Humans have a tendency to make basic cognitive mistakes. They’re not always intentional, but they happen often enough that we’ve started to notice them.
We tend to ignore new information that contradicts our beliefs, for example, or assume that people’s behavior is motivated by their personality rather than their circumstances.
When it comes to understanding how the human mind works, however, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing:
It means we can take advantage of these errors in order to help us achieve our goals (and avoid some pitfalls). Here are 19 examples of cognitive biases and how they can be used for good:
| Key Takeaways |
|---|
| 1. Cognitive biases play a significant role in decision-making processes. |
| 2. By understanding cognitive biases, we can make more informed choices. |
| 3. Recognizing confirmation bias helps us seek diverse perspectives. |
| 4. Overcoming the anchoring effect enables better judgment in negotiations. |
| 5. Availability heuristic impacts our judgments based on recent events. |
| 6. Framing effects show that how information is presented affects decisions. |
| 7. Hindsight bias influences our perception of past events. |
| 8. The endowment effect leads to valuing what we own more than its objective worth. |
| 9. Prospect theory explains risk-taking behavior and loss aversion. |
| 10. Sunk cost fallacy encourages persistence in failing endeavors. |
1. Do You Know What Cognitive Biases Are?
Cognitive biases are errors in thinking. They are normal, and they don’t mean you’re stupid. In fact, it’s impossible to be completely biased-free because our brains use shortcuts and heuristics to quickly make decisions based on what’s most likely to happen.
These shortcuts can occasionally lead us astray, but they also help us make sense of the world around us and process information efficiently.
Cognitive biases are mostly unconscious they operate below the surface of our awareness so that we don’t even realize we’re being influenced by them and they can influence how we interpret information without realizing it.
However, if we become aware of these biases and understand how they work in our favor (or against), then we have a better chance at making more rational decisions when faced with difficult problems or stressful situations.[1]
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2. Attribution Bias
One of the most common cognitive biases is attribution bias, which occurs when people over-attribute the causes of their own or others’ behaviors and under-attribute the causes of their own or others’ behaviors.
Asymmetric insight is a cognitive bias which involves people being better able to recognize their own mistakes than the mistakes of others.
This may result from differences in motivation, attention, and ability to generate alternative explanations for behavior. It can be described as “the tendency not only to see ourselves as better than average but also see our flaws as more redeemable than those of other people”.
3. Asymmetric Insight
Asymmetric insight is a tendency to underestimate the number of people who have experienced a particular event. This effect can be explained by the availability heuristic, which leads us to focus on recent or memorable events when estimating the likelihood of something occurring.
For example, if you saw a news article about an earthquake in New Zealand recently and then heard that another earthquake had struck near Christchurch, you might think “Oh no! Earthquakes! I’m going to die!”
But if your friend told you about his childhood spent on vacation at Ashburton (which is near Christchurch) and how he got stuck under his kitchen table during an earthquake there one time.
Then your estimate would change from “I’m going to die” to “My friend’s uncle died in an earthquake once.”
Asymmetric Insight also manifests itself in our ability (or lack thereof) to predict our own behavior: we often underestimate how likely we are to do something and overestimate how likely others are.
In psychology this is called The Forer Effect after psychologist Bertram R Forer who discovered it through experiments involving personality tests given out by multiple psychologists all claiming they were unique tests tailored specifically for each person taking them.
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4. Conservatism
Conservatism is the tendency to prefer the status quo to change. It’s a bias of the mind that leads us to favor the things we know over those we don’t, but it can also lead us astray.
Conservatism means that you prefer what you already know and understand, even if it means ignoring other options or information. If a new idea comes along, conservatives tend to reject it until they are sure that it works better than what they already have in place.
This thinking pattern can cause problems because it makes people more likely to make mistakes when approaching situations where there are unknowns (like trying something new).
5. Confirmation Bias
Confirmation bias is the tendency to seek out information that confirms our beliefs, and ignore information that contradicts them.
When we commit this fallacy, we are essentially looking for reasons to believe what we already believe and when we do find support for our preconceptions, it’s easy to give ourselves a pat on the back.
Cognitive biases like confirmation bias can also affect how we make decisions in our daily lives: If you’re intent on buying a new car and you’re presented with statistics about how safe certain manufacturers’ models are.
