Cognitive Biases — Your brain’s way of deceiving you

Yes, there are some hardwired defects in human reasoning…

Overview

The human brain is an incredibly complex and powerful tool. But its powers come with some limitations. These limitations often take the form of cognitive biases. These biases are responsible for the irrational errors in human decision making and lead to lapses in judgement. They affect our ability to think critically.

What are cognitive biases?

A feature of human psychology that skews belief formation.

Cognitive biases can be defined as systematic inclinations in thinking that occur when we process and interpret information. They affect the decisions and judgements that we make.

Often, it is the habit of our brain to simplify the processing of information that results in us succumbing to cognitive biases. These biases work as rules of thumb that help us in making sense of the world and form decisions faster. These are our built-in patterns of thinking. This shows that belief formation is not an entirely rational process; it is unconsciously affected by human psychology.

You can read about some common cognitive biases and their examples in this blog.

History

‘Cognitive Biases’, as a concept, was first introduced in 1972 by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky. It is because of his contributions to the development of knowledge about cognitive biases that Kahneman won the Nobel Prize in 2002.

Root

Cognitive biases might be related to either of the two mentioned below:

1. Memory — Sometimes, we may remember details about an object or an event incorrectly. This mistake could be because of a variety of biases and results in a biased thought process.
2. Attention — We pay different degrees of attention to different things in our life. This is because, like time, attention is a limited resource. This, in turn, affects how we perceive different things and situations. This disparity can often lead to biases.

Cognitive Bias vs. Logical Fallacy

It is imperative to know the difference between a cognitive bias and a logical fallacy. Even though both are concerned with errors in reasoning, the former is embedded in an erroneous thought process because of mental mistakes whereas the latter arises due to error in a logical argument meant for communication.

Interestingly, a cognitive bias is often the reason why we commit logical fallacies in arguments. [Appeal to popularity is a logical fallacy that stems from the cognitive bias called bandwagon effect]

Causes of cognitive biases

The world is a complex place, full of information of all kinds. Human beings have to make hundreds of big and small decisions in it, every day. It would have become an extremely arduous task to make even simple, everyday decisions, from the scratch. This is why humans have a tendency to rely on certain mental shortcuts which allow us to make decisions quickly and easily.

Heuristics play a major contributing role in cognitive biases. Even though they are surprisingly accurate most of the time, they can also lead to errors in thinking. Among other potential causes of cognitive biases are emotions, individual motivations, social pressures and mental limitations.

Impact of cognitive biases

As has become apparent, cognitive biases are often responsible for distorted thinking. They are harmful because they lead one to focus too much on one kind of information while overlooking the other equally or more relevant kinds. At the same time, it should be noted that not all of these biases are necessarily bad. After all, they serve an adaptive purpose of allowing us to reach decisions quickly — an ability that comes in handy in dangerous or stressful situations.

Conclusion

It is because the human mind seeks efficiency that much of our reasoning relies upon automatic processing (which includes biases).

One important and interesting point to keep in mind about cognitive biases is that they are often interrelated in the sense that the foundation for one depends on the existence of another (confirmation bias is a foundation for the successful exploitation of the negativity bias, which in turn fuels the in-group bias).

While it is highly improbable that one can rid oneself of all cognitive biases, one can avoid them by being better at spotting them. And YOU just took the first step. :)

Also read — Common Cognitive Biases — Explained!