Question

How do cognitive biases influence your decisions? This could cover your choice in vehicles, people you interact with, where you will or will not go alone, and so forth. Address the behavior, the cognitive bias, and how you may be making an inaccurate choice.

Answer 1

A cognitive bias is a systematic pattern of deviation from norm or rationality in judgment. Individuals create their own "subjective reality" from their perception of the input. An individual's construction of reality, not the objective input, may dictate their behavior in the world. Thus, cognitive biases may sometimes lead to perceptual distortion, inaccurate judgment, illogical interpretation, or what is broadly called irrationality.

Some instances of Irrationality:

1) Sometimes, we get influenced by what someone else has said to create preconceived idea which need not always be correct.

2) We might have the tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions. In addition, individuals may discredit information that does not support their views. The confirmation bias is related to the concept of cognitive dissonance, in that individuals may reduce inconsistency by searching for information which has re-confirms their views.

3) To be biased toward people like ourselves which again would sometimes be a disadvantage for us.

4) When we evaluate our logical strength of an argument is not based on the facts but on our belief that something is true which might lead to the falsity in the conclusion.

5) Using a too-narrow approach and description of the situation or issue which again would lead us to trouble.