Embracing Your Inner Detective
What I read: How to think like a detective by Ivar Fahsing in Psyche. Published April 21, 2021.
Detective novels are my favorite relaxation reading. Since childhood I have curled up with books written by Agatha Christie, Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and the long lineage of detective writers that have followed.
Carefully I would navigate through the storylines attempting to figure out the solutions to the crimes alongside the author who was slowly feeding me clues and hints. When I ran across this article, I was naturally drawn to the topic. Who wouldn’t want to be able to think like a detective? Contrary to the genre mythology, thinking like a detective is a learned skill.
Detectives are often portrayed as misanthropic masterminds. They seem to possess almost mythical personal gifts that the average person can only dream of. I’m sorry to disappoint you, but this isn’t entirely true. Not all detectives are masterminds, and you actually don’t need to be a detective to think like one. A few tools and methods can improve your inner detective, help you find facts, and learn to better understand the relationship between them.
A detective must be skilled at critical thinking, something sorely lacking in far too many people’s assessments of situations or solutions to problems. Perhaps if more of us adopt the mindset of a detective and work to hone associated skills, maybe we would all benefit, individually and collectively.
Most of us, whether we’re highly educated or not, have never actually learnt how to think and make safe judgments under pressure. Yet good thinking is important for every aspect of life. Learning how to think like an expert detective can boost your incisiveness and creativity. It can make you less judgmental and a better listener. Honing your detective-thinking skills could help you solve everyday issues, such as planning the perfect vacation or choosing the best job candidate.
Fahsing points out prevalent biases that plague us all such as Daniel Kahneman’s WYSIATI (what you see is all there is) and confirmation bias. Speaking of biases that impede effective critical thinking, I recommend the Critical Thinking Card Deck. Each card lists one of 24 logical fallacies or 24 cognitive biases. These cards are popular and sometimes they sell out. You can ask them to email you when they again become available. I own a deck and periodically I pull a card out and let it guide me for the day to avoid that error in thinking. The cards serve as a great reminder for us to think better.
Back to the article. The writer points out how we all often make snap decisions. As an example, he offers how all of us size up rather quickly a person we meet for the first time. Do we like them? Do they seem nice? Can we trust them? Do we like their personality? We make these and other assessments in a matter of moments. Then we might later come to know that person better and are faced with the reality that our first impression was not an accurate one. Sometimes not even close. We worked with the information that was presented to us initially, but that information was incomplete.
I believe Fahsing hits the nail on the proverbial head with the reason so much of our thinking and reasoning is faulty. Ease (our inherent intellectual laziness) and overconfidence (we want to be correct and will bend our thinking to bolster our correctness).
Making decisions this way is easy, comfortable and intuitive, but unfortunately it also fuels feelings of overconfidence and exaggerated competence. Regardless of our social class or our so-called intelligence, we are all by nature ‘cognitive misers’ – that is, we have a tendency to solve problems in superficial and effortless ways rather than via more sophisticated and effortful ways. If not addressed deliberately, this overconfidence, and the gap between one’s initial ideas and reality (see figure above), can lead even the most trusted experts astray.
It turns out good detectives share a habit that we would all be wise to adopt, not jumping to quick conclusions. A detached involvement with the problem or situation allows good detectives to keep digging for information and answers. Good detectives ask questions. Good detectives calmly observe and hold off deciding about something until all the information is properly gathered and dissected.
This detached, patient habit of holding off on a conclusion about someone or something can benefit us all. One place I can see this being of monumental benefit is on social media. People are quick to judge, quick to conclude.
However, when you get the hang of this way of thinking, you’ll find it helpful in many everyday situations and problems, big or small. For instance, it might help you become less judgmental in social settings, have the patience to acquire more information, and end up a better reader of people. Thinking like a detective will encourage you to continuously analyse any problem until the time is right to start fixing it. When done correctly, over time, your patient approach will also build your trustworthiness and integrity.
Fahsing offers some tangible steps we can all take to improve our thinking and embody an investigative mindset.
First, assume nothing and keep probing for answers and more information. In detective handbooks they refer to the ABC principle (Assume nothing, Believe nothing, Challenge and check everything). Embrace the spirit of the words should and could as you assess a situation or problem.
This isn’t easy, at least not for most of us. We want to arrive quickly at an opinion, conclusion, or solution. It’s human nature to want that, but we need to put the brakes on premature assumptions.
…Doing this is sometimes very hard, but even just attempting to slow down your otherwise conclusion-jumping brain will prove helpful…
Fahsing also invokes the words of one of my favorite fictional detectives, Sherlock Holmes. In 1890, author Arthur Conan Doyle wrote this that turns out to be a superb investigative mantra.
[W]hen you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
I think I might print that out and tape it to the wall so I see it every day when I get out of bed. It’s a great concept by which to live.
Next, Fahsing suggests we identify all possible explanations for the situation we’re currently pondering. Referencing back to Sherlock Holmes who often points out the usefulness of deductive reasoning, it turns out Holmes more often used an abductive reasoning process when attempting to solve a crime.
…Holmes’s favoured logical approach is not deduction, which is reasoning on the basis of known facts, but rather what is known as abductive logic, which is the cognitive process of identifying the best possible explanation for a given set of observations. Abductive reasoning is widely recognised as a powerful mechanism for hypothetical reasoning in the absence of complete knowledge. It’s generally understood as reasoning from effects to causes…
Much as a doctor, when given a set of patient symptoms, arrives at a diagnosis, we should all scan the landscape of the entire situation with which we’re presented before arriving at a conclusion. Consider alternatives. Do not assume your first conclusion is the correct one. Keep digging. Assuming one has the time, hold off on cementing an opinion or conclusion until you’ve gathered more information and input.
Next, one should create a plan on how to go about getting the information needed and strategies by which we might test different explanations. Fahsing calls this an “investigation plan.”
Create as many explanations as possible and then eliminate the ones you can prove to be false. The writer points out that much like science, theories can be tested only through falsification.
While gathering information and constructing theories and possibilities, creating a methodical method by which you capture and organize the investigation’s facts and theories is a big help.
Fahsing explains that he and his colleagues created an investigative plan model they call the “6-Cs” approach. Collect available information and Check the facts. Connect the dots. Construct possible solutions and hypotheses. Consider what additional information you need. Consult somebody you trust.
Then Fahsing applies the 6-Cs approach to a fictional example using the world of the 2016 movie Zootopia and the scene of a crime needing to be solved. (I enjoyed that movie.)
The mind map thinking and brainstorming tool is mentioned as useful to keep track of our decision making. While the mind map presented in the article resembles a spreadsheet style matrix, I have used more freeform mind mapping strategies to perfect my thinking, consider options, and plan for best outcomes.
My mind maps are typically composed of a bunch of circles, ovals, and squares with a word or words in them connected by solid and dotted lines to represent various forms of connections between the ideas and information the words describe. Sometimes I also use colors as a sorting tool. If you have never used a mind map technique before, I recommend it. It’s great for dislodging linear thinking and opening yourself up to options.
Using the mind map as a source of truth for your investigations and thinking process, the last remaining or objectively best conclusion is probably the one you want. However, get a second trusted opinion when you can. Fahsing calls this enlisting a “devil’s advocate,” someone who plays the role of skeptic and challenger of existing information or what might have been overlooked.
The article concludes with a beautiful summation of the entirety of an effective investigation.
Remember that evidence, new perspectives or insights can be found where you least expect them. That’s why all expert detectives should demonstrate empathy, be humble, ask questions, and develop their listening skills. Investigative interviewing is done by gently holding back your own opinion, asking open-ended questions, and using silence and active listening techniques such as nodding and humming. This extends to listening to your devil’s advocate. Receptivity to alternative views is a crucial skill not only for detectives, but for any decision-maker in the modern era. In a world where complexity increases constantly, there’s no room for lone wolves.
The complexity that is the world today requires us to be more fastidious in our decision making and conclusions. We should formulate our opinions slowly and methodically and not based upon first impressions or through only a glancing familiarity with the facts. Patience. Calm. Self-checking to ensure we slow down our thinking to make it better. Only then might we have a chance to properly analyze situations and arrive at a result in which we can have faith.
What this rising complexity means in practice is that whenever you’re confronted by a real-life dilemma that involves abductive reasoning – such as working out why a product launch failed, why your kid is struggling at school, or why your smartphone has stopped working – it’s more important than ever that you learn how to think more systematically. More like a detective.
Let me end by pointing out the obvious elephant and donkey in the room, the great political divide that’s infected our nation. I believe, and perhaps this is naïve, that if we can increase the percentage of the population who engage in more rigorous thinking, it would go a long way toward easing the political tensions we face today.
Additionally, social media can be such a quagmire of judgment and hyper passionate opinion, all delivered at escalating technological speed. We communicate in memes and chunks of information isolated from the entire context in which they should be considered. Perhaps thinking more like a detective will help us pause before firing off a nasty comment or cynical, dismissive post. I can hope.
May today gift you with clear, calm, and reasoned thinking.