The New York Times published a great, short article, complete with quiz, about confirmation bias. Confirmation bias is our innate preference to have our expectations, prejudices and assumptions confirmed. We can pay attention to confirming evidence and ignore contradicting evidence. The article measures this bias with a short quiz and argues that, when making a decision or solving a problem based on certain assumptions, we should try harder to disconfirm those assumptions to help avoid making big mistakes. Reminds me of the idea of pre-mortems to identify how things could go catastrophically wrong before making a major decision.

Bias Among Us: How to Influence Others & Ourselves

A bias is an unconscious, natural and immediate prejudice or tendency to a particular action. Bias-driven decisions may or may not be consistent with that which may result from a more deliberative or thoughtful process. Biases can be harmful: think of prejudices in employment, housing and education. They can be helpful…

September 29, 2015

In "Behavioral Economics"

Will ‘Decisive’ Make You A Better Decision Maker?

"Do you know what you want?" Those six, dreaded words haunt my otherwise happy memory of a meal my friends and I enjoyed to celebrate graduating from university. It seemed such an important occasion: I wanted to get my menu selection exactly right. You can imagine the groans around the table after…

August 31, 2018

In "Decisions"

[Cognitive Biases: Flaw or Feature?](/content/cognitive-biases-flaw-or-feature/ "Cognitive Biases: Flaw or Feature?"/index.html)

Cognitive Biases: Flaw or Feature?

Cognitive biases, prejudices and short-cuts, are bad, right? Anything that gets in the way of making rational decisions necessarily reduces our welfare. Our natural inclination towards the current moment, aversion to loss, inattention and procrastination leads many of us to under-save for retirement, with potentially disastrous consequences for ourselves and…

October 2, 2015

In "Behavioral Economics"