Simple, Pain-Avoiding Psychological Denial:  this tendency describes a common human inclination to deny painful realities, often for the sake of emotional self-preservation. Per Munger, reality may become “too painful to bear, so one distorts the facts until they become bearable.” 

• Taylor poignantly sings about this tendency in Ronan, proclaiming,

“I remember your bare feet down the hallway;

I remember your little laugh;

Race cars on the kitchen floor, plastic dinosaurs;

I love you to the Moon and back;

I remember your blue eyes lookin' into mine;

Like we had our own secret club;

I remember you dancin' before bedtime;

Then jumpin' on me, waking me up:

I can still feel you hold my hand, little man;

And even the moment I knew;

You fought it hard like an army guy;

Remember I leaned in and whispered to you;

Come on, baby, with me;

We're gonna fly away from here;
You were my best four years …”  

• And, sticking with Taylor, her Last Kiss speaks to the difficulty of moving on, which accompanies denial, exclaiming,
  
  

“And I'll go;

Sit on the floor wearing your clothes;
All that I know is I don't know;
How to be something you miss;
I never thought we'd have a last kiss;

I never imagined we'd end like this;
Your name, forever the name on my lips …” 

Excessive Self-Regard Tendency: with emphasis on the adjective excessive, describes how people tend to overestimate their own abilities, possessions, and future performance. One potential societal benefit occurs when excessive self-regard accompanies pride in being trustworthy.  

Negative consequences of excessive self-regard include group-bias, which resists change; poor decision-making; gambling; poor self-evaluation; and making excuses for poor performance. In Munger’s own words: “The best antidote to folly from an excess of self-regard is to force yourself to be more objective when you are thinking about yourself, your family and friends, your property, and the value of your past and future activity. This isn’t easy to do well and won’t work perfectly, but it will work much better than simply letting psychological nature take its normal course.” 

For the music amplification, I briefly depart from our trio of Beyonce, Rihanna, and Taylor, and turn to the creator of, in Taylor’s words, “the best song that has ever been written” and the author of perhaps the greatest “excessive self-regard” anthem of all time: the songstress Carly Simon.

• Carley’s You’re so Vain expounds this tendency like no other song.  She serenades an unnamed former lover, who clearly has an over-inflated self-regard:

“You walked into the party like you were walking onto a yacht;
Your hat strategically dipped below one eye;
Your scarf it was apricot;
You had one eye in the mirror, as you watched yourself gavotte;
And all the girls dreamed that they’d be your partner;
They’d be your partner and
You’re so vain;
You probably think this song is about you;
Don’t you, don’t you? ...” 

Over-optimism Tendency: leads one to overestimate the likelihood of positive events happening and to underestimate the likelihood of negative events happening.  Those who are prone to this tendency unquestionably believe that they are more attractive, smarter, better drivers, and that their relationships will last longer than the average person.  

• Rihanna succulently captures how over-optimism can lead to excessively risky behavior in Fool In Love, singing, 

“And you may tell me to run, run now;
But I can't do that;
We're too far down the hole;
He's got a hole on my soul;
So I guess I'm a fool;
I'm a fool in love:
But I'm willin' to stay here;
And bask in the glory of his heart;
I guess I'm a fool in love;
But I'm willin' to look so stupid;

'Til I've had enough…”

Rihanna reminds us that over-optimism can lead to unrealistic expectations, even when facing the high likelihood of a difficult outcome or setback.  

Deprival-Suppereaction Tendency: speaks to the tendency for one to suffer more pain from a possible loss than one would find enjoyment in a possible gain of the same size.  In Munger’s own words, “A man ordinarily reacts with irrational intensity to even a small loss or threatened loss of property, love, friendship, dominated territory, opportunity, status, or any other valued thing.”  At the extreme, it can guide us to focus on and over emphasize a single flaw over all of one’s positive attributes.

• Rihanna’s Stupid In Love tells the story of two lovers—one who is struggling to move on because of the envisioned potential of the other partner and the other partner who is predicted to suffer once the relationship is done.  The song speaks to the emotional intensity that can accompany a threatened loss; in this case one that would be encompassed in the apparent rational decision to separate. Rihanna sings, 

“He don't want it, not like you want it;
Scheming and cheating, oh girl, why do you waste your time?;
You know he ain't right;
You're telling me this, I don't wanna listen;
But you insist on repeatedly tryna tell me lies;
And I just don't know why;
…
Tryna make this work, but you act like a jerk;
Silly of me to keep holding on (oh);
But the dunce cap is off;
You don't know what you've lost;
And you won't realize;
'Til I'm gone, gone, gone;
That I was the one;
Which one of us is really dumb? ...” 

Social-Proof Tendency: is automatically thinking and acting as others around us are thinking and acting.  This can be beneficial as in the following example cited by Munger: “what simpler way could there be to find out how to walk to a big football game in a strange city than by following the flow of the crowd.”  

Of course, this is not always a failproof strategy.  There are occasions when the wisdom of the crowd should be promptly rejected.  Many mothers have warned their teenage children, “if your friends jump off a cliff (or some other suitably high structure like a bridge), are you going to jump off after them?”   In such cases, as Munger advises, “Learn how to ignore the examples from others when they are wrong.”  

• Expounding breaking free from the crowd that is holding one back, Beyonce’s Break My Soul advises self-reliance, 

“I'm looking for motivation;

I'm looking for a new foundation, yeah;

And I'm on that new vibration;

I'm building my own foundation, yeah;

Hol' up, oh, baby, baby;

You won't break my soul (na, na);

You won't break my soul (no-no, na, na);

You won't break my soul (no-no, na, na);

You won't break my soul (na, na);

I'm telling everybody, na, na;

Everybody;

Everybody;

Everybody;
...

I'm taking my new salvation;

And I'ma build my own foundation, yeah;

Got motivation (motivation);

I done found me a new foundation, yeah (new foundation);

I'm taking my new salvation (new salvation);

And I'ma build my own foundation, yeah (own foundation) ...”