Cognitive Biases - Braving The Brain Barriers !

Cognitive Bias

Time for Reflection

Haven't we all been victims of distorted thinking, at some point in our life, that lead to poor judgement and bad decision-making on our part; the times when when we acted irrational and took decision based on certain influences/ factors ?

What is Cognitive Bias ?

This sort of behavior where people commit systematic error in thinking that affects their decision-making and judgement, resulting in an irrational behavior, is termed as Cognitive Bias. The mistakes/ errors in reasoning, evaluating, remembering or any other cognitive process are examples of cognitive biases.

Why/ How does Cognitive Bias occur ?

Our brain has a tendency to 

• look for shortcuts while processing information
• perceive information through a filter of personal experiences and preferences

So, when our brain is presented with a need to take decision based on the vast amount of information it has to deal with, the brain tries to create shortcuts (heuristics) to simplify information processing. This is what creates the Biases. These shortcuts are based on the existing beliefs and preferences that  we tend to hold onto.

Few Key Things About Cognitive Bias

• Since it is not possible to eliminate the brain's disposition to take shortcuts, so biases are bound to occur. 
• there are different types of cognitive biases, some related to memory, some related to attention and many more related to other conscious part/ activity of our brain.
• It's not possible to eliminate biases always, but we must try and minimize the impact of the biases
• Biases are not always negative or limiting in nature. Many biases create a positive impact on us and help us in effective decision-making  

Studying Popular Biases

I have attempted to detail few important/ popular Cognitive Biases (mostly) through my blog series on the same. Listed below are 20+ biases with hyperlinks to the respective posts. 

Anchoring Bias  - Blind Spot Bias  - Confirmation Bias - Distinction Bias - Egocentric Bias

Fading Affect Bias - Groupthink Bias - Hindsight Bias - Implicit Bias  - Just World Bias

Kantian Fairness Tendency - Loss Aversion Bias - Money Illusion Bias  - Negativity Bias

Optimism Bias - Projection Bias - Quality Consciousness Bias - Restraint Bias 

Scarcity Bias - Trait Ascription Bias - Unit Bias - Von Restorff  Effect  - Wishful Thinking -

Xtra Bias  - Yin-Yang Effect - Zero Risk Bias

Hope you enjoy reading them all and find the posts useful.