Cognitive Biases and Everyday Judgment (sample)

Our minds are not built to be accurate; they are built to be fast. Most of the time that trade-off serves us well, but the same shortcuts that let us cross a busy street without a spreadsheet also lead us astray when the stakes are high and the evidence is subtle.

What a bias is

A cognitive bias is a systematic pattern of deviation from good judgment. "Systematic" is the key word: a bias is not a random mistake but a predictable one, which is exactly why it can be studied and, with effort, corrected.

We can be blind to the obvious, and we are also blind to our blindness.

Three biases worth knowing

• Confirmation bias: we search for and remember the evidence that supports what we already believe.
• The availability heuristic: we judge how likely something is by how easily examples come to mind.
• Anchoring: the first number or claim we hear drags every later estimate towards itself.

The session below works through each of them with real examples:

A practical habit

Before an important decision, write down the opposite conclusion and spend five minutes arguing for it. It feels artificial, but it reliably surfaces evidence the mind was filtering out. A longer catalogue of biases is kept on WikipediaExternal link.

Noticing is the hard part. Once a bias is named it loses much of its grip; the attached checklist is meant to sit next to you while you decide.