Rules of thumb make worlds of error
October's Letter
Moving abroad is a crash course in biases. This month, I explore the psychology of heuristics: why our brains prefer stereotypes over accuracy, and how lived encounters help loosen their grip. Additionally, a WhatsApp group is available for those who prefer to stay connected and receive updates in a simpler, more straightforward way.
Where is the Colosseum? Why are there so many ugly Soviet-style buildings with peeling facades?
I was 22 and traveling solo for the first time in my life. It’s the era of the early internet—expensive and a privilege—no social media, and printed brochures for information. Google Street View is more than a decade ahead. Globalization is there, but still hasn’t pervaded certain areas like those of South-Eastern Europe. What I have in mind when I think of Italy, is what I see in RAI series and ads, travel guides, and my Uni books. It’s a very curated and polished version of Italy and Italians, the cream, the flower, the best of the peninsula.
As I look from the train window, and later, as I walk the streets of a city unknown to the tourist’s mind, I feel deceived. Where are the piazzette with people enjoying their espresso while a Topolino joyfully joins the scene? All I see is a lot of traffic and bleak bars with no tables outside, no sitting space inside, and a very hurrying and stressful way of drinking coffee. People are shouting and pressing you against the counter, and no one tells you that you need to go to the opposite side of the bar, pay, show the receipt to the barman and only then have your espresso.
So I wait and wait and when it’s my turn, all eyes are on me as I’m the only one without a receipt, asking for an espresso, as the barman shouts nervously and points somewhere on the other side. And what an espresso! It’s only one drop of liquid, so tiny it’s almost ridiculous.
My gut drops—this is terrible, I want to go home.
I discovered the gap between my polished expectations and the raw reality I found. The Colosseum wasn’t around every corner. The espresso was a drop, not a cup. Mozzarella and pesto tasted strange, not divine. I didn’t know it at the time, but what I was experiencing was not just culture shock—it was my brain’s heuristics at work.
Today I remember this with a laugh. Until a few months ago, I didn’t have a name or a rational explanation for the mismatch between my expectations and the reality I found.
Anchoring and adjustment
Now I do. It was about my reference point—the mental starting line from which I judged all of Italy. That reference point was not built from lived experience, but from glossy representations. Naturally, it failed me.
Psychologists describe this as anchoring and adjustment. We begin with an anchor—our first expectation, our internal reference point. Then we are supposed to adjust toward reality. But the adjustment doesn’t come easily: it requires conscious effort. Without awareness, the mind stays glued to its anchor, refusing to budge.
That’s why adjusting is the real work of expat life. It takes willpower to let your initial anchor dissolve, to say: “My idea of Italy was incomplete, let me rewrite it.” Anchoring and adjustment is, in a way, the essence of being an expat: noticing the gap between brochure and street corner, and learning, step by step, to close it.
Representativeness heuristic
When we meet someone new, our brain asks: What does this person resemble? We judge them by how closely they fit a mental prototype.
A lifetime ago, when I lived in a multicultural household, my German roommate once looked at me with genuine astonishment and asked: “Do you have bikes in Macedonia?” and later “I didn’t know you could buy such clothes in Macedonia.” She wasn’t being cruel or impolite. Her mind simply had no information to work with. She relied on what little she could picture about my country—goats, perhaps, but no bikes. She had no data about Macedonia, so she leaned on the only reference point available: a fuzzy image of “the Balkans” as savage, distant, ravaged by wars. For her, me on a bike in such a context was extravagant.
I, on the other hand, was shocked at how messy she was. Messy! Her room looked like a crime scene. My mental brochure said Germans were tidy, disciplined, punctual—engineered by nature to be organized. My expectation wasn’t personal, it was representative: she was German, therefore she should fit the image in my head. So when I saw her chaos, my mind didn’t know where to file it.
That’s what representativeness heuristic do: they compress whole nations into single traits.
This heuristic explains how stereotypes are born: in an attempt to make sense of the unknown our brain simplifies the unknown by forcing it into a category. These categories are not random; they are distilled from media, history, jokes and anecdotes. Once installed, they force everyone into caricatures. For me, the Germans were stern and precise because that’s how they were portrayed in movies and textbooks. For my roommate, the Balkans were poor and backward because that was the story available to her.
