Pervasive and Powerful Mental Models

One of the things I find in our efforts to promote public understanding of science and systems thinking is that people have a hard time realizing the ubiquity, pervasiveness, and importance of mental models. These things we call mental models are ever-present and always influencing us. For more see reality bias.

A few ways we have been successful in helping people to see how ever-present mental models are is to make it somewhat light and fun but also giving serious examples to back them up.

Birdbox Studio did a video that is one of the best examples of the ubiquitous and pervasive nature of mental models I have ever found, and, it's funny:

We wanted to capture Birdbox's brilliance in a static version for folks who don't have the time or the medium to watch it. So, we created this comic strip:

Make no mistake about it, our mental models are pervasive and powerful things. Check out these cows. Their [false] mental model actually alters their behavior.