. (2019, October 17). Survivorship Bias. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​s​u​r​v​i​v​o​r​s​h​i​p​-​b​i​as/

Each men­tal mod­el offers a lens for view­ing prob­lems, mak­ing decisions, and strategising, reflect­ing the com­plex­ity and diversity of thought required in vari­ous fields and situations.

Numerous oth­er men­tal mod­els are also used in vari­ous fields, such as eco­nom­ics, psy­cho­logy, and sys­tems thinking.

Learn more: Mental Models: How To Think Better

List of Logical Fallacies and Biases

We eas­ily fall prey to the tricks our psy­cho­logy plays on us. These “think­ing errors” exist because they’ve often aided our sur­viv­al. However, know­ing and under­stand­ing vari­ous types of com­mon fal­la­cies and biases is help­ful in every­day life.

Here are a few examples of logic­al fal­la­cies and biases that I’ve come across while study­ing pub­lic rela­tions and linguistics:

  • Fallacy of Composition
  • Fallacy of Division
  • The Gambler’s Fallacy
  • Tu Quoque (Who Are You To Talk?)
  • Strawman
  • Ad Hominem
  • Genetic Fallacy (Fallacy of Origin or Fallacy of Virtue)
  • Fallacious Appeal to Authority
  • Red Herring
  • Appeal to Emotion
  • Appeal to Popularity (The Bandwagon Effect)
  • Appeal to Tradition
  • Appeal to Nature
  • Appeal to Ignorance
  • Begging the Question
  • Equivocation
  • False Dichotomy (Black or White)
  • Middle Ground Fallacy
  • Decision Point Fallacy (Sorites Paradox)
  • Slippery Slope Fallacy
  • Hasty Generalisations (Anecdotal Evidence)
  • Faulty Analogy
  • Burden of Proof
  • Affirming the Consequent
  • Denying the Antecedent (Fallacy of the Inverse)
  • Moving the Goalposts
  • No True Scotsman
  • Personal Incredulity
  • False Causality
  • Texas Sharpshooter
  • Loaded Question
  • Chesterton’s Fence
  • Survivorship Bias
  • Dunning-Kruger Effect
  • Confirmation Bias
  • Heuristic Anchoring
  • Curse of Knowledge
  • Optimism/​Pessimism Bias
  • Sunk Cost Fallacy
  • Negativity Bias
  • Declinism
  • Backfire Effect (Conversion Theory)
  • Fundamental Attribution Error
  • In-Group Bias
  • Forer Effect (Barnum Effect)
  • Cognitive Dissonance
  • Hostile Media Effect
  • Cherry-Picking (The Fallacy of Incomplete Evidence)
  • Spiral of Silence
  • Yes Ladder
  • Bystander Effect
  • Reciprocation Effect
  • Commitment and Consistency
  • Fallacy of Social Proof
  • Liking and Likeness
  • Appeal to Authority
  • Principle of Scarcity (FOMO)
  • Loss Aversion

Learn more: 58 Logical Fallacies and Biases

Reading List for Critical Thinking

Cook, J. & Lewandowsky, S. (2011). The debunk­ing hand­book. St. Lucia, Australia: University of Queensland.

Dwyer, C.P. (2017). Critical think­ing: Conceptual per­spect­ives and prac­tic­al guidelines. Cambridge, UK:  Cambridge University Press; with a fore­word by former APA President, Dr Diane F. Halpern.

Dwyer, C. P., Hogan, M. J., & Stewart, I. (2014). An integ­rated crit­ic­al think­ing frame­work for the 21st cen­tury. Thinking Skills & Creativity, 12, 43 – 52.

Forer, B. R. (1949). The Fallacy of Personal Validation: A classroom Demonstration of Gullibility. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 44, 118 – 121.

Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking fast and slow. Penguin: Great Britain.

Simon, H. A. (1957). Models of man. New York: Wiley.

Thaler, R. H. (1999). Mental account­ing mat­ters. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 12, 183 – 206.

Tversky, A. & Kahneman, D. (1974). Judgment under uncer­tainty: Heuristics and biases. Science, 185, 4157, 1124 – 1131.

West, R. F., Toplak, M. E., & Stanovich, K. E. (2008). Heuristics and biases as meas­ures of crit­ic­al think­ing: Associations with cog­nit­ive abil­ity and think­ing dis­pos­i­tions. Journal of Educational Psychology, 100, 4, 930 – 941.


