Listen to This Article Enhance your reading experience by listening to this article.

Cognitive biases are systematic errors in thinking that occurs when people are processing and interpreting information in the world around them and affects the decisions and judgments they make. According to extensive psychology research, humans are similar in behaviour and thought processes. Cognitive biases are our shortcuts to resolving hard decisions. Nailantei Norari explores some of the most common ones

1. Valence effect

This is commonly known as the optimism bias. It is the reason that a bungee jumper or skydiver will believe they can come out of a risky situation.

This is why humans prefer low risk statistics such as ‘there are seven deaths in every 10,000 sky dives’ as they automatically assume they will not be among the seven.

Valence effect is common in all humans, but at varying degrees with some people deeply rooted in the unrealistic realm of high optimism while others have the barest hint of it.

2. Choice supportive bias

Ever seen someone who asks for the price of an item that they already bought just so they can confirm they got it at a bargain?

This is choice supportive bias or post rationalisation bias where someone seeks to justify an action they did after it is done; in this case shopping.

In most cases, the choice made is extolled and viewed in a more positive right to justify it. 

For instance, after discovering that the item earlier purchased was more expensive, one might defend it by saying it was of a higher quality.

3. Cognitive dissonance

This occurs when someone’s attitudes and beliefs are at odds with their behaviour resulting in the dissonance and discomfort. This necessitates a change in either behaviour or attitude.

For instance, when someone who is overly frugal splurges, they can change their attitude towards money and start consistently splurging or justify the splurge as necessary or stretch it and even define it as a frugal expenditure.

4. Selective perception

We perceive things as we think they should be rather than they are. This is best demonstrated by the placebo effect where people get cured when they think they have taken medicine or even get drunk when they think they might have taken alcohol even when the drink in question was non-alcoholic.

5. Gambler’s fallacy

This is basing an outcome in the future on events in the past despite the two being independent.

Gamblers for instance may pick the next roll of the dice to be six based on that the previous throws did not have a six. 

The truth of the matter is that mathematically, a chance of getting a six is still 1/6 despite the fact that it has not appeared in the previous roll.

Parents also exhibit this, for instance when a mother of girls believes that the next birth will be a boy.

Others say they deserve a good thing to happen to them after disaster befalls them.

Unfortunately, the statistical likelihood of a bad or good thing befalling someone is independent of what they are currently going through.

6. Student syndrome

This is the proclivity for procrastination exhibited by all humans much like the student who waits until the last minute to start their homework.

This is why Kenyans will wait till the last minute to queue for say Huduma Number, buy Christmas presents or even buy their children textbooks.

7. Commitment bias

Why do people find it hard to get out of bad investments and instead continue throwing good money after bad?

Why do people stay in bad relationships and justify it with the number of years they have been in the relationship?

This is the illogical way humans justify a bad decision with the commitment of time, money or energy that they have given to someone or an endeavour.

It is commonly referred to as commitment fallacy or sunk cost fallacy.

8. Masters of self- deception

At times, due to the need for self-esteem, people tend to perceive themselves in a more positive light in what is called a self-serving bias.

People will see their successes to be greater than their peers. This is often why when someone is asked to compare themselves with a peer, they automatically pick someone they believe they are superior to instead of someone who is at par or even superior to them.

9. Time is subjective

Telescoping is a cognitive bias that skews time, based on the emotiveness of an occurrence.

More emotive things are remembered as having occurred more recently while less emotive things no matter how recent, are said to have occurred further in the past.

For instance; someone who went through heartbreak or a job loss five years ago might relate it with currency as if it happened a few days ago.

10. Gratification seekers

Hyperbolic discounting effect shows that most humans prefer something small in the short term rather than something larger in the long term.

This is achieved by the mind’s capability of discounting something given the length of time before it is in hand.

Sooner rather than later is the value system ingrained in all humans, especially when it comes to positive outcomes or rewards.