5 Types of Cognitive Bias Video

Have you ever made a decision that you firmly believed to be based on evidence only for it to turn out completely wrong? Your instincts might have been telling you that the decision was the right one. After all, you found data to back it up, but maybe you only considered certain evidence and certain opinions, giving you a skewed view of things.

This is what's known as cognitive bias. It's when we make decisions in an illogical way because of our values, our personal experience, and our relationships. Let's look at five types of cognitive bias and what you can do to avoid them.

Confirmation bias is when you seek out only information that supports your ideas and reject evidence that doesn't. Avoid confirmation bias by developing a clear accountable criteria for decision making. Also, don't allow one person to dominate the decision-making process, and listen to everyone's opinions, even if they don't agree with yours.

Anchoring is the tendency to jump to conclusions. It often happens if you feel pressured to make a quick decision. But even if this is the case, it's never a good idea to cut corners. When making a decision, consider the possible risks and uncertainties involved. A good way to do this is by considering the best-case, worst-case, and most-likely-case outcome of your decision.

Say something enough times and it becomes true, right? You might even begin to like it. Just think about that advert you keep seeing or that song you keep hearing on the radio. This is the Mere Exposure Effect and it's often used to great success by marketers. But no matter how many times you hear a popular opinion repeated, always check the source and look for competing evidence.

The Halo Effect is the tendency to take what someone said as true because you like them and trust them, so they couldn't ever be wrong, could they? On the other hand, if you don't like someone, you might find yourself dismissing their opinions outright without even giving them a chance. This is known as the Horn Effect. Remember to stay objective, no matter your opinion of someone, and always come back to the facts and evidence.

Bandwagon Bias is a form of groupthink. Essentially, it's easier to go along with the most popular opinion in a group, even if we don't completely agree with it. It's also often the reason for things like fads or panic buying. Bandwagon bias is one of the most difficult forms of cognitive bias to overcome. This is because you might feel like you're going against the group if you disagree with something, but it's important that you do still consider and offer different perspectives, because if you don't and choose to dismiss alternative points of view, you could be overlooking something important.

If you want to learn more about cognitive bias as well as discover five other bias traps, read the article   that accompanies this video.