Cognitive Biases: Their Role in Decision-Making and Strategies of Persuasion and Defense - Part 3

As we had the opportunity to share, Cognitive biases are mental shortcuts that shape our decisions, often unconsciously. They can streamline our thinking but also lead to significant errors in judgment. Let's keep exploring 50+ common cognitive biases, how they influence decision-making, and effective strategies for persuasion and defense. Understanding these biases is essential in personal, professional, and social settings.

Let's focus in this article on Memory Biases.

3. MEMORY BIASES

Memory biases stem from the way our memories are stored and retrieved. They often cause distorted recall of events.

• Hindsight Bias – Believing that we "knew it all along" after an event occurs.
• Availability Heuristic – Overestimating the importance of information that comes easily to mind, which is often a result of recent or emotionally charged memories.
• Recency Bias – Giving undue weight to more recent events when recalling past experiences.
• Survivorship Bias – Focusing on the successes while ignoring failures, often due to selective memory.

Memory biases are based on how our brain encodes, stores, and retrieves information. These biases often affect our recollection of past events, causing selective or distorted memories.

Let’s analyse each on them individually.

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3.1.?? Hindsight Bias

Believing an outcome was predictable after it has happened.

• Example of Persuasion: Framing successful strategies as obvious in hindsight to build credibility and trust.
• Defensive Strategy: Keep records of decision-making to remind yourself of the uncertainty that existed beforehand.

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3.2.?? Availability Heuristic

Judging the likelihood of an event based on how easily examples come to mind.

• Example of Persuasion: Using recent, vivid examples to make a problem seem more common than it is.
• Defensive Strategy: Rely on statistical data rather than isolated examples.

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3.3.?? Recency Bias

Giving more weight to recent events or information over older data.

• Example of Persuasion: Highlighting recent successes in marketing to convince customers that a product or service is consistently reliable.
• Defensive Strategy: Consider the full range of data, not just the most recent, to make more balanced decisions.

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3.4.?? Survivorship Bias

Focusing on successful entities while overlooking failures, which can lead to false conclusions.

• Example of Persuasion: Highlighting successful entrepreneurs without mentioning those who failed, implying that success is more common than it is.
• Defensive Strategy: Analyze both successes and failures to get a balanced understanding.

Stay tuned for Part 4 ...