The Psychological Reason You See Patterns Where There Are None

Humans are funny. We’re funny because even though we consider ourselves to be logical, rational beings, we have enormous blind spots when it comes to our own intuition. We are inherently ordered, organized creatures. When we see an unstructured mess, we instinctively look to find patterns and order, and then we believe they’re undeniably true.

Take this example: I don’t understand the Instagram algorithm one bit. Some pictures I post do really well and are “picked up” by the algorithm for further distribution to Instagram users, while others, very similar ones, get passed over completely.

I can never predict which will succeed. Things I would anticipate to matter — photo quality, caption humor, theme — don’t seem to make any difference. Sure, there are some trends, but enough outliers occur that I can’t guarantee a post will do well or not. I drove myself mad, trying to determine what factors would predict success, and how I could ensure future success.

No obvious factors seemed to matter. No matter the type, color theme, caption length, hashtags used, I could not predict an outcome.