Cognitive Bias

cognitive bias
• The concept of was first introduced by
researchers Amos Tversky and Daniel
Kahneman in 1972.
• Since then, researchers have described a
number of different types of biases that affect
decision-making in a wide range of areas
including social behavior, cognition, behavioral
economics, education, management, healthcare,
business, and finance.
 What Is Cognitive Bias?
• A cognitive bias is a systematic error in thinking that
occurs when people are processing and interpreting
information in the world around them and affects the
decisions and judgments that they make.
• The human brain is powerful but subject to limitations
. Cognitive biases are often a result of your brain's
attempt to simplify information processing. Biases
often work as rules of thumb that help you make
sense of the world and reach decisions with relative
speed
• Some of these biases are related to memory. The
way you remember an event may be biased for a
number of reasons and that, in turn, can lead to
biased thinking and decision-making.
• Other cognitive biases might be related to
problems with attention. Since attention is a
limited resource, people have to be selective about
what they pay attention to in the world around
them.
 Signs of Cognitive Bias
• Everyone exhibits cognitive bias. It might be easier to spot in
others, but it is important to know that it is something that
also affects your thinking. Some signs that you might be
influenced by some type of cognitive bias include:
Only paying attention to news stories that confirm your
opinions
Blaming outside factors when things don't go your way
Attributing other people's success to luck, but taking
personal credit for your own accomplishments
Assuming that everyone else shares your opinions or beliefs
Learning a little about a topic and then assuming you know
all there is to know about it
• Actor-observer bias: Actor-observer bias As you are walking down the
street, you trip and fall. You immediately blame the slippery pavement, an
external cause. However, if you saw a random stranger trip and fall, you
would probably attribute this to an internal factor, such as clumsiness or
inattentiveness
• Anchoring bias: This is the tendency to rely too heavily on the very first
piece of information you learn.
• For example, if you learn the average price for a car is a certain value, you
will think any amount below that is a good deal, perhaps not searching for
better deals. You can use this bias to set the expectations of others by
putting the first information on the table for consideration.
• Attentional bias: Attentional biases may explain an individual's failure to
consider alternative possibilities when occupied with an existing train of
thought. For example, cigarette smokers have been shown to possess an
attentional bias for smoking-related cues around them, due to their brain's
altered reward sensitivity.
• Availability heuristic :Availability heuristic: This is placing greater value
on information that comes to your mind quickly.
• You give greater credence to this information and tend to overestimate the
probability and likelihood of similar things happening in the future.
• The availability heuristic works by prioritizing infrequent events based on
regency and vividness. For example, plane crashes can make people afraid
of flying. 
• False consensus effect: he false consensus effect (FCE) to describe the
tendency to “see one's own behavioral choices and judgments as relatively
common and appropriate to existing circumstances while viewing
alternative responses as uncommon, deviant, or inappropriate
• Functional fixedness: Functional fixedness is a type of cognitive bias that
involves a tendency to see objects as only working in a particular way. 1 For
example, you might view a thumbtack as something that can only be used
to hold paper to a corkboard.
• Halo effect: A common halo effect example is attractiveness, and the
tendency to assign positive qualities to an attractive person. For example,
you might see a physically beautiful person and assume they are generous,
smart, or trustworthy
• Misinformation effect:An example of misinformation effect could be
as simple as an eyewitness being asked: "Did you see the broken
light" rather than "Did you see a broken light". The first assumes
there was a broken light and that influences the possibility of
misinformation effect and the response from the eyewitness.
• Optimism bias: Optimistic bias is commonly defined as the mistaken
belief that one's chances of experiencing a negative event are lower
(or a positive event higher) than that of one's peers.
• Self-serving bias:  self-serving bias is the common habit of a person
taking credit for positive events or outcomes, but blaming outside
factors for negative events. A vendor accepting praise for the on-time
delivery of materials one week but blaming shipping freight issues
for other delayed packages the next
• The Dunning-Kruger effect:The Dunning-Kruger effect is a type of
psychological bias. A classic example of the Dunning-Kruger effect
would be an amateur chess player overestimates their performance
in the upcoming chess tournament compared to their competent
counterparts.
 Causes of Cognitive Bias
• Cognitive biases can be caused by a number of different things, but
it is these mental shortcuts, known as heuristics, that often play a
major contributing role. While they can often be surprisingly
accurate, they can also lead to errors in thinking.
• Other factors that can also contribute to these biases:
Emotions
Individual motivations
Limits on the mind's ability to process information
Social pressures

