Cognitive biases in decision-making
Wow. Who knew there were so many cognitive biases?. This article summarises them nicely.
Cognitive biases are tendencies to think in a certain way.
Raises lots of questions about working with groups, don’t you think?
Endlessly fascinating (just like anything to do with people 🙂
David McRaney writes on cognitive biases and heuristics in an extremely entertaining way, while paying close attention and respect to the science. His ‘You are not so smart’ podcast (http://youarenotsosmart.com/) is full of lovely, well-told stories. And he has a book by the same name.
The existence of cognitive biases does raise lots of questions about working with groups. Also raises questions for me about my own biases and heuristics as the facilitator – how can I be aware of them when they are so ingrained? If I can’t be aware of them consciously, can I compensate or correct for them? Or should I not even try?
Stuart x
Hi Stuart, I think you have captured my dilemma. It’s one thing to be aware of the biases of others, what’s more scary are our own. I’ll have to check out David McRaney’s work – thanks. My only idea for dealing with any cognitive biases is honesty – declaring that I have no idea what’s going on (which seems to be a lot of the time!)