I met my friend the test pilot, who had just completed an around-the-world flight by balloon. With the pilot was a little girl of about two.
"What's her name?" I asked my friend, whom I hadn't seen in five years and who had married in that time.
"Same as her mother," the pilot replied.
"Hello, Susan," I said to the little girl.
How did I know her name if I never saw the wedding announcement?
Take a minute to figure this one out then look at the end of this chapter for the answer. Were you right, or argh!
How could you have missed it. So obvious. So simple. So stereotyped. Mental prejudice, right?
In a very mild way, this little thought problem demonstrates an important human quality. We need consistency. Things must hang together and make sense. And when they don't, we have a problem we must solve. Consistency theory has been proposed to explain what happens when things happen in inconsistent and unexpected ways.
Step 1: People expect consistency.
Updated October 1, 2008; Copyright © SBB, 2008