Two parking tickets in two days

"Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes" Oscar Wilde

Lately, Im feeling very experienced. My judgment failed miserably on two occasions in as many days, and I literally paid for it. Now I cant possibly buy that great digital camera I saw on eBay, instead I'll be buying the "ok" one. I have a feeling that the reason my judgment failed, and why subsequently 6 megapixles turned into 5, and then dwindled into 3, is due to two forces: Optimism bias and magical thinking.

Optimism bias, a theory first proposed by Kirscht et al. (1966) states that people consistently believe negative events are less likely to happen to them (e.g. heart attack, injury in a car accident), and that they are more likely to experience positive events (e.g. have a gifted child, own own home) compared to people otherwise similar to themselves. This effect has been found in events that are perceived to be both in one's control and out of one's control, though the amount of perceived control over future events does effect the degree of optimism bias (more perceived control over a negative event, more tendency to believe it's less likely and vice-versa). Interestingly, I read somewhere... that people with depression are more accurate when rating their chances of some event happening- they are less likely to experience optimism bias. So it's not that depression causes people to be more pessimistic, but in fact more realistic about the future. The rest of us are, for the most part, deluded.

On both occasions I knew I was capable of receiving a ticket, but I severely underestimated the chances of this occurring. Further, magical thinking, a style of thinking most of us occasionally engage in (and is present in some psychiatric conditions such as OCD and pathological gambling) played a part. It is best described as our superstitious tendencies, our perceived ability to make judgments about events- decrease the likelihood of adverse events and increase the likelihood of positive events by utilizing some unsupported technique- an old proverb, a good luck charm, a ritual or compulsion (internal or external), or some other constructed unsubstantiated belief. I truly believed that by receiving a ticket the day before, there was NO chance I would get one the next day. I was inclined to believe this even though the car was parked at two different locations, knowing only too well that parking inspectors do not get together of an evening and describe which cars they booked the day before, agreeing to take it easy on some people.

I think my "world should be fair" belief came up, even though I know that the world is in fact not fair, and that on both occasions I was, well, wrong. At the very least, this sentimental longing of fairness should be reserved for times when one is not breaking the law- the most objective measure of what our society has deemed fair. Still, I felt it was unfair. I wish I could "magically" make the tickets go away, maybe by avoiding cracks in the pavement for the next (insert any odd number that can also be divided by 3) days? Maybe they will forget about me down at the Infringement Processing Bureau, it's not like they would send me to court and then to jail if I ignored the tickets. That would not happen. I see I am doing it again! Oh well, I'll keep chalking it up to experience.

PS> I read somewhere... that optimism bias may play a role in the so-called "environmental paradox"- that despite increasing concern for environmental degradation and the knowledge that the impact of humankind on the natural environment may ultimately threaten life on the planet, commensurate adoption of pro-environmental behaviour is lacking. If everyone exercises optimism bias here, it makes sense that the individual is not spurred to act. Problemo.