Availability heuristic
In the nineties, it was Albanians. In the 2000s, Romanians. Now it’s Arabs or Africans. In Italy, every decade has had its scapegoat—the nationality “known” for crime and delinquency.
This is the availability heuristic: we estimate reality based on what comes easily to mind. And what comes easily to mind is what we see repeatedly reported in the media. What we usually see reported in the media is meant to shape public opinion. What is meant to shape the public opinion is conceived in a way to draw towards one or another ideology, usually to profit a certain political agenda. The more prominent and repeated certain news are, the more likely they will activate an availability heuristic.
So if I say “Arab” and the first thing that flashes in your mind is danger or crime instead of desert, camels, or arabesques, ask yourself why. Chances are, it’s the availability heuristic at work—a shortcut turned into a calcified belief.
Confirmation bias
Once we hold a belief, we start noticing only what confirms it. That calcified belief from the example above will make news about crimes committed by certain nationalities jump out, while stories that contradict it will barely register. This is the sneaky power of confirmation bias: it doesn’t just distort our perception, it convinces us we’re right.
My Spanish friend with long, dark, curly hair, always loud, always the life of the group, ready to party? “Typical olè Spaniard!” I thought. My Russian friend plunging into a frozen pond in January? “Typical Russian endurance!” These weren’t neutral observations. They were confirmation biases. I picked out the traits that matched the stereotypes I already carried, as if they were proof that my mental image of “the Spanish” and “the Russians” was accurate.
The other Spanish girl I knew—introverted, hippie, soft-spoken—was immediately filed under “exception.” Atypical. Not representative. The delicate Russian roommate who cooked for me the most delicious soup? Also an exception. Forgettable, because she didn’t fit the icy-strong-Russian mold.
That’s how confirmation bias works: we keep reinforcing the prototype by dismissing everything that doesn’t fit. Each exception is pushed aside, labeled unimportant, so the stereotype can stand taller, stronger, untouched.
Why our brains do this
Heuristics are mental shortcuts. They help us predict quickly, orient ourselves, and avoid analysis-paralysis. They keep us moving through the day without collapsing from decision fatigue. They’re efficient, but also lazy. They trade nuance for speed. Instead of updating the picture, the brain grabs the nearest reference point, fills in the blanks, and calls it truth.
That works well enough when you’re picking a brand of soap—or instinctively jumping back from something that moves like a snake in the grass. But it becomes reductive when applied to people, leading to systematic errors—that is, biases.
As expats, we live inside this paradox. The problem isn’t that we’re maliciously wrong about each other—it’s that we begin with almost nothing, yet insist on building entire worlds from scraps. No, it’s not malice; it’s the mechanism of poor reference points.
The good news is that mechanisms can be retrained. One encounter at a time, we feed the mind new data, fresh anchors. The espresso that once felt like a thimble becomes exactly enough. The pesto that once tasted like grass turns into comfort food. And the prototypes slowly, slowly, begin to loosen their grip: Germans can be messy, Spaniards can be shy, Russians can be fragile, and yes—Macedonians can ride bikes.
Month’s Gatherings
If you’re in the mood for good company and a journaling practice from the comfort of your armchair, join us for this month’s Clarity Pages:
Thursday, October 9
10.00 - 11.30 CET
Online
Saturday, October 18
10.00 - 11.30 CET
Online
How to join?
Paid subscription. If you value the intention behind Eirene Cafe and find it nourishing for your well-being, consider supporting it with a paid subscription. This grants you access to the Clarity Pages, and you’ll receive the meeting link the day before the gathering.
Payment per gathering. If a one-time payment suits you better right now, you can choose to pay per gathering. Your subscription to Eirene Café will remain free, and you’ll still receive the meeting link the day before the gathering.
NOTE: If paying isn’t possible right now and you’d benefit from the monthly gatherings, email me at eirene.cafe@gmail.com, and I’ll send the meeting link the day before the gathering —no questions asked.
Community
I’ve set up a WhatsApp community so we can stay connected in an app many of us already use every day. You can choose the space that feels right for you—just quiet updates in the Announcements feed, or to step into the Chat group if you’d like to connect with others.
These are sweet recollections ... I recognize some of your thoughts on your arrival in Rome from my own first days a few years before yours.