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Annotations
Annotations
1 Charlie Munger. (2023, October 29). In Wikipedia. https://​en​.wiki​pe​dia​.org/​w​i​k​i​/​C​h​a​r​l​i​e​_​M​u​n​ger
2 It’s worth not­ing that these mod­els are not exclus­ively Charlie Munger’s inven­tions but tools he advoc­ates for effect­ive think­ing and decision-making.
3 Knodell, P. A. (2016). All I want to know is where I’m going to die so I’ll nev­er go there: Buffett & Munger – A study in sim­pli­city and uncom­mon, com­mon sense. PAK Publishing.
4 Red Queen hypo­thes­is. (2023, November 27). In Wikipedia. https://​en​.wiki​pe​dia​.org/​w​i​k​i​/​R​e​d​_​Q​u​e​e​n​_​h​y​p​o​t​h​e​sis
5 Carroll, L. (2006). Through the look­ing-glass, and what Alice found there (R. D. Martin, Ed.). Penguin Classics. (Original work pub­lished 1871.)
6 Ariew, R. (1976). Ockham’s Razor: A his­tor­ic­al and philo­soph­ic­al ana­lys­is of sim­pli­city in sci­ence. Scientific American, 234(3), 88 – 93.
7 Hanlon, R. J. (1980). Murphy’s Law book two: More reas­ons why things go wrong!. Los Angeles: Price Stern Sloan.
8 Keynes, J. M. (1936). The gen­er­al the­ory of employ­ment, interest, and money. London: Macmillan.
9 Kaufman, P. A. (Ed.). (2005). Poor Charlie’s alman­ack: The wit and wis­dom of Charles T. Munger. Virginia Beach, VA: Donning Company Publishers.
10 Chesterton, G. K. (1929). “The Drift from Domesticity”. Archived 6 November 2018 at the Wayback Machine In: The Thing. London: Sheed & Ward, p. 35
11 Silfwer, J. (2022, November 3). Walter Lippmann: Public Opinion and Perception Management. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​w​a​l​t​e​r​-​l​i​p​p​m​a​nn/
12 Graham, B. (2006). The intel­li­gent investor: The defin­it­ive book on value invest­ing (Rev. ed., updated with new com­ment­ary by J. Zweig). Harper Business. (Original work pub­lished 1949.)
13 Diminishing returns. (2024, November 15). Wikipedia. https://​en​.wiki​pe​dia​.org/​w​i​k​i​/​D​i​m​i​n​i​s​h​i​n​g​_​r​e​t​u​rns
14 Parsons, M., & Pearson-Freeland, M. (Hosts). (2021, August 8). Charlie Munger: Latticework of men­tal mod­els (No. 139) [Audio pod­cast epis­ode]. In Moonshots pod­cast: Learning out loud. Moonshots. https://​www​.moon​shots​.io/​e​p​i​s​o​d​e​-​1​3​9​-​c​h​a​r​l​i​e​-​m​u​n​g​e​r​-​l​a​t​t​i​c​e​w​o​r​k​-​o​f​-​m​e​n​t​a​l​-​m​o​d​els
15 Epstein, D. (2019). Range: Why gen­er­al­ists tri­umph in a spe­cial­ized world. Riverhead Books.
16 Silfwer, J. (2012, October 31). The Acceleration Theory: Use Momentum To Finish First. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​a​c​c​e​l​e​r​a​t​i​o​n​-​t​h​e​o​ry/
17 Silfwer, J. (2018, December 27). The Techlash: Our Great Confusion. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​t​e​c​h​l​a​sh/
18 Silfwer, J. (2020, April 24). Slow is Smooth, Smooth is Fast. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​s​l​o​w​-​i​s​-​s​m​o​o​th/
19 Silfwer, J. (2021, January 27). The Easy Street PR Strategy: Keep It Simple To Win. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​e​a​s​y​-​s​t​r​e​e​t​-​p​r​-​s​t​r​a​t​e​gy/
20 Silfwer, J. (2019, March 10). Critical Mass: How Many Social Media Followers Do You Need? Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​c​r​i​t​i​c​a​l​-​m​a​s​s​-​f​o​l​l​o​w​e​rs/
21 Let’s say the num­ber of new social media shares per cycle is a con­stant mul­ti­pli­er, m. If the cycle time is t and the total time under con­sid­er­a­tion is T, the num­ber of cycles in this time is T/​t​. The total reach after time T can be approx­im­ated by m(T/t), assum­ing one ini­tial share. When t decreases, T/​t​ increases, mean­ing more cycles occur in the same total time, T. This leads to a high­er m power in the expres­sion m(T/t), which means a more extens­ive reach.
22 Silfwer, J. (2017, February 6). Viral Loops (or How to Incentivise Social Media Sharing). Doctor Spin | the PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​v​i​r​a​l​-​l​o​op/
23 Silfwer, J. (2020, September 18). Communicative Leadership in Organisations. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​c​o​m​m​u​n​i​c​a​t​i​v​e​-​l​e​a​d​e​r​s​h​ip/
24 Silfwer, J. (2020, September 18). The Checklist for Communicative Organisations. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​c​h​e​c​k​l​i​s​t​-​f​o​r​-​c​o​m​m​u​n​i​c​a​t​i​v​e​-​l​e​a​d​e​r​s​h​ip/
25 Silfwer, J. (2019, October 17). Survivorship Bias. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​s​u​r​v​i​v​o​r​s​h​i​p​-​b​i​as/
Jerry Silfwer
Jerry Silfwerhttps://doctorspin.net/
Jerry Silfwer, alias Doctor Spin, is an awarded senior adviser specialising in public relations and digital strategy. Currently CEO at Spin Factory and KIX Communication Index. Before that, he worked at Whispr Group NYC, Springtime PR, and Spotlight PR. Based in Stockholm, Sweden.

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Charlie Munger credits his approach to on-the-fly decision-making and problem-solving to his use of mental models.
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