Chapter 1: Understanding Cognitive Bias

Cognitive bias refers to a consistent deviation from rational thought in our judgments. Each person constructs their own "subjective reality" based on their perceptions of the world around them. Consequently, an individual's interpretation of reality—rather than objective facts—often influences their behavior. Because cognitive biases create systematic errors, attempts to average responses through crowd wisdom typically fail to eliminate their effects.

De-biasing, or the process of minimizing biases in judgment and decision-making, can be achieved through various strategies, including incentives, nudges, and training. Two notable approaches for addressing cognitive biases are cognitive bias mitigation and cognitive bias modification. Reference class forecasting, a technique introduced by Daniel Kahneman as the "outside view," offers a structured way to reduce biases in estimates and decisions. As I delve into the complexities of de-biasing, here is a concise list of some prevalent biases worth reflecting on.

• Social Influence: The brain's restricted capacity to process information.
• Social Influence Bias: Changes in an individual's thoughts or behaviors due to the presence or perceived presence of others.
• Somatic Marker Hypothesis: Biases stemming from emotional and moral motivations.
• Source Confusion: Misremembering episodic memories due to mixing them with other information.
• Source Credibility Bias: Rejecting statements based on bias against the speaker or their group.
• Spacing Effect: Information retention improves with spaced exposure rather than crammed study sessions.
• Spotlight Effect: Overestimating how much others notice our actions or appearance.
• Status Quo Bias: A preference for maintaining current conditions, alongside loss aversion and endowment effects.
• Stereotypical Bias: Memory distortion influenced by stereotypes, such as misremembering names based on race.
• Stereotyping: Assumptions about individuals based solely on group membership.
• Subadditivity Effect: Judging the probability of an entire event as lower than the sum of its parts.
• Subjective Validation: Believing something to be true if it aligns with a person's pre-existing beliefs.
• Suffix Effect: A decrease in the recency effect caused by non-recallable items appended to a list.
• Suggestibility: Misattