Cognitive biases in popular songs

Forget that guff about Rage against the Machine vs. X Factor – truly, a herd of independent minds. What’s more worrying is the large number of basic irrationalities contained in popular songs.

I was at the gym the other day – this finely chiselled physique doesn’t come naturally – and Alexandra Burke came on the TV, singing “The bad boys are always catching my eye.”

Well of course they are. Bad boys hang around on street corners and in malls where you can see them. Good boys on the other hand are working or studying and so are in offices and libraries where they’ll not catch your eye.

This is a sampling bias. It’s an elementary cognitive error.

But this is just the tip of the iceberg.

via Stumbling and Mumbling: Cognitive biases in popular songs.

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