Cognitive bias
Cognitive bias
Cognitive bias (pronunciation: /ˈkɒgnɪtɪv ˈbaɪəs/) is a systematic error in thinking that affects the decisions and judgments that people make.
Etymology
The term "cognitive bias" is derived from the field of Cognitive Psychology, where "cognitive" refers to mental processes like perception, memory, and reasoning, and "bias" refers to a deviation from a standard or norm.
Definition
A cognitive bias is a type of error in thinking that occurs when people are processing and interpreting information in the world around them. It is a phenomenon studied in cognitive science and social psychology which aims to explain the instances in which human judgments and decisions deviate from rationality and objectivity.
Types of Cognitive Biases
There are several types of cognitive biases, including:
- Confirmation bias: The tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms one's preexisting beliefs or hypotheses.
- Hindsight bias: The inclination to see events that have already occurred as being more predictable than they were before they took place.
- Anchoring bias: The tendency to rely too heavily on the first piece of information encountered (the "anchor") when making decisions.
- Availability heuristic: The mental shortcut that relies on immediate examples that come to mind.
Related Terms
- Heuristics: Simple, efficient rules, learned or hard-coded by evolutionary processes, that have been proposed to explain how people make decisions, come to judgments, and solve problems, typically when facing complex problems or incomplete information.
- Cognitive dissonance: The mental discomfort experienced by a person who holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values.
See Also
External links
- Medical encyclopedia article on Cognitive bias
- Wikipedia's article - Cognitive bias
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