PSYCOLOGICAL TRAPS: HOW DID WE GET HERE

I had talked earlier about psychological biases and traps and how they affect our decision-making process. To escape these traps, we need to admit these biases to ourselves and be aware of the biases we are susceptible to. This is the first step to avoiding these traps or biases, then we must go ahead to engage in things like independent investigation of the information we are applying to the decision-making process. We must also always apply critical thinking to every decision-making process and question why we are taking the decisions. We sometimes know when we are falling into these traps, but we may choose to go along with it perhaps because it is what we know and are comfortable with. It interesting to examine the factors that may form these biases in our minds. Some of these factors are:

• Emotions – We are human and so our emotions are one of the biggest culprits of creating biases and traps in our minds hindering a logical decision-making process. For example, if we have positive feelings towards a decision outcome, we may go with that decision irrespective of the facts and information that speak to the contrary leading to confirmation bias. We choose to rely only on information that supports our preferred decision.
• Cultural Factors – This is a significant cause of our biases, the context of how we are raised or taught from childhood also affects how we see the world and how we then make decisions. The values and culture of our immediate environment and community a lot of times critically affects how we process information available to us and what we choose to believe irrespective of the facts of a situation. For example, if an individual is raised in a culture that promotes negative stereotypes about a particular set of people, chances are that that individual will have a bias about that set of people whether consciously or otherwise and this may lead to projection of those biases on decision making as it relates to that group of people.
• Social Factors- Another reason for biases is perhaps peer pressure and how we want others to perceive us. Sometimes we may choose to make decisions based on how we want others to react to us or the expectations on others and this leads to the groupthink bias.
• Individual differences- Because we all have different experiences, worldview, character traits and tendencies we may exhibit different biases in line with those differences.

Generally, the way we process information differs and it is a complex interaction of all our life experiences, cultural factors, social factors, emotional attachments etc. and it can affect our decision making in almost every aspect of our lives whether at work or in our personal lives, with the most trivial or complex decisions this leads to the biases we have and the decision-making errors we make. In my opinion one of the most reasonable ways to combat this is to become aware of the biases and create frameworks to making your decisions.