COGNITIVE BIAS

I encountered this topic during the Harvard course and it struck me because I had intended to do a little research on it when it was mentioned during the brush-up sessions by Mrs Atinuke, but I forgot. Her explanation of it made me realize I was guilty of it, and I never looked at its resultant effect on my decision making.

I decided to do a little research and below is my little understanding of it.

DEFINITION OF COGNITIVE BIAS

Cognitive Bias can be said to be thinking bias. It’s neither conscious nor deliberate; the bias is just inherent in people’s thoughts.

TYPES OF COGNITIVE BIAS

There are various types of cognitive bias that affect or clouds our thinking and decisions, below are a few I have read about that I believe affect our everyday thought process.

ANCHORING BIAS:

This is when we base our decision on a few values or a particular reference point. We then use this reference point for all subsequent data without fact-checking.

Let’s say you want to buy bottled water and it’s said to be N100, you then see another which is N80, you could be influenced to think that the second bottle of water is probably substandard. But that might not be the case, it might just be that the producers haven’t reviewed their price or that the first one is just overtly expensive.

The thing is in this kind of scenario we don’t fact check to determine the accuracy of our decision or benchmark, we just concluded.

HERD MENTALITY:

This is when we tend to follow or confirm the actions of a larger group. Or when we do something because some influential is doing it.

This happened recently when Elon Musk decided to invest in Cryptocurrency. A lot of people just followed his lead because, in their heads, Elon Musk knows best, so if he does it, then it must be a sound investment decision.

When this happens, we can see that they were mostly not influenced by any independent analysis but by emotions.

REPRESENTATIVE BIAS:

This is something almost everyone is guilty of and it can be related to stereotyping. This is when a judgement is made because of physical characteristics.

For example, in Nigeria, most security operatives believe that if a guy has dreads on, he is involved in a gang or illegal activities. Even most parents have this view of youngsters who carry dreadlocks.

OVERCONFIDENCE BIAS:

This results from our false sense of skill, good judgment, or self-belief. A person who is overconfident tends to have subjective confidence in their ability and thinks it is greater than their actual performance.

For example, a student can choose not to study for a test because he has previous knowledge on the subject and believes he knows it but instead fails due to lack of preparation.

HOW TO OVERCOME COGNITIVE BIAS

1. Examine the accuracy of your reference points thoroughly before deciding. Never take anything at face value

2. Always fact check research you’ve been presented with, even if it is done by a professional. Doing proper due diligence before acting can save a lot of heartaches.

3. Especially for Representative bias, if we are more aware of our tendency to think that way, we can correct them ourselves and make a more accurate judgement.

4. Also, we should always think of the consequence of our decision and exercise caution when making decisions.

#MMBA3 #Lillybeth’scorner