Bias is Poison for Decision Making: Which Ones Are Hurting You?

A cognitive bias can be likened as a “systematic error” or a systematic pattern of deviation from norm or rationality that happens during the thinking process.

Some cognitive biases are actually good for us as they can help speed up an action or process but many lead to perceptual distortion, inaccurate judgment or what is broadly called?irrationality.

Thus, we need to become aware of the biases that we unknowingly apply in our thought processes and in particular during our decision making processes.

I did some research on this and in the context of career, work, team and leadership development, transformation and innovation, I would like to share a longer lists of the biases that we often see.

The inspiration or the wording on these biases come from several articles. See links at the end of this post. They are quite good to look into if you want to work on your biases and your decision making process.

Here we go!?

But first… Once you have studied the list, you can start thinking of the one or two that hits you the most and then reflect on what you need to do differently in this context.

Conformity bias:

One of the largest hindrances to creativity is conformity bias, which is when you make a decision based on what the majority decides

Availability bias:

Availability bias is based on the first information that's readily available in your memory.

The IKEA effect:

Placing too much value on the things we’ve done ourselves, often while discounting other people’s smart ideas or good work.

The Dunning-Kruger Effect:

Experts are often aware of what they don’t know and (hopefully) engage their intellectual honesty and humility in this fashion. In this sense, the more you know, the less confident you're likely to be – not out of lacking knowledge, but due to caution. On the other hand, if you know only a little about something, you see it simplistically – biasing you to believe that the concept is easier to comprehend than it may actually be.

Overconfidence Bias:

Individuals overestimate or have excessive confidence in their ability to predict or foresee future events. This will cause the decision maker to unsupported or risky decisions.

Hindsight Bias:

This is the tendency of individuals to see past mistakes or occurrences as obvious. After the event has occurred, individuals believe that they did or should have seen it coming. This is important when evaluating others decisions.

Framing Bias:

Framing bias is an individuals response to how a situation or decision is presented. This can lead to individuals being deceived or manipulated by third parties.

Selective Perception:

This is the tendency to see a particular situation or issue from a chosen perspective. This is related to the team-based mentality. We see all situations or issues through a common lens that influences our ability to understand alternative or conflicting points of view or alternatives.

Optimism/Pessimism?Bias:

We have a tendency to overestimate the likelihood of positive outcomes, particularly if we are in good humour, and to overestimate the likelihood of negative outcomes if we are feeling down or have a pessimistic attitude.

In-Group Bias:

As we have seen through consideration of the Self-Serving Bias and the Fundamental Attribution Error, we have a tendency to be relatively kind when making judgments about ourselves. Simply, In-Group Bias refers to the unfair favouring of someone from one’s own group.

The Sunk Cost Fallacy:

A sunk cost refers to something lost that cannot be recovered. Yet, we keep trying to regain because of aversion towards losing.

Authority bias:

This happens if you favor your authority figures' input over others, despite there being information and opinions that are more sound and relevant to the problem you're attempting to solve.

Similarity Bias:

We prefer what is like us over what is different.

Expedience Bias:?

We prefer to act quickly rather than take time.

Distance Bias:

We prefer what’s closer over what’s farther away.

Safety Bias?

We protect against loss more than we seek out gain.

Survivorship bias:

Paying too much attention to successes, while glossing over failures.

Anchoring bias:

Being overly influenced by the first piece of information we receive. This is related to “availability heuristic” which is about placing more value on the first idea that comes into your head.

Ambiguity Effect:

We tend to favor a choice with a known outcome, rather than “take a chance” on a choice with unknown probabilities.

Overconfidence bias:

The overconfidence bias may occur if you're too confident in your intelligence, assumptions or ideas, frequently without the knowledge or experience to prove why your confidence is so high.

It can also be thinking your contribution is more important than it is.

Self-serving bias:

A self-serving bias is one that promotes your self-esteem and helps you feel better about the position you're in to make a decision.?

Planning fallacy:

Underestimating the time it will take us to finish a task.

Progress bias:

Overstating positive actions while downplaying negative ones.

Confirmation bias:

Placing more value on information that supports our existing beliefs.

Availability Bias:

Availability bias is a focus on immediate information or situations that come to ones mind. The result is that we tend to believe the information or experience that we recall or demonstrative or explicative of a situation or scenario.

Representation Bias:

This is the tendency to believe a situation is indicative of a greater tendency. That is, it is related to stereotyping.

Check out these articles to read more about the many different kinds of biases and more importantly how we can address this.

Types of Decision-Making Biases (And How To Recognize Bias)

The 5 Biggest Biases That Affect Decision-Making

Wikipedia on Cognitive Bias (including the Cognitive Bias Codex)

Cognitive Biases and Errors in Decision Making - Explained