You’ll be more likely to pay attention and consider those stats if they confirm your existing beliefs about what kind of car is best for you (without taking into account other factors such as price or performance).
And once again: If your new purchase gets into an accident shortly after leaving the lot? You’ll have plenty of excuses lined up before long!
Cognitive biases shape our perceptions and behaviors more than we realize. Explore the 19 insightful lessons we can glean from these biases in our detailed analysis: 19 Ways We Can Learn From Cognitive Biases.
6. Congruence Bias
Congruence bias is the tendency to see things as congruent with our beliefs, even when they are not. We are more likely to notice and remember information that is congruent with our beliefs, and tend to ignore or forget information that is incongruent with our beliefs.
This bias can be a positive thing in some ways because it helps us maintain a sense of consistency in the world around us (and in our own minds).
It also helps us maintain an identity based on those certainties. However, this can also lead us down paths of false conclusions or poor assumptions if we aren’t careful about how we use this bias.
7. Anchoring And Adjustment
Anchoring and adjustment refers to the tendency to rely too heavily, or “anchor”, on one trait or piece of information when making decisions. We also have a preference or a tendency to make decisions based on a single piece of information.
As we discussed earlier, this is known as “anchoring bias”. You can see how this works by considering the following scenario: Imagine you’re at a party where everyone is talking about their favorite books, movies and music (and they talk about them with great passion).
You are asked what your favorite movie is and give an answer right away without thinking much about it your answer will likely be influenced by what others said before you spoke up.
In psychology-speak: Your immediate response serves as an anchor that influences all subsequent responses given in this situation; hence its name anchoring bias!
On the other hand, our tendency to adjust too little, or “adjustment”, has been observed when people face situations where new information could potentially change their preferences.
For example: If John tells Mary that he likes rock music more than classical music despite having previously claimed that he prefers classical music over rock music;
Mary might feel annoyed because she believes her friend has lied to her all these years!
But if John says something like “I hate rock but I love country,” then Mary would likely accept his statement (even though it contradicts previous statements) since she knows that tastes in genres of music change over time.”
8. Availability Heuristic
When you’re tasked with choosing a restaurant for dinner, the availability heuristic can help you narrow your options. You might think to yourself, “What is the first thing that comes to mind when I think of restaurants?
What’s the first restaurant that pops into my head?” If it’s sushi or pizza, then those are probably two great places to eat. But if your first thought is McDonalds or Burger King…well…then maybe not so much.
The reason this method works so well is because we tend to base our decisions on what we’ve experienced in the past and what we know about right now and unfortunately, those things aren’t always reliable indicators of future success.
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9. Observer-Expectancy Effect
In psychology, the observer-expectancy effect is a phenomenon in which the expectations of an observer can affect the behavior of an observed system.
The effect is stronger when the outcome is important, when it’s possible to measure it precisely, and when there are multiple observers.
Observational bias occurs because humans are not good at being objective. When you are faced with a situation in which there is more than one explanation for an event or phenomenon (such as why someone behaved a certain way).
You’ll likely assign your own personal biases to what happened. This can lead to some serious problems if this happens too often and becomes unconscious habit.
10. Optimism Bias/Positive Illusion
The optimistic bias is defined as the tendency to overestimate positive outcomes and underestimate negative outcomes. In other words, people tend to believe that what will happen will be better than it actually ends up being.
This effect can be explained through cognitive dissonance theory, which suggests that people have a drive for consistency between their expectations and experiences.
If a person expects something to go well (i.e., they’re optimistic), they’ll choose to interpret events in ways that support this belief (i.e., they’re biased).
On the flip side of things, if someone expects something bad to happen or believes it won’t go well, they may choose not to learn more information about how successful an event might be in order not to be disappointed when reality doesn’t match up with their hopes….
11. Outcome Bias
Outcome bias is the tendency to judge a decision by its eventual outcome instead of based on the quality of the decision at the time it was made.
Outcome bias is a type of hindsight bias, which means that you’re more likely to attribute outcomes to actions that were actually random or outside your control.
Outcome bias also tends to go hand-in-hand with several other cognitive biases: confirmation bias, in that we tend to seek out evidence for our conclusions and reject information that would challenge them;
Selection bias, in that only information supporting our preconceived notions gets through; and anchoring (or base rate neglect), where we focus on exceptional cases instead of more general ones.
