When a waiter gives you a small token of appreciation like a mint along with your bill, the chances of you giving him a tip are significantly higher. That’s because your brain is hardwired to be biased towards reciprocity. Scientists call these quirks in our brain cognitive biases. But our brains are not designed like computers, where every rule in the world of zeros and ones are literally interpreted and executed to a tee. Instead, our brains have evolved to take shortcuts in order for us to conserve energy and increase our processing speeds. But these very mental shortcuts result in perceptual distortions, inaccurate judgments, and illogical conclusions. It’s basically what makes us – well, human.