• Cognitive bias may also increase as people get older due to

decreased cognitive flexibility.
 Impact of Cognitive Bias
• Cognitive biases can lead to distorted thinking. 
Conspiracy theory beliefs, for example, are often influenced by a
variety of biases.But cognitive biases are not necessarily all bad.
Psychologists believe that many of these biases serve an adaptive
purpose: They allow us to reach decisions quickly. This can be vital if
we are facing a dangerous or threatening situation.
• For example, if you are walking down a dark alley and spot a dark
shadow that seems to be following you, a cognitive bias might lead
you to assume that it is a mugger and that you need to exit the alley
as quickly as possible. The dark shadow may have simply been caused
by a flag waving in the breeze, but relying on mental shortcuts can
often get you out of the way of danger in situations where decisions
need to be made quickly.
Tips for Overcoming Cognitive Bias
• Being aware of bias: Consider how biases might influence your thinking. In
one study, researchers provided feedback and information that help
participants understand these biases and how they influence decisions. The
results of the study indicated that this type of training could effectively
reduce the effects of cognitive bias by 29%
• Considering the factors that influence your decisions: Are there factors
such as overconfidence or self-interest at play? Thinking about the influences
on your decisions may help you make better choices.
• Challenging your biases: If you notice that there are factors influencing
your choices, focus on actively challenging your biases. What are some
factors you have missed? Are you giving too much weight to certain factors?
Are you ignoring relevant information because it doesn't support your
view? Thinking about these things and challenging your biases can make you
a more critical thinker
Confirmation Bias
 Confirmation Bias
• Confirmation bias: This is favoring information
that conforms to your existing beliefs and
discounting evidence that does not conform.
• Confirmation Bias is the tendency to look for
information that supports, rather than rejects,
one’s preconceptions, typically by interpreting
evidence to confirm existing beliefs while
rejecting or ignoring any conflicting data
(American Psychological Association).
 Types of Confirmation Bias
• Biased Search for Information
• Biased Interpretation
• Biased Memory
 Biased Search for Information
• This type of confirmation bias explains people’s search for
evidence in a one-sided way to support their hypotheses
or theories.
• Experiments have shown that people provide
tests/questions that are designed to yield “yes” if their
favored hypothesis was true, and ignore alternative
hypotheses that are likely to give the same result.
• This is also known as congruence heuristic (Baron, 2000,
p.162-64). Though the preference for affirmative questions
itself may not be bias, there are experiments that have
shown that congruence bias does exist.
 Example
• If you were to search “Are cats better than
dogs?” in Google, all you will get are sites listing
the reasons why cats are better. However, if you
were to search “Are dogs better than cats?”
google will only provide you with sites that
believe dogs are better than cats. This shows
that phrasing questions in a one-sided way (i.e.
affirmative manner) will assist you in obtaining
evidence consistent with your hypothesis.
 Biased Interpretation
• This type of bias explains that people interpret evidence with
respect to their existing beliefs by typically evaluating confirming
evidence differently than evidence that challenges their
preconceptions.
• Various experiments have shown that people tend to not change
their beliefs on complex issues even after being provided with
research because of the way they interpret the evidence.
• Additionally, people accept “confirming” evidence more easily and
critically evaluate the “disconfirming” evidence (this is known as
disconfirmation bias) (Taber & Lodge, 2006). When provided with
the same evidence, people’s interpretations could still be biased
 Example
• Biased interpretation is shown in an experiment
conducted by Stanford University on the topic of capital
punishment. It included participants who were in support
of and others who were against capital punishment.
• All subjects were provided with the same two studies, and
after reading the detailed descriptions of the studies,
participants still held their initial beliefs and supported
their reasoning by providing “confirming” evidence from
the studies and rejecting any contradictory evidence, or
considering it inferior to the “confirming” evidence (Lord,
Ross, & Lepper, 1979).
 Biased Memory
• To confirm their current beliefs, people may remember/recall information
selectively. Psychological theories vary in defining memory bias.
• Some theories state that information confirming prior beliefs is stored in the
memory while contradictory evidence is not (i.e. Schema theory). Some
others claim that striking information is remembered best (i.e. humor
effect).
• Memory confirmation bias also serves a role in stereotype maintenance.
Experiments have shown that mental association between expectancy-
confirming information and the group label strongly affects recall and
recognition memory.
• Though a certain stereotype about a social group might not be true for an
individual, people tend to remember the stereotype-consistent information
better than any disconfirming evidence (Fyock & Stangor, 1994).
 Example
• In one experimental study, participants were
asked to read a woman’s profile (detailing her
extroverted and introverted skills) and assess
her for either a job of a librarian or real-estate
salesperson.
• Those assessing her as a salesperson better
recalled extroverted traits while the other
group recalled more examples of introversion
(Snyder & Cantor, 1979).
 Example: Social Media
• Information we are presented on media is not only reflective of
what the users want to see but also of the designers’ beliefs and
values. Today, people are exposed to an overwhelming number of
news sources, each varying in their credibility.
• To form conclusions, people tend to read the news that aligns
with their perspectives. For instance, new channels provide
information (even the same news) differently from each other on
complex issues (i.e. racism, political parties, etc.), with some
using sensational headlines/pictures and one-sided information.
• Due to the biased coverage of topics, people only utilize certain
channels/sites to obtain their information to make biased
conclusions.
 Example : Religious Faith
• People also tend to search for and interpret evidence with respect
to their religious beliefs (if any).
• For instance, on the topics of abortion and transgender rights,
people whose religions are against such things will interpret this
information differently than others and will look for evidence to
validate what they believe.
• Similarly, those who religiously reject the theory of evolution will
either gather information disproving evolution or hold no official
stance on the topic.
• Also, irreligious people might perceive events that are considered
“miracles” and “test of faiths” by religious people to be a
reinforcement of their lack of faith in a religion.
Explanations of Confirmation Bias

