Trust me, I’m an unbiased person!
StaHp.
We all have a bias blind-spot of varying degrees and this is our tendency to confidently believe that we are less biased than other people.
Oftentimes, we acknowledge biases that have a social impact. Like, women not getting an equal pay, men who cry are weak, dark skin does not mean beautiful etc. But we forget the unconscious biases that develop through societal conditioning and eventually get reinforced through societal validation.
Let’s try to overlook the commonalities and observe instances that we usually fail to see. I’ll try explaining it with a short story.
Ronald is a 21-year old undergraduate student who spent most of his time in the library, reading the success stories of some self-made millionaires. Being influenced by such stories, he believed that he knows the ‘Secret Sauce of Success’. He gave more weight to the fact that most of his favourite entrepreneurs graduated from the same school. Sometimes, he even idol-worshipped his role-models though some lacked business ethics, which he clearly didn’t see.
Knowing his entrepreneurial obsession, his friend Dan offered him tickets for two conferences that was going to happen on the same day and time. Conference A had Mr Alex as the Guest Speaker who owns five billion dollar companies as a result of Nepotism and his conference would offer free food and drinks to all the attendees. The other conference B had Mr David who owns a multi-million dollar company as the Guest Speaker. He’s someone who didn’t find his way up the ladder so easily. He’s a true inspiration for all the budding entrepreneurs and his committee did not offer any freebies. Of course, Ronald chose to attend Alex’s conference.
I’m sure most of you must be wondering, “Who the hell is Ronald? Why do I have to give a rat’s ass about his choices? What’s the point here?”
My response to you is, keep reading until it all makes sense.
- “What-I-see-is-what-it-is” Bias.
One common belief among Millennials is their inclination towards reading ‘success stories’ of famous entrepreneurs. They focus more on how someone survived and succeeded rather than understanding what are the things that did not work for them in the process of becoming successful. This cognitive bias is called Survivorship Bias which occurs when someone tries to make a decision based on past successes, while ignoring past failures.
My personal favourite example (a brilliant deduction by Abraham Wald during WWII) of this bias is explained in the book ‘You Are Not So Smart’ by David McRaney which is referenced in the article: Survivorship Bias. Also, if you are a fan of ‘Mathematical Thinking’, you can watch this video on How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking where Jordan Ellenberg narrates the same instance in his lecture.
2. “Excuse-me, I-know-it-all” Bias.
Oftentimes, we claim to know the outcome of something only after the event has occurred. A nail-biting cricket match where our favourite team has a slim of chance of winning is a good example. Though we want our favourite team to win, we do not announce our opinion publicly if we are aware that our opponent’s team has world-class players. And just when the opponent misses the Title by a whisker, will we proudly say, ‘I knew we would win’.
This bias is called Hindsight Bias or Creeping Determinism where people believe they predicted the outcome of a recent event, despite having no objective proof to support this claim.
“The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it.” — Francis Bacon
3. “Well, Isn’t-that-obvious?” Bias
Lucy, a 30-year old woman feels that her lucky colour is green. So every time she visits a lottery place to purchase lottery tickets she makes sure she wears green. After 2 years of failed attempts, she finally wins a $10,000 lottery twice in a month. The first thing she attributes her winning streak is to her beautiful green attires.
We tend to favour any information that complements our point of view and reject alternatives. We also make an effort to look for such pieces of evidence and give great importance to it. This cognitive bias is called Confirmation Bias. You can check out the video Can you Solve this? to understand how this bias is deeply rooted in our minds.
4. “It’s-either-black-or-white-no-in-between” Bias.
Steve Jobs is one of the most recognised names of the 21st-century business world. Many people I know consider him their role-model because he’s neither an engineer nor a designer yet he became one of the greatest influencers in the tech world. He was a great explainer of technology–a charismatic, plainspoken salesman who was able to bend those around him into a “reality distortion field.” That being said, Jobs was also an unbelievable jerk.
Here, most of us fail to see the other side only because liking a certain aspect about someone/something makes us view every other thing in a positive light. Likewise, disliking a certain aspect of something predisposes us to think negatively about every other thing related to it. This makes us fall prey to the bias where we determine specific personality traits of someone by generalising their overall impression which is called the Halo Effect.
5. “First-impression-is-the-best-impression” Bias.
Oftentimes we base our future judgements based on the initial piece of information we receive. In supermarkets, banners that display crazy discounts on products of not-so-good quality grab our attention quickly compared to the products of high quality and high price, belonging to the same category.
This cognitive bias which describes the common human tendency to rely too heavily on the first piece of information offered (the “anchor”) when making decisions is called Focalism or Anchoring. This form of ‘inattentional blindness’ would make us overlook the actual value, and compromise on the quality.
“We yearn to make an uncertain world more certain, to gain control over things that we do not control, to predict the unpredictable.” — Gary Smith
Now, what if I told you, as much as we think we are rational beings is how much we are Predictably Irrational? (Waddup book reference!) Sometimes we make logical decisions, but there are many times when we make emotional, irrational, and confusing choices.
Hence it’s important for us to be aware of some of the most common mental errors that affect our decision-making process. Be it professional or personal decisions, it’s important for us to start with a clean slate, challenge the status quo, seek multiple perspectives, search for more information and play the devil’s advocate before believing a decision to be a valid one.
Keep in mind that we cannot escape these biases but if we are aware of them and challenge them, we can become stronger critical thinkers and better decision makers.
Quick activity: Now let’s take Ronald’s story and try to guess the different cognitive biases he holds. Let us know what you think right in the comments section. :)
