Cognitive Biases

Cognitive biases are systematic errors in thinking that occur in all people. They occur when we process information from the world around us leading to incorrect conclusions. One of the most common examples is confirmation bias which refers to the tendency to search for, interpret, and remember information in a way that confirms one's preexisting beliefs or hypotheses, while disregarding or downplaying information that contradicts those beliefs or hypotheses. It can lead people to form inaccurate judgments and gain confidence to make flawed decisions (Dunning Kruger), as they may only consider information that supports their existing views and ignore important evidence to the contrary.

The best place to start to learn about biases is the Bias Blind Spot (see presentation above), which is the belief that one's self is absent of thought bias. Once understood, you will start to see how the various heuristics, paradoxes or fallacies that make up the human mind exist and are protected by the ego's difficulty in being proven wrong (cognitive dissonance).

Egoic Cognitive Biases

These are cognitive biases which are all based around the egos, cognitive dissonance self protection mechanism.

• Self-serving Bias - the tendency people have to seek out information and use it in ways that advance their self-interest.
• Fundamental attribution error - an individual's tendency to attribute another's actions to their character or personality while attributing their behaviour to external situational factors outside of their control.
• Optimism Bias - the ego doesn't like to think it will fail, therefore you will feel less likely to experience a negative event relative to others.
• Sunk Cost Fallacy - the ego does not like to be proven wrong in its past investments. This fallacy occurs when a person is reluctant to abandon a strategy or course of action because they have invested heavily in it, even when it is clear that abandonment would be more beneficial. This leads to Rosy Retrospection Bias where even when people have failed they overestimate the good aspects of the past.

Energy Frugal Brain Biases

The brain is the most energy hungry organ in our bodies, so to save energy we have evolved shortcuts in our thinking to reduce cognitive load:

• Availability Heuristic - people tend to use the ease with which they can think of examples when making decisions this is often compounded by the survivorship bias which is our tendency to favour learning from winners.
• Status Quo Bias - it is difficult for us to change long held beliefs because of cognitive dissonance.
• Anchoring Effect - the common human tendency to rely too heavily on the first piece of information offered (the “anchor”) when making decisions.

Mathematic Cognitive Biases

A subset of energy frugal brain biases which primarily affect our our mathematical and critical analysis skills include :

• Additive Bias - we may be biased toward adding more things—more resources, more rules, more habits and responsibilities—rather than the opposite.
• The Singularity Effect - we care disproportionately about an individual as compared to a group.
• Present Bias - we are hardwired to choose a smaller gain today than a larger gain tomorrow.

Other Cognitive Biases

• Hindsight Bias - the tendency to think that an event was more obvious or predictable than it really was.
• Halo Effect - people assume a person or thing is good in every way because of one good characteristic.
• Scarcity Effect - makes people more likely to buy something when they think it’s about to run out or be taken away from them.
• Appeal to Pity - someone accused of a crime using a cane or walker to appear more feeble in front of a jury is one example of appeal to pity.
• Bandwagon Fallacy - assumes something is true (or right or good) because others agree with it. In other words, the fallacy argues that if everyone thinks a certain way, then you should, too.

Personal Bias Suppression

Analyzing one's beliefs, preferences, or associations while experiencing personal bias suppression can lead to new perspectives that would take years of in depth psychoanalysis. The suppression of this innate tendency often induces the realization that certain aspects of a person's personality, worldview and culture are not reflective of objective truths about reality, but are in fact subjective or even delusional opinions. This realization often leads to or accompanies deep states of insight and critical introspection which can create significant alterations in a person's perspective that last anywhere from days, weeks, months, or even years after the experience itself. Personal bias suppression is one of the hallmark effects of using psychedelics.

Bias Perception Advantage

Once you can see bias in yourself you will start to see bias in others. Artificial intelligence is doing this already by taking advantage of human heuristics to convince us that AI constructed language is in fact coming from a human. This is because human judgments of AI-generated language are handicapped by intuitive but flawed heuristics such as associating first-person pronouns, authentic words, or family topics with humanity. The latest GPT language algorithms know this and are taking advantage of this fact.

References