All told, these biases cause us all sorts of problems and not just in business meetings! They can lead us into unhealthy relationships and bad health habits. But there are ways we can mitigate their effects on our daily lives.
12. Pattern Recognition/Apophenia/Pareidolia
Pattern recognition and apophenia are two similar cognitive biases. They are both ways of seeing meaning in random or meaningless stimuli.
Pattern recognition is the tendency to find meaningful patterns where none exist, while apophenia is the tendency to be unable to distinguish between random patterns and real patterns.
Pattern recognition is a cognitive bias used by our brain to quickly process information. It helps us make decisions about important things like threats, rewards, and mates more efficiently than if we took time to analyze every situation as a whole before acting on it.
However, sometimes this bias can cause us to see things that aren’t there or not see things that do exist such as when your friend tells you they saw Elvis Presley at the grocery store checkout last week (but really they only saw someone who looked like him).
13. Placebo Effect/Nocebo Effect/Expectation Effect
The placebo effect is a phenomenon in which a person’s health improves after a treatment that has no active ingredients. The most famous example of the placebo effect was revealed by Harvard Medical School professor Ted Kaptchuk and his colleague Lisa M.
Conboy at the Open Medicine Foundation: they found that 38% of patients using placebos saw significant improvements to their pain and fatigue levels.
The nocebo effect is the opposite of the placebo effect; it occurs when a person experiences negative side effects.
Or symptoms as a result of either receiving false information about an alleged treatment or being exposed to other people’s fears about what could happen if they try something new.
One study found that 75% of people experienced nausea after being told they would experience nausea after receiving injections for motion sickness (a common practice).
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14. Post-Purchase Rationalization/Purchaser’s Remorse
We tend to make decisions based on emotion and then justify them with logic. This creates cognitive dissonance, which is the feeling we get when we hold two conflicting beliefs at the same time.
For example, you might feel that your life choices are a waste of time while also feeling that they’re important.
If you buy something and later regret it, this can lead you to rationalize your purchase by telling yourself that it was worth whatever amount of money it cost because of the benefits (or lack thereof) associated with owning said thing.
Something similar happens when we believe strongly in our opinions;
If someone challenges us or offers evidence that contradicts what we believe about something, we’ll often change our opinion even though there may be more logical reasons not to do so than there were for holding onto it in the first place!
15. Primacy Effect & Recency Effect (Serial Position Effects)
Primacy and recency effects are also referred to as serial position effects. The primacy effect is the tendency for us to place more importance on our first impressions of a person, object, or event.
For example, if you have a meeting with someone new and in that first encounter they seem friendly and intelligent, then you will probably have a more positive impression of them compared to if they were rude from the start.
The opposite is true for recency; we place more weight on our latest impression when making judgements about something or someone.
This can influence us to give an unearned benefit of doubt if someone has been rude or off-putting at first but then changes their behavior later on in your interaction with them (e.g., because they realized how their behavior was affecting others).
Serial position effects occur because our brains process information sequentially rather than simultaneously (i.e., list-wise). For example, when we see words on a page:
We don’t read one word at a time but rather we process groups of words together as sentences before moving onto another sentence;
Then another paragraph; etc.. Backtracking takes longer than moving forward through text so this means that there’s not much room for error when placing items at either end of any given list! That said…
16. Projection Bias/Attributional Bias/Externalizing The Blame
Projection bias is the tendency to project unconscious thoughts, feelings and motivations onto other people.
For example, if you find it hard to get up in the morning because of how tired you are, you might think that your friend struggles with the same thing. In reality, she might be a morning person!
Attributional bias is when we over-attribute our successes to ourselves and under-attribute them to luck or other external factors.
For example, if a student gets an A on a test but believes her teacher gave her points for knowing answers she didn’t know about beforehand, then she has attributional bias in action.
Externalizing the blame happens when we take responsibility for our own problems but blame others for theirs even though they may not be at fault at all!
This can lead us down an unhealthy path where we become bitter about those around us instead of focusing on ourselves and working toward solving our own problems.
17. Pro-innovation Bias
Pro-innovation bias is the tendency to think that new technology is superior to existing technology.
One example of pro-innovation bias would be a person who thinks that self-driving cars are safer than human drivers, when in fact they may be no safer at all.
