Player Development and First Returns (Redux)
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Also reprinted from May 24th.
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As human beings, it is part of our nature to overreact to early returns.
This is part of what allows us to function in a complex world, without going into computer-crash mode. A man in an expensive suit steps up to a revolving door at the same time we do, and we show him deference; a man looking like a transient does the same thing, and we step in front. It's not scientific, but it's human, and there are benefits to this type of processing.
What player-development types need to do is to (1) grok the below light bulb, (2) avoid using it as an ABSOLUTE, and (3) keep an alert awareness of it during decision processes.
Sometimes you'll see a college undergrad overreact to this realization. He'll conclude that the guy on the right, above, is probably the rich guy. Or he'll conclude that the guy on the right is no more likely than the guy on the left to be the rich guy.
In this specific case he'd have been wrong in that conclusion. One of the guys in the photo was just released from prison. The container for his belongings is, in fact, a bit of data that the human mind processes subconsciously. There is a lot of information residing in the box carried, its size, its condition, in the clothes both men are wearing, and the subconscious mind processes things like the collar and style of the older man's shirt.
Which isn't to say that our subconscious reaction gives us complete capture of the real situation. It does "arm" us to respond to emerging situations quickly.