10. What Are Cognitive Biases?
By now, you have a solid understanding of heuristics, including:
- the different types;
- their underlying mechanisms;
- their advantages and disadvantages;
- how to recognize and apply them.
Now, let’s talk about a related but distinct concept: cognitive biases.
Cognitive biases are systematic patterns in how we perceive our environment and make decisions.
What Is the Difference Between a Heuristic and a Bias?
Heuristics and biases are often lumped together and sometimes used interchangeably. However, one could argue that there is a distinction between them, though it is subtle.
- A heuristic is a cognitive mechanism to select, filter, and process information in order to quickly reach an outcome (decision, behaviour).
- A cognitive bias, on the other hand, is a specific tendency to select, filter, or process information in a certain way.
Cognitive bias examples can include:
- Confirmation bias — the tendency to select information that aligns with one’s beliefs and expectations and ignore information that doesn’t align with them.
- Status quo bias — the tendency to favour outcomes that preserve the current state of affairs over outcomes that lead to change.
Importantly, cognitive biases can be present in heuristic reasoning as well as in effortful / systematic reasoning.
Example: University
Your first semester at university was rough. You took five classes in five different disciplines and worked part-time on top of that. You also have ADHD. You did not put a lot of time or effort into your coursework and ended up with low grades. You thought your professors did not care about your circumstances or learning.
It’s the start of the new semester. Just by attending class for the first time, you see it’s going to be the same thing all over again: the prof seems stern and disinterested, and that crowded slide they are droning over – which outlines all the coursework coming up – is so intimidating; it will be impossible to complete. You are just going to go with minimal effort as before and hope to pass.
What is going on in this scenario?
Can you see confirmation bias (in what you pay attention to) as well as status quo bias (in the preference to continue with the same behaviour)?
Can you also see heuristic processing? Representativeness heuristic (in categorizing the professor) as well as availability heuristic (in basing decisions on the memory of the past semester)?
