Cognitive biases

Cognitive biases

A cognitive bias is a systematic error in thinking that occurs when people are processing and interpreting information in the world around them. They are predictable patterns of thought and behaviour leading to incorrect conclusions.

Cognitive biases persist in society as they are self-reinforcing. Via a combination of the Dunning Kruger effect and the Confirmation Bias, biases compound on top of one another making rationality more and more difficult. Below is a list of the most prevalent cognitive biases in society ranked on their importance:

1. Self-serving Bias - the tendency people have to seek out information and use it in ways that advance their self-interest.
2. Fundamental attribution error - an individual's tendency to attribute another's actions to their character or personality, while attributing their behavior to external situational factors outside of their control.
3. Optimism Bias - a computer cannot tell you whether it will rain or not, only the probability of it occurring.
4. Additive Bias - we may be biased toward adding more things—more resources, more rules, more habits and responsibilities—rather than the opposite.
5. Rosy Retrospection Bias - people overestimate the good aspects of the past.
6. Sunk Cost Fallacy - whereby 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.
7. The Diderot Effect - we generally surround ourselves with objects that fit our current sense of identity.
8. The Singularity Effect - we care disproportionately about an individual as compared to a group.
9. Availability Heuristic - people tend to use the ease with which they can think of examples when making decisions.
10. Anchoring Effect - the common human tendency to rely too heavily on the first piece of information offered (the “anchor”) when making decisions.
11. Hindsight Bias - the tendency to think that an event was more obvious or predictable than it really was.
12. Halo Effect - people assume a person or thing is good in every way because of one good characteristic.
13. Scarcity Effect - makes people more likely to buy something when they think it’s about to run out or be taken away from them.
14. 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.
15. 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, world view 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