Disclaimer: The writer is talking about our biased brains. The writer will not exhaust all the types of cognitive biases. Kindly find out more. Ps: the writer is no expert and actually learned during this writing process.
As mentioned in my previous article our brain use shortcuts referred as biases when receiving, interpreting and processing information which may lead to errors in thinking. Here are more illustrations of cognitive biases.
Negativity bias: Our brains tend to focus on negative information by giving it more credibility. Maybe that’s why we say ‘bad news spreads faster than wildfire and ‘no news is good news’. Maybe that is why we talk more of the mistakes the Government of Kenya makes
False Consensus effect: in this bias, we have a false sense of people agreeing with us or sharing our point of view. You overestimate how much people agree with you. Not everyone thinks that cats are a must have pet, okay???
Optimism bias: I believe you can guess which one this is. If not, I’ll help you out (was going to expound anyway). This bias involves us believing that were are more likely to attain success and less likely to suffer from misfortune compared to our peers. All good things will come to me!
Confirmation bias: our brains tend to find and favour information that conforms to our beliefs. More like trying to prove ourselves right. Only seeing more and more deadbeat dads because to you, men are all unreliable.
Halo effect: the overall appearance of a person influences how you think and feel about that person’s character. If they are shady looking, then they must have dodgy personality. Could this be also why we are encouraged to dress our best during interviews?
Actor-Observer bias: In this case, we attribute our personal action to external actors while attributing other people’s actions to internal factors. He drinks because he is an alcoholic. Period! I drink because in my family there’s a history of alcoholism. Another bias that is partially related to this is Self-serving bias whereby we put the blame on external factors for the bad things that happen and give ourselves credit when good things happen. I pass exams because I study hard but fail exams because the time was limited and the teacher didn’t teach this topic.
The biases are much more than these. Find out more if you please.
So, why did I bore (it wasn’t boring, was it?) you with all these biases? Well, for starters, I wanted to depict how erroneous our brains are intrinsically. This is so that we can be kinder to ourselves when we make mistakes. Because we are inherently imperfect beings. Mistakes are natural.
Second reason was to show how perfection is elusive. There’s no perfect answer.
Third, when we become aware of the biases that are at play in our information processing, we can then work towards beating these biases to come up with more objective thoughts. So, you look good and I’m inclined to trust you more due to the halo effect. But what if that’s your plan all along? What else am I not seeing?
Lastly, and this is not very good advice (relative) we can use these biases to our advantage. You know that people will favor information that they already agree with due to confirmation bias. How can I use that to win a debate?
While they limit our objectivity, biases expose what we humans really prefer.
Try questioning your thoughts and opinions more often, will you? We also run the risk of being too unsure when we question all decisions. What do you think about cognitive biases?
©Kn3ss
©OspreyEmpire
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