COGNITIVE BIAS. 10th March 2020
A lot of these words were written by David Wallace-Wells, but edited and slightly rephrased and added to
by myself. Why have I written this amalgamation? Because Counselling is about change
through self-reflection. To do that
we have to be totally honest and look deep within ourselves. We need to be
prepared to be uncomfortable and shocked and upset. We need to feel the emotion, but also think clearly
beyond the emotion.
Often it seems that we cannot see anything except through bias
and the clouded lens of self-deception which distorts and distends our
perception. This might apply to being in denial, believing only what we want to
believe, or through being in the entrenched and distorted thinking of specific
groups of people. Human reason is curiously effective at some things and maddeningly
incompetent at others. How did we ever put a man on the moon?
I have often thought that as a species we are incredibly
dangerous. Many of us are only clever enough to operate within the technological
world that the really clever people have created, but without the necessary
wisdom and maturity. Some of us cannot even do that. Sadly too many of the really clever people do
not have the intelligence to create and innovate with the necessary wisdom and
maturity either. And our politicians seem generally clever but unintelligent so
mismanage most things. I use the differentiation between clever and intelligent
that Eckhart Tolle uses when he says that being clever without using the
accompanying intelligence is like being asleep.
So, here are some distorted ways in which many ‘think.’
Anchoring which
explains how we build mental models around as few as one or two initial
examples no matter how unrepresentative, thus avoiding the big picture and the
whole truth.
The Ambiguity effect
which suggests people are so uncomfortable contemplating uncertainty that they
will accept lesser outcomes in a bargain to avoid dealing with the uncertainty.
Anthropocentric
thinking by which we build our view of the universe outwards based on our
own experience. Our experience is the only truth.
Automation bias
which describes a preference for algorithmic decision making, and applies to
our deference to market forces as a perpetual force.
Bystander effect is
our tendency to wait for others to act rather than acting ourselves.
Confirmation bias
by which we seek evidence for what we already believe to be true rather than face
the pain of seeing reality.
Default effect is
the tendency to choose the present option over alternatives keeping the status
quo however bad things really are.
Endowment effect is
the instinct to demand more rather than give up something we have that we
value.
Illusion of Control is
suffering from overconfidence and optimism bias.
Pessimism bias
does not compensate for optimism bias,
instead it pushes us to see challenges as predetermined defeats and to hear
alarm as cries of fatalism.
The opposite of
cognitive bias is not clear thinking but another cognitive bias.