• There are several explanations as to why

humans possess confirmation bias:

• Information Processing
• Protect Self-esteem
• Minimize Cognitive Dissonance
 Information Processing
• Confirmation bias serves as an efficient way to 
process information because of the limitless
information humans are exposed to.
• To form an unbiased decision, one would have
to critically evaluate every piece of information
present which is unfeasible, therefore people
only tend to look for information desired to
form their conclusions (Casad, 2019
 Protect Self-esteem
• People are susceptible to confirmation bias
to protect their self-esteem (to know that
their beliefs are accurate). To make
themselves feel confident, they tend to
look for information that supports their
existing beliefs (Casad, 2019).
 Minimize Cognitive Dissonance

• Cognitive dissonance also explains why confirmation bias is

adaptive. Cognitive dissonance is a mental conflict that occurs
when a person holds two contradictory beliefs and causes
psychological stress/unease in a person.
• To minimize this dissonance, people adapt to confirmation bias
by avoiding information that is contradictory to their views and
seeking evidence confirming their beliefs.
• Challenge avoidance and reinforcement seeking affect people’s
thoughts/reactions differently since exposure to disconfirming
information results in negative emotions, something that is
nonexistent when seeking reinforcing evidence (“The
Confirmation Bias: Why People See What They Want to See”).
 Implications of Confirmation Bias

• Politics
During the election campaign, people tend to look for
information confirming their perspectives on different
candidates while ignoring any information contradictory to
their views.

This subjective manner of obtaining information can lead to

overconfidence in a candidate and
misinterpretation/overlook of important information, thus
influences their voting decision and eventually country’s
leadership (Cherry, 2020).
 Implications of Confirmation Bias
• Recruitment and Selection
• Confirmation bias also affects employment diversity because
preconceived ideas about different social groups can
introduce discrimination (though it might be unconscious)
and impact the recruitment process (Agarwal, 2018).

• Existing beliefs of a certain group being more competent

than the other is the reason why particular races and gender
are represented the most in companies today. This bias can
hamper the company’s attempt at diversifying their
employees.
 Mitigating Confirmation Bias

• Change in intrapersonal thought:

• To avoid being susceptible to confirmation bias, start questioning your
research methods and sources used to obtain their information.
• Expanding the types of sources used in searching for information could
provide different aspects on a particular topic and offer levels of
credibility.
• Read entire articles, rather than forming conclusions based on the
headlines and pictures. - Search for credible evidence presented in the
article.
• Analyze if the statements being asserted are backed up by trustworthy
evidence (tracking the source of evidence could prove its credibility).
• Encourage yourself and others to gather information in a conscious
manner.
 LINKS
• cognitive bias:
https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-a-cog
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20they%20make.&
text=Biases%20often%20work%20as%20rules,
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.
• Confirmation bias
https://