This can lead to problems if you’re trying to make decisions about what technology to use for your business or for your city as a politician.
A good rule of thumb is: if it hasn’t been proven better than the current alternative, don’t assume it’s better until you’ve done some investigation!
18. Pseudocertainty Effect
The pseudocertainty effect is the phenomenon that occurs when people are faced with a choice of two options, one of which is a sure thing and the other of which is a gamble. In these cases, people prefer the sure thing over the gamble even when the expected value (EV) for both options is identical.
The main reason for this preference is that we like to avoid regret; however, there are also other factors at play here as well.
One such factor might be reactance the feeling we have when something threatens our freedom.
Or autonomy which can lead us to take more risks than necessary if given an option between certain death and possible survival in order to regain some sense of autonomy or control over our situation.
Another possible contributing factor could be relativism: if you believe that everything depends on your perspective rather than being objective (e.g., “what works at work today may not work tomorrow”), then taking risks becomes more acceptable because anything could happen anyway!
19. Reactance (Psychology)
Reactance is a motivational state that occurs when a person feels their personal freedom has been threatened.
When our freedom is threatened, we may react by engaging in behaviors to reassert our autonomy (e.g., by choosing a different product than the one we were originally recommended). In this way, reactance can help us preserve and protect our personal autonomy.
Reactance theory was first proposed by Brehm and Brehm in 1966 and later revised by Brehm and Rahn in 1981. Reactance can be triggered by any situation where an individual’s perceived freedom to choose or act is threatened.
For example, if you’re at a restaurant with your family and someone suggests splitting the check equally between everyone at the table.
Even though they ordered more expensive meals than others did you might feel as if your right to decide how much money you should contribute has been infringed upon (a threat to your personal autonomy).
You may then feel motivated to take action against the perceived “intruder” who violated your perceived rights of choice: maybe you decide not split the bill evenly any longer so that other people will pay for their own meals;
Or maybe instead of paying cash upfront like usual next time out with friends, you insist on using Venmo because it makes it easier for friends to pay what they owe without feeling pressured into doing so immediately after eating together.”
Conclusion
There are so many different cognitive biases, and it can be difficult to keep track of them all. But the more you know about these cognitive biases, the better you can understand why they happen and how to avoid them in your own thinking.
None of us wants to think about ourselves as being biased or irrational, but if we want our beliefs and decisions to be based on facts rather than emotions or past experiences (which is what we all want!).
Then understanding these biases will help us avoid making mistakes based on our faulty thought processes.
Further Reading
Understanding Bias Thinking in Decision Making: Explore how cognitive biases influence decision-making processes and how to mitigate their effects.
Cognitive Biases and Their Impact on Decision Making: Delve into the various cognitive biases that shape human decision-making and their implications in different contexts.
10 Types of Cognitive Biases Affecting Laboratory Decision-Making: Learn about specific cognitive biases that can affect decision-making in clinical laboratory settings.
FAQs
What is bias thinking and how does it impact decision making?
Bias thinking refers to the tendency of the human mind to process information in a way that is influenced by preconceived notions and emotions. It can significantly impact decision-making by leading to subjective judgments and skewed perceptions.
How do cognitive biases affect our everyday choices?
Cognitive biases are mental shortcuts that our brains use to simplify decision-making. While they can help us make quick choices, they often result in irrational judgments and inaccurate assessments of situations.
Can cognitive biases be overcome or mitigated?
Yes, cognitive biases can be mitigated through awareness, critical thinking, and mindfulness. Recognizing these biases in our thought processes allows us to make more objective decisions and consider alternative perspectives.
Are cognitive biases consistent across different fields, like clinical laboratories?
Cognitive biases are present in various fields, including clinical laboratories. They can impact decision-making by influencing how lab professionals interpret test results, leading to errors in diagnosis or treatment.
How can understanding cognitive biases benefit professionals and decision-makers?
Understanding cognitive biases is crucial for professionals and decision-makers as it helps them recognize potential pitfalls in their judgments. By acknowledging these biases, they can make more informed and rational decisions in their respective domains.
Costantine Edward is a digital marketing expert, freelance writer, and entrepreneur who helps people attain financial freedom. I’ve been working in marketing since I was 18 years old and have managed to build a successful career doing what I love.