Wikipedia, Slashing Tires, and the Truth About Wall Decor
The other week, I went to IKEA, (you know, where dreams and time go to die?)and I had my college dorm list: bean bag chair, desk organizer, curtains, and something called a dombas, which evidently is a wardrobe. I hadn't been there more than 20 minutes before I wanted to scream. While my mom suggested we leave and order online, I insisted we stay. I felt trapped there, and not just because the place is a confusing labyrinth of doom and wall decor. I had already driven all the way out there, found two items on my list, and cried over swedish meatballs. This was all courtesy of my cognitive bias. Specifically, a cognitive bias called the sunk cost fallacy. When we invest time, emotion, and money into something, it becomes painful to let it go. Cognitive bias is so strong, it distorts proper judgement and can cause us to make unwise choices. Like staying in IKEA for four hours. Cognitive bias influences almost every decision we make, and most of us aren't even aware of it. It's time we learn a little bit more about the man behind the curtains, specifically the blue/grey Ikea panel curtains. So today, we will visit the history behind cognitive bias, then we will discuss its influence, and finally we will talk about the advantages and disadvantages of this mental mistake.
When I say 'mental mistake' I'm not talking about trying to read the swedish instructions on my new coffee table. Cognitive bias is a mistake in reasoning, evaluating, remembering, or other cognitive processes. This happens as a result of holding on to one's preferences and beliefs regardless of contrary information. But cognitive bias isn't just stubborn prejudice. No, it's far more advanced than our politicians. According to School of Thought, a non-profit dedicated to spreading critical thinking, cognitive bias is closer to human instinct. The notion of cognitive bias was first explored in 1972 by Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman. The two psychologists were comparing people's judgements and decision making to rational choice theory. What they found: we don't always make the rational decision, even if we know what it is. (Point) Like that outfit choice. In 1998, social psychology researchers Anthony Greenwald and Mahzarin Banaji published a test that measures cognitive or implicit bias called the Implicit-Associations Test, or IAT. In 2011 Harvard University launched Project Implicit, which is when the IAT became easily accessible. In fact, it's possible you've taken it. It's that test that you can't win and you always leave feeling a little more racist or sexist. It might not feel good to recognize our cognitive bias, but it's an incredible tool to unlock how we truly make decisions.
So you might be thinking, 'oh my god, what mistakes have I made because of cognitive bias? How has my life been changed by this? Who closes the bus door after the bus driver gets off? Science Today, Business Insider, and Psychology Today all point to Wikipedia's list of cognitive biases as the most accurate. Finally, way to go Wikipedia! But no, I still won't donate $3. This list says there are around 185 types. You probably know some of them, such as the placebo effect and (if you're a Cubs fan) the bandwagon effect, groupthink, bystander effect, optimism and pessimism. But there are many others controlling our judgements and decisions. Like the anchoring effect: the first thing we judge influences our judgement of everything that follows. You all made a judgement when I walked in here whether or not I was in the top three, AND, because I said top three, you will now link me with the top three, and that influences your judgment too (wink at judge) Thanks association effect! Oh but please, don't pay any mind to reactance bias, which says we'd rather do the opposite of what people tell us. Every piece of information that enters our brain is affected by all of these 185 biases before it means something to us. It shapes how we view events, actions, groups, ourselves, causes, and other people. I mean socially, we are ruled by cognitive bias; after we see people's race, gender, sexuality, social class, and economic background, our bias compares them us, to our friends, to our role models and enemies. Have you ever met someone with the same name as your ex-boyfriend? That feeling, that why do I want slash your tires feeling, is a combination of salience effect, stereotyping, negativity bias, and many more. These biases control more than our social life; it drives entire industries. A 2016 Forbes Magazine article says cognitive bias is a main driver behind marketing. When you visit a shopping site once and suddenly their ads pop up everywhere is a strategy based off of in-group favoritism, or the tendency for people to prioritize products that are popular with a group or idea they've already aligned themselves with. From our daily interactions to the things that pop up in the corner of our laptops, cognitive bias is everywhere. Which is why I keep thinking, maybe IKEA won't suck out my soul this time.
So if cognitive bias is everywhere, is it good or bad? Well, both. One disadvantage of cognitive bias is that we rarely recognize it. We screen and test juries for prejudice, but no matter what every member of a jury is inherently bias, which could lead to wrong convictions or unfair sentences. The failure to realize our bias can also be a problem in politics. Many types of cognitive bias suggest we hold tighter to our core values the more they are challenged. In the current political climate, this means less constructive debate, and more stubborn angry people. Another disadvantage is that biases can encourage prejudice. When a white male CEO promotes another white male over a woman or person of color, it could be because of a something called in-group bias: we all unfairly favor those who belong to our group. While the CEO might not be racist or sexist, this decision still enhances a society stacked against minorities. While these kinds of biases keep us from making proper judgements, cognitive bias can do good as well. They can trick us into finding the positive in any situation, which genuinely improves our lives. German economist Peter Schanbacher wrote after his 2018 study, that overconfidence bias and optimism bias helped subjects guess the answers to questions they didn't know. This 'fake it or make it' approach, by the way, also landed me two jobs, a date, and a very sincere 'nice try' from my school's diving coach. Another advantage of cognitive bias is that oftentimes, rational thinking is not the answer. Gerd Gigerenzer, Director of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Germany, said those who predicted the financial crisis of 2007 and 2008 were only able to do so because they paid attention to irrational factors, whereas the many experts who used sophisticated models and estimations were sure the crisis was statistically impossible. Gigerenzer says in situations of uncertainty, which is typically the reality we face, cognitive biases tend to be more robust than logic and statistics. Basically, our world is messy and unorganized, and so are we. Sometimes, that's precisely why it works.
So today, we visited the history behind cognitive bias, then we discussed its influence, and finally we talked about the pros and cons of the mental mistake. Marketers, politicians, law, friends, those dog commercials that play 'In the Arms of an Angel;' everyone is starting to recognize the power of cognitive bias. Me personally, I'm just thankful for the spotlight effect: when we overestimate how much people notice how we look and act. Because I was really hoping no one noticed when I grabbed a knife from cutlery and forced an IKEA employee to show me the exit. By definition, cognitive bias is a mistake, a failure of the brain. But at the end of the day, for better or for worse, it's the very thing that makes us human.
