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Cognitive Bias

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Ana Benescu
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13 views5 pages

Cognitive Bias

Uploaded by

Ana Benescu
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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cognitive bias

By

 Alexander S. Gillis, Technical Writer and Editor


 Corinne Bernstein

What is cognitive bias?


Cognitive bias is a systematic thought process caused by the tendency of the
human brain to simplify information processing through a filter of personal
experience and preferences. The filtering process is a coping mechanism that
enables the brain to prioritize and process large amounts of information
quickly. While the mechanism is effective, its limitations can cause errors in
thought.

Essentially, cognitive biases help humans find mental shortcuts to assist in the
navigation of daily life, but may often cause irrational interpretations and
judgments.

Cognitive biases often stem from problems related to memory, attention and
other mental mistakes. They're often unconscious decision-making processes
that make it easy for individuals to be affected without intentionally realizing it.
The filtering process and coping mechanism used to process large amounts of
information quickly is called heuristics.

Cognitive bias as a concept was first introduced by Amos Tversky and Daniel
Kahneman in 1972. It may not be possible to completely eliminate the brain's
predisposition to taking shortcuts but understanding that biases exist can be
useful when making decisions.
Although
it may be impossible to eliminate the human brain's predisposition to taking shortcuts,
cognitive biases can be useful for the decision-making process.
Types of cognitive bias
A continually evolving list of cognitive biases has been identified over the last
six decades of research on human judgment and decision-making in cognitive
psychology, social psychology and behavioral economics. They include the
following:

 Actor-observer bias. The tendency for an individual to credit their


own situation to external causes while ascribing other people's
behaviors to internal causes.

 Anchoring bias. The tendency for the brain to rely too much on the
first information it received when making decisions.

 Attentional bias. The tendency for an individual to pay attention to a


single object or idea while deviating from others.

 Availability bias. The tendency for the brain to conclude that a


known instance is more representative of the whole than is actually
the case.
 Availability heuristic. The tendency to use information that comes
to the mind quickly when making decisions based on the future.

 Bandwagon effect. The tendency for the brain to conclude that


something must be desirable because other people desire it.

 Bias blind spot. The tendency for the brain to recognize another's
bias but not its own.

 Clustering illusion. The tendency for the brain to want to see a


pattern in what is actually a random sequence of numbers or events.

 Confirmation bias. The tendency for the brain to value new


information that supports existing ideas.

 The Dunning-Kruger effect. The tendency for an individual with


limited knowledge or competence in a given field to overestimate
their own skills in that field.

 False consensus effect. The tendency for an individual to


overestimate how much other people agree with them.

 Framing effect. The tendency for the brain to arrive at different


conclusions when reviewing the same information, depending on
how the information is presented.

 Functional fixedness. The tendency to see objects as only being


used in one specific way.

 Group think. The tendency for the brain to place value on


consensus.

 Halo effect. The tendency for a person's impression in one area to


influence an opinion in another area.

 Hindsight bias. The tendency to interpret past events as more


predictable than they actually were.
 Misinformation effect. The tendency for information that appears
after an event to interfere with the memory of an original event.

 Negativity bias. The tendency for the brain to subconsciously place


more significance on negative events than positive ones.

 Proximity bias. Proximity bias is the subconscious tendency to give


preferential treatment to people that are physically close. A physical
worker being considered for a raise before a remote worker because
they are in the immediate vicinity of their superior is an example of
proximity bias.

 Recency bias. The tendency for the brain to subconsciously place


more value on the last information it received about a topic.

 Self-serving bias. The tendency for an individual to blame external


forces when bad events happen but give themselves credit when
good events happen.

 Sunk cost effect. Also called the sunk cost fallacy, this is the
tendency for the brain to continue investing in something that clearly
isn't working in order to avoid failure.

 Survivorship bias. The tendency for the brain to focus on positive


outcomes in favor of negative ones. A related phenomenon is the
ostrich effect, in which people metaphorically bury their heads in the
sand to avoid bad news.
Signs and effects of bias
Because cognitive bias is often an unconscious process, it's easier for an
individual to recognize a bias in someone other than themself. However, some
ways to recognize bias include the following:

 if an individual attributes a success to themselves, while attributing


other's successes to luck;
 if an individual assumes they have more knowledge than they
actually have on a topic;

 if an individual insists on blaming outside factors instead of themself;

 if an individual is only paying attention to what confirms their


opinions; and

 if an individual assumes everyone shares their own opinions.

Individuals should try their best to stay away from these signs, as they all
affect -- at a base rate -- how that person interprets the world around them.
Even if an individual is objective, logical and can accurately evaluate their
surroundings, they still should be wary of adapting any new unconscious
cognitive biases.

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