Human Haking: the clustering illusion

In this "serie" we'll see what kind of euristic drive our decision every days. In this way we can learn how to exploit them to our advantage or how defend ourselves from them.

The illusion cluster is a useful bias because make us fell in control of the world. But this is an illusion. In fact this bias leads us to apply cluster at random events For Examply imagine meet an our friend throwing a coin. We are 100% sure about the coin, is not counterfait. After 15 heads on a row our friend ask " Heads or tails?" Probablly we bet on tails. We are lead by clustering illusion. All throw are indipendent from the others so the odds are always 50% for heads or tails. The coin had no memory of past results. Other Example? the majority of people that play numbers extraction games study delays and occurrences but this is totally unsefull. All extraction is indipendent but the player think of increasing his chances. in the past the ROIs (return of investment) were compared between those playing in dreamed numbers and those playing according to a cluster. There were no mathematically significant differences. Anyhow think about not real cluster helps to sell a game where the customer is disadvantaged.

can we take advantage of this bias too? In my opinion yes. Especially when we are proposing something to a client. We had to to be able to suggest, after the proposal, an advantageous pattern for him behind random events. It's possible that our costumer will think only about the data we offer them and not on the right correlation between data and pattern. So just find data that are real and convincing even if not related to the pattern that we have built above.
For example, if we want to propose a real estate investment in an area that is not very attractive, we can show how the prices are low at the moment but will soon rise. Already in the past there were cycles in which prices fell and then suddenly growth up in that neighborhood. If going to see the historian this is true and the customer will be more willing to buy convinced to enter the good moment of a precise pattern. If we are customer in this case, instead we must make a rational mind and be aware that we are falling into the bias of the cluster illusion bias. If in the past the prices have had a trend nothing assures us that it will be so in the future.

As for the lottery, property prices have no memory, but the market reacts in real time to the conditions it finds. So we try to evaluate the parameters that interest us in buying a house and not on the basis of a suggested cluster.
This is just an example to warn us all. Now we know how we like to rely on cluster that simplify our decisions so the next time we suggest one we objectively reason about the data without relying on shortcuts.