Cognitive bias

[ciphergoth]

Roughly, "cognitive bias" is the empirical study of systematic, irrational biases that we all show to some extent or other in the way we think about the world. These biases can be demonstrated in controlled experimental settings, where we can largely rule out rational explanations for the behaviours seen.

One example is anchoring: asked whether they thought an unknown quantity was more or less than a number produced in front of them using a roulette wheel, subsequent guesses at what the number was were irrationally close to the number the roulette wheel produced. Their guesses had been "anchored" on the number they'd previously been given, even though they knew it was a random number.

I'm curious to know whether this is something people think about much, hence this (fairly imperfect) poll. Where I say "people" below, I mean people demographically roughly like you.

For those not familiar with the convention "snowflake" means "none of these answers fit what I'd like to say, so I'll comment below and explain". thehalibutkid, we await your comment :-)

[Poll #1327489]

I'm thinking about this because I've just finished reading "Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me)", and I'm about to start on "Predictably Irrational", both of which are pop science books in this field. See also Wikipedia's list of cognitive biases.

Please do comment with any thoughts the poll doesn't cover, of course!

Comments

[wildeabandon.livejournal.com]

Was "Mistakes were made (But Not by Me)" any good? It's been on my list of books I should get round to reading for a while now.

[djm4]

For the first answer, I ticked 'snowflake' because, while I think I've got a pretty good understanding of many of the issues of cognitive bias, and it's an issue I've been wrestling with for at least twenty years, I'm not familiar with the term itself or much of the jargon cited in the Wikipedia article.

So, in a sense, I've never heard of it, while still having a lot of layperson's knowledge about it.

On the last two, I ticked 'always', but only because you didn't have a 'usually' option, and 'sometimes' seemed to understate how often I use it.

(Edited for typo)

[faerierhona.livejournal.com]

I snowflaked on the last two as I don't consciously use it, but I am sure the little knowledge I have on it affects how I view others decisions

[mooism.livejournal.com]

It's something that interests me but scares me (in that I sometimes avoid reading about it to avoid the pain of the fear; I don't lack interesting things to read so there is always something else I can read instead).

This sort of thing should be taught in school.

[countess-sophia.livejournal.com]

I understand and recognise the concept, and have seen it in action frequently, I'd just never heard this name for it before.

Soph x

[skibbley.livejournal.com]

I'm interested mostly right now in how bias occurs out of conciousness from exposure to the media etc. and ways of counteracting that. Applications include countering prejudice against women, gay people, black people etc.

I'm also feeling increasingly shaky and interested in how people can not accurately know their own motivations and why they made past decisions.

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

Recognising and dealing with cognitive bias, in ourselves, our colleagues, and our stakeholders, is a critical part of policy development. We don't always do it as well as we could.

[jhg.livejournal.com]

I've read various articles regarding this in the course of my Philosophy degree, and I certainly do find it interesting... but not to the extent of actively reading about it now.

[ludy]

i snowflaked on the question about other people's decisons because of the whole autistic finding it hard to get into other people's heads thing.
As far as my own decisions go how much thought i give to basis depends largely on my spoon levels and how much mental time and space i have spare. Which prolly means i'm least likely to consider biases at times when i'm most vunerable to them ...

[http://users.livejournal.com/_lj_sucks_/]

It occurs to me that this is why sales pitches often take the form "You might expect a luxury car like this to cost $40,000, or even $50,000, but it's just $29,999!"

[zwol.livejournal.com]

I've done research on things that could be interpreted as very limited subcases of cognitive bias, but I don't think they are best interpreted that way, 'cos they don't generalize well when you do. So my knowledge of cognitive bias itself is fairly fuzzy.

[kissmedeadly.livejournal.com]

Snowflake: I'm trained as a counselling psychologist, so while I pretty much did the standard reading for cognitive stuff in my undergrad degree, theres certain very specialised areas of it that you tend to use far more in clinical work. It usually came up if I was working with phobias, anxiety and/or depression, and fits in nicely with CBT oriented work.
And before your brain heads to the most used acronym for your particular interests, no, NOT that CBT, nor does it have anything to do with motorbikes, its cognitive behavioural therapy.

[henry_the_cow]

The poll is a little self-selecting, of course, because people who are interested are more likely to respond.

I snowflaked on a couple of questions because the term "cognitive bias" as described in the Wikipedia article seems to cover a wide range of different phenomena. Some of these I consider - e.g. probabilities, cause-and-effect, wanting to look good, hindsight - although I haven't grouped them together or thought of them as "cognitive bias" per se. Others I don't - e.g. anchoring.

I think I'm poor at looking for such mistakes in my own reasoning and more likely to spot them in other people's thinking. I'm generally better at thinking about things than about people (including myself).

[anarquistador.livejournal.com]

Sorry to stry off-topic, but any theories as to where "snowflake" comes from?

[pavlos.livejournal.com]

Snowflake: I don't recall enough instances of examining my own decisions to answer the last question. I don't think I'm exceptionally self-uncritical, I just deal with other people's decisions that much more often.