Let’s do a small experiment. Suppose, there are three empty jars on a table. Jar A can hold 14 litres or water. Jar B can hold 163 litres of water, and Jar C can hold 25 litres. The challenge is to measure 99 litres of water using the three jars. How would you go about it?
If you think about it for some time, you can easily see that if you fill Jar B (163 litres) and then pour out enough water to fill Jar A (14 litres), Jar B would have (163 - 14 =) 149 litres of water. Now all you have to do is pour out water from Jar B into Jar C (25 litres) twice. Then Jar B would have (149 - 25 - 25 =) 99 litres of water.
Once you know the calculation, and you understand the logic, it doesn’t seem hard. Now, let’s try another similar problem.
There are three jars on a table. Jar A (15 litres), Jar B (39 litres), and Jar C (3 litres). The challenge is to measure 18 litres of water using these jars. How would you go about it?
Chances are, you’ll fill Jar B (39 litres), then pour out enough to fill Jar A (15 litres) once, and Jar C twice (3 litres). Just like the previous problem.
But, if you try to find another way, you would soon realise that it’s easier to fill Jar A (15 litres) and C (3 litres ) into Jar B to measure 18 litres.
The psychologist Abraham S. Luchins did this experiment in 1942 and concluded that people usually fail to come up with the easer solution in the second experiment due to The Einstellung Effect.
Einstellung Effect refers to a person’s tendency to solve a given problem in a specific manner even though better or more appropriate methods of solving the problem exist.
It occurs where pre-existing knowledge impedes our ability to reach a better solution. We become unable to consider other solutions when we think we already have one, even though it may not be accurate or optimal. It leaves us cognitively incapable of differentiating previous experience from the current problem. We do solve the problem but we don’t innovate.
During creative problem-solving, prior knowledge and experience can enhance performance by efficiently guiding us towards solutions that worked in the past. However, prior knowledge can also harm performance if the problem requires a novel solution.
Startups often study business strategies and marketing tactics of other companies, and find it incredibly hard to come up with better approaches. They end up copying others, thereby lowering the bar for innovation.
If you start off with a bad idea that kind of works, it becomes excruciatingly hard to come up with a better idea that excels the initial bad idea. Especially, if it’s a tough problem to solve, and there’s time crunch. Because this involves forgetting or unlearning what you already know, and that is no mean feat.
A major repercussion of the Einstellung Effect is when we tend to ignore better solutions because they don’t support our initial mental model or hypothesis.
Another phenomenon similar to Einstellung is Functional Fixedness. The psychologist Karl Duncker defines functional fixedness as being a “mental block against using an object in a new way that is required to solve a problem.”
It is our impaired ability to discover a new use for an object (say using a banana as an incense stick holder), owing to our previous use of the object in a functionally dissimilar context. It’s a cognitive bias that limits us to use an object only in the way it is traditionally used.
The brain is pattern recognition engine. Rather than looking at each and every problems individually, it creates chunks of similar problems that fit into a pattern. This makes the brain very efficient at what it does.
The Einstellung Effect is the brain’s way of finding an appropriate solution as efficiently as possible. Even though the process of finding the solution is efficient, the solution found might not necessarily be the most efficient.
But there are couple of simple methods you can implement to break the Einstellung Effect.
Interleaving: It’s better to take a break, or sleep on a problem before concluding that your current solution is the best one. The idea is to forget about the problem at hand for some time, and try to do other things so that your mind is completely off it. This forces you to reconsider the solution with a fresh pair of eyes when you revisit it. If you are a painter, or a coder, or a photographer, or a writer, try looking at your best work from a couple of years ago. I’m sure you would wonder why on earth you thought those were your best work back then.
Collaboration: If you don’t have the time to sleep on a problem, better get a fresh pair of eyes to have a look at it. Teamwork often involves getting constant feedback from peers. Team members can help you detect obvious flaws in your solutions or approaches. Getting feedback early on without becoming too attached to an idea can help you break the Einstellung Effect. In collaborative work, you need less ego and more open mind to come up with better solutions.
Cognitive traps like the Einstellung Effect is the result of the brain’s natural desire to simplify the way it processes information. Our brain is a cognitive miser. It uses shortcuts to save cognitive power. Since simplification saves mental energy, our brain optimises for it so that the saved energy can be used on harder tasks, such as when a wild animal pounces on you, or to take a modern example, when a stranger jumps you in a dark alleyway.
An Idea For You
See things as they are. Seek peace in reality. Control what you can control. Have a strategy to deal with things outside your control.
You don’t need to be positive. Positive thinking is an illusion.
I Enjoyed Watching
Ford v Ferrari (Movie) — Being a big fan of both Christian Bale and Matt Damon, there’s no chance I would have missed watching this movie on the big screen. Minor spoilers ahead, so if you haven’t watched it yet, read it later.
The movie isn’t about Ford v Ferrari. It is about a lot of other things: fast cars, testosterone drive, love for your craft, the ugly side of big corporations, etc. But I looked at it from another very different perspective: freedom.
The character of Ken Miles played by Christian Bale has a mercurial persona with a strong penchant for not following any rules, or giving into authority. He is neither a master, nor a slave. He’s a warrior without a king. He isn’t the most polite, and not the best team player either. He has not much money. But he has freedom. The kind of freedom all of us crave for.
He remains free until the last moment when he decides not to do things his own way; when he tries to do one for the team. Ken Miles owed Ford nothing. Carroll Shelby (Matt Damon) had given him full freedom to do as he pleased. There was no need for him to listen to them. But he did, and it didn’t do very well for him.
The takeaway isn’t that you should never do a solid for the team. The takeaway is that you should ask yourself: do I owe them? Because a lot of times, you might not. A lot of times you might have outgrown your team, and being a team player would only stunt your growth. A lot of times, your team doesn’t deserve you. A lot of times, you have to just move on.
Articles Worth Reading
The Bus Ticket Theory of Genius (Paul Graham) — “When you look at the lives of people who’ve done great work, you see a consistent pattern. They often begin with a bus ticket collector’s obsessive interest in something that would have seemed pointless to most of their contemporaries. One of the most striking features of Darwin’s book about his voyage on the Beagle is the sheer depth of his interest in natural history. His curiosity seems infinite. Ditto for Ramanujan, sitting by the hour working out on his slate what happens to series.”
I’m 72. So What? (Longreads) — “I cried when I turned 20, the end of my teenage years. I felt old again when I turned 34 — with a 2-year-old toddler, and facing the imminent arrival of 35, because it was only five years short of the dreaded 40. And now, paradoxically, I feel younger, more vibrant and in better shape physically and emotionally than I did at 60, or even at 50. So is that all a question of perspective? And is that a slippery concept, that concept of “old” varying from culture to culture, generation to generation and from decade to decade?”
Worth Thinking About
Wealth is a loaded word, and while some careless folks would define it as dollars, the truth is that wealth encompasses so much more, including options, health, happiness and the pursuit of one’s vision of what the world should be.
— Jason Calacanis (Angel Investor)
Before You Go…
If you’re finding this newsletter valuable, share it with a friend. Also, consider subscribing. If you aren’t ready to become a paid subscriber yet, you can also give a tip by buying me a coffee. ☕️
I’ll see you next Sunday,
Abhishek 👋