Examining Assumptions: Seeing Cognitive Bias Everywhere
In business, we have an unfortunate tendency to make generalizations. I know I’m guilty of this too. To combat this, I’ve made an informal rule with my team: If you’re going to make a generalization, back it up with data. The point isn’t that the generalization is automatically bad or false; rather, it’s important for us to examine the generalizations and assumptions we make, because not everyone shares the same assumptions.
I recently came across a blog post by Buster Benson that addresses the issue I’m talking about: cognitive bias. Benson does a great job going into pretty significant detail on cognitive bias; I’m going to summarize a lot of what he says in his post and interject my own thoughts throughout.
Why We Have Cognitive Bias
Our brains have to do the work of keeping us alive and allowing us to function in the world. Sometimes the brain takes shortcuts to get to the conclusions it reaches. Sometimes this is fine; sometimes it’s not. There are four basic reasons, according to Benson, that our brains do this.
Information Overload
Our brains have to sort through a lot of stimuli and information in order to make sense of the world and, with the advent of the internet, social media and the 24-hour news cycle, that’s gotten worse, not better. So, in order to sift through all this information, not all of which is relevant, the brain makes assumptions. It notices things that it expects to notice. It takes particular notice of things that are surprising or unexpected. And, most troubling, our brains tend to be drawn to details that reinforce beliefs we already have. Don’t believe me? Check out this selective attention test; it’s one of my favorite examples of this phenomenon in action.
Looking for Meaning
We naturally look for meaning in our world, even when there isn’t any, or when something has a different meaning from what we expect it to. When we’re provided with a couple of data points, we naturally draw connections between them. We draw from past experiences and apply that information to our present experience, even when it’s not relevant. We assume we know what other people are thinking or that we know their reasons for doing things, even though we’re working with only the information we’re privy to.
This is how superstitions arise. Baseball players are famous for the little rituals and superstitions they engage in. Wade Boggs, for example, used to eat chicken before every game, and before each at-bat, he’d draw the Hebrew symbol for “life” in the dirt of the batter’s box. He probably got started on these superstitions after doing it once and seeing a positive result. The result probably didn’t have anything to do with eating chicken or drawing a symbol, but his mind created the connection anyway.
Act Now!
Wayne Gretzky, one of the greatest ice hockey players of all time, used to say, “Skate to where the puck is going.” Athletes often have to process information at rapid speeds in order to make the adjustments required to perform the amazing feats they’re capable of.
This happens in business too: We have a limited amount of time in which to make a decision, so we make the call. In order to do this, we have to be confident, and we have to feel like we can make a difference. We also tend to be more motivated to act on things we’ve already invested time in; this is why you see teams pursuing projects that are way over budget and way past deadline, despite the fact that it might be better for the company to switch gears and try something else. We also tend to lean toward simple-seeming decisions rather than more complex or ambiguous ones. It’s how we skate to where the puck is going.
Selective Memory
When I’m checking out in the supermarket, I try hard not to read the celebrity gossip magazines. But these magazines are a textbook example of articles that result from, and reinforce, selective memory. We read that “Brangelina” are breaking up because Brad Pitt is a bad father. Whether or not this is true, we remember it. It seems like a salient detail, so it sticks. It’s also a generality; we’re not going to remember all of the details of a messy celebrity divorce, but we will remember a few sound bite-style statements. We’re seeing this in politics more and more too, especially in the current election cycle. Clinton is a “liar.” Trump is a “tax evader.” Whether or not these claims are substantiated is beside the point; we remember and repeat them, and we do so even more when they reinforce beliefs we already have.
In Short
To quote Benson directly:
- Information overload sucks, so we aggressively filter. Noise becomes signal.
- Lack of meaning is confusing, so we fill in the gaps. Signal becomes a story.
- Need to act fast lest we lose our chance, so we jump to conclusions. Stories become decisions.
- This isn’t getting easier, so we try to remember the important bits. Decisions inform our mental models of the world.
What Do We Do About It?
Cognitive bias exists for a reason. It keeps us alive, allows us to function in an information-rich environment and helps us make quick decisions. But it’s important to be aware of your own biases. It’s important to recognize that you don’t see everything, your decisions might be flawed, and your memory might be reinforcing faulty assumptions.
We’re always going to deal with cognitive bias because, as humans, we’re simply not capable of processing the world as it is, in its entirety. We make assumptions, we have prejudices, we misremember, we miss details. But being aware of our tendency to do those things can help us develop the habit of examining our cognitive biases in the moment and maybe making better decisions based on that examination.
What kinds of cognitive biases have you overcome in the past? What tools do you use to examine them?
