You're not so smart - Cognitive Biases
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This document discusses cognitive biases, which are systematic ways that the framing of information influences judgment and decision-making in ways that deviate from rational objectivity. It notes that while cognitive biases sometimes make thinking faster, they can also lead to errors. It then explores four problems that contribute to cognitive biases: there is too much information to consider everything; not enough meaning is derived from limited information; quick decisions are needed; and memory is limited so not everything can be remembered. Finally, it provides examples of specific cognitive biases like the availability heuristic and the bias blind spot.
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You're not so smart - Cognitive Biases
- 1. You’re not so smart A dive into Cognitive Biases
- 2. What are Cognitive Biases? Systematic ways in which the context and framing of information influence individuals’ judgment and decision-making. There are many kinds of cognitive biases that influence individuals differently, but their common characteristic is that they lead to judgment and decision-making that deviates from rational objectivity.
- 3. What are Cognitive Biases? In some cases, cognitive biases make our thinking and decision-making faster and more efficient. In other cases, however, cognitive biases can lead to errors for exactly the same reason. The reason is that we do not stop to consider all available information, as our thoughts proceed down some channels instead of others - our attention is limited.
- 6. Problem 1 Too much information There is just too much information in the world, we have no choice but to filter almost all of it out. Our brain uses a few simple tricks to pick out the bits of information that are most likely going to be useful in some way.
- 7. • We notice things that are already primed in memory or repeated often. • Bizarre, funny, visually-striking, anthropomorphic things stick out more than non-bizarre/unfunny things. • We notice when something has changed. • We are drawn to details that confirm our own existing beliefs. • We notice flaws in others more easily than flaws in ourselves. Problem 1 Too much information
- 8. Problem 2 Not enough meaning The world is very confusing, and we end up only seeing a tiny sliver of it, but we need to make some sense of it in order to survive. Once the reduced stream of information comes in, we connect the dots, fill in the gaps with stuff we already think we know, and update our mental models of the world.
- 9. Problem 2 Not enough meaning • We find stories and patterns even in sparse data. • We fill in characteristics from stereotypes, generalities, and prior histories whenever there are new specific instances or gaps in information. • We simplify probabilities and numbers to make them easier to think about. • We think we know what others are thinking. In some cases this means that we assume that they know what we know. • We project our current mindset and assumptions onto the past and future.
- 10. Problem 3 Need to act fast We’re constrained by time and information, and yet we can’t let that paralyse us. With every piece of new information, we need to do our best to access our ability to affect the situation, apply it to decisions, simulate the future to predict what might happen next, and otherwise act on our new insight.
- 11. Problem 3 Need to act fast • In order to stay focused, we favour the immediate, relatable thing in front of us over the delayed and distant. • In order to get anything done, we’re motivated to complete things that we’ve already invested time and energy in. • In order to avoid mistakes, we’re motivated to preserve our autonomy and status in a group, and to avoid irreversible decisions. • We favour options that appear simple or that have more complete information over more complex, ambiguous options.
- 12. Problem 4 What should we remember? There’s too much information in the universe. We can only afford to keep around the bits that are most likely to prove useful in the future. We need to make constant bets and trade- offs around what we try to remember and what we forget. For example, we prefer generalisations over specifics because they take up less space.
- 13. Problem 4 What should we remember? • We edit and reinforce some memories after the fact • We discard specifics to form generalities. • We reduce events and lists to their key elements. It’s difficult to reduce events and lists to generalities, so instead we pick out a few items to represent the whole. • We store memories differently based on how they were experienced.
- 14. Let’s explore some of them
- 15. Average Price search online U$ 20.000 Dealer Price first offer U$ 19.000
- 16. The availability heuristic explains why people think flying is unsafe, because a plane crash comes much more readily to mind when compared to a safe flight. It's why people fear shark attacks too, even though you're statistically more likely to come to your end because of a champagne cork than because of a shark attack.
- 18. Even though a $50 note has the same value as 5 x $10 notes, we will invariably spend the lower value notes before we even think of touching the $50.
- 28. “When physicians receive gifts from pharmaceutical companies, they may claim that the gifts do not affect their decisions about what medicine to prescribe because they have no memory of the gifts biasing their prescriptions. However, if you ask them whether a gift might unconsciously bias the decisions of other physicians, most will agree that other physicians are unconsciously biased by the gifts, while continuing to believe that their own decisions are not. This disparity is the bias blind spot, and occurs for everyone, for many different types of judgments and decisions,”
- 30. Thank You Odair Faleco Senior UX Designer uxpsyche.com