https://modelthinkers.com/mental-model/mental-models

Mental Models

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Yes, we appreciate the irony and meta nature of having a mental model to explain mental models but… well, we're going there.

Mental Models are simplified representations, concepts, and frameworks that allow us to quickly understand ourselves and our world.

AN INSTINCTIVE TOOL FOR A COMPLEX WORLD.

Mental Models ultimately exist because our world and life are incredibly complex, and our brains have limited ability to hold that complexity — so we make sense of everything and act in the world with the cognitive shortcuts that are Mental Models.

Everyone uses Mental Models to simplify and understand everything, all the time. They define the way you interpret, prioritise, decide, anticipate, predict, and engage with the world and yourself. See the In Practice section below for examples from a range of domains.

4 TYPES OF MODELS.

At the risk of getting way too meta, our mental model about mental models identifies 4 types of models:

• The invisible models. The heuristics, mental shortcuts, and cognitive biases that rule our decisions when our more conscious brain isn’t paying attention — which is almost all the time. E.g. Confirmation Bias, Anchoring and so many more.
• The routine models. The models we take for granted as we navigate through the basics of our existence. E.g. the mental representations we rely on when making a sandwich, drive a car, and walk through our house.