Turkey illusion
The turkey illusion is a term from behavioral economics and describes "risk intelligence". Surprising trend breaks are predictable if one knows the causes or the framework conditions for this trend. This illustrates the turkey illusion.
The turkey is fed and cared for every day until it is slaughtered . Now, of all things, on the evening before his death, the probability that he will be fed and cared for again the next day is greatest from the turkey's point of view. Because with each feeding, his certainty and trust that nothing will happen to him increased. Nevertheless, he is slaughtered on Thanksgiving day by the very person who looked after him.
The slaughter comes as a complete surprise for the turkey, as it - in anthropomorphic formulation - “only extrapolates a trend” and “does not recognize the impending trend break”.
In order to recognize this trend break, the turkey should have found out the causes of the trend. That way he would have known about the motivations of the man who feeds him every day. In order to think outside the box and leave familiar or familiar thought patterns, creativity and the ability to change perspective are necessary. But the turkey was unable to do this due to insufficient information .
The turkey's surprise is transferable to the unexpected arrival of a stock market crash . Although investors are aware of the possibility of a speculative bubble with a subsequent collapse in prices, they are being carried away and dazzled by the general euphoria.
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ Gerd Gigerenzer : Risk: How to Make the Right Decisions , btb, Munich 2014, ISBN 978-3-570-10103-2 .