Cause of misjudgment № 5
Inconsistency-Avoidance Tendency
The mind resists changing its conclusions, habits, and commitments — so first conclusions and first loyalties tend to stick long past their usefulness.
The brain conserves energy by holding onto conclusions, habits, loyalties, and identities once it has them. Changing your mind takes work and feels like a small admission of having been wrong, so people avoid it. Munger combined this with Doubt-Avoidance into a one-two punch: we reach a conclusion fast to kill the doubt, and then refuse to revise it to stay consistent. The result is that a hastily formed first impression can harden into a lifelong belief.
This is also why bad habits are so hard to break and why public commitments are so powerful. Once you have said something out loud, joined a group, or invested time in a course of action, you feel pressure to keep acting in line with that prior self — even as evidence piles up that you should change. Con artists exploit this by getting a tiny “yes” early (signing a card, making a small purchase) because each commitment makes the next, larger one feel consistent.
The famous antidote here is the rule Munger borrowed from Darwin: actively seek out evidence that disconfirms your own cherished beliefs, and pay special attention to it. He prided himself on not being entitled to an opinion until he could argue the other side better than its strongest proponent. It is unnatural and effortful, which is exactly why it is valuable — it is a deliberate countermeasure to a tendency that otherwise locks you into your first and worst ideas.
