Hanlon's Razor - Not Everyone Is Out To Get You
Assuming the worst, helping others rise to the occasion, and making better decisions
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I came across a series of mental models recently and one I like in particular is “Hanlon’s Razor” which tells us to not assume the worst in others as it is not often helpful and rarely accurate.
What’s a mental model?
A mental model is a framework for how to think about the world around you. The world is a pretty complicated place and it asks us to constantly make decisions. These decisions range from simple ones → what are we going to eat for lunch today to more complex ones like → where am I going to live for the next couple of years.
In a world of endless decision-making and growing amounts of information, we use mental models to simplify our decision-making process.
Yes, we all use mental models daily. One example is how we decide what we are going to wear every day. Some people when deciding what to wear in the morning opt for comfort + simplicity. Others think about professionalism + style.
These mental models make daily decision-making far simpler and faster.
Why should we care about mental models?
To put it simply, mental models, whether we use them conciously or unconciously are how we think about the world. We know that our thinking is hugely influential. onour well-being. As a result, paying attention to the mental models we actively use is a gateway into how our mind makes decisions and consequentially a huge point of leverage for us to affect how we feel daily.
What is Hanlon’s Razor?
‘Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.’ - Robert J. Hanlon
I like to take this idea a step further and expand on it
‘Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity, neglect, or differing incentives.
We’ve all thought at times that the world is out to get us or that people have done things to intentionally harm us or misunderstand us. If someone does not meet a deadline we agreed to, it’s because they are lazy or don’t care. If someone is late to meet us it’s because they are not thoughtful or don’t value our time. If your partner forgets to pick up something for you it’s because they don’t listen to you or don’t care about you, etc. etc.
Hanlon’s Razor posits that these simple conclusions we jump to are rarely true. Maybe our co-workers understood that the deadline was on a different day or something happened in their family and they could not get to it. Maybe the person is late to meet us because their dog ran out of the yard and they had to go chase it down or there was just a ton of traffic. And maybe your partner just had a tough day and forgot because they were anxious about all these other things they had going on.
How Does Hanlon’s Razor help us live better?
The point of Hanlon’s Razor is not only that the stories we come up with are rarely true they are also not healthy thought patterns for the mind as it trains us to see the worst in situations and in others.
Hanlon’s Razor can help us become more mentally fit by enabling us to
Develop stronger relationships - I think that how we view others tends to be self-fulfilling. When we see the best in them, they often rise to the occasion and feel more valued in the relationship. Additionally, it leads to heightening empathy which improves our understanding of others and allows us to connect more deeply.
Makes Us Less Quick To Judge - This is important because I find that being judgemental is often antithetical to curiosity and open-mindedness, which hamstrings our ability to learn. Hanlon’s Razor embraces not-knowing, which I think improves our ability to learn and widens our perspective.
Create Healthier Thought Patterns - When we default to assuming the best in others, we exercise our compassion muscles. Regardless of whether it proves to be true, it tends to make us feel better. I’m not suggesting we should be naive/allow others to take advantage of us, but when we don’t have all the information, it does us no good to speculate on the intention of others.
The bottom line
I’ve found Hanlon’s Razor just helps me feel better more of the time, allows me to connect more deeply with others, and frankly, I think helps people rise to the occasion. When we don’t assume the worst and we create space between the initial stimulus (someone is late, someone said something that we would typically perceive as rude, etc.) and our response, we give ourselves an opportunity to respond and interpret events more skillfully.
I think the more we can consciously choose to not-assume, and not default to attributing malice to other’s actions, I think we’ll find ourselves not only feeling better, but we’ll also create stronger relationships and improve our decision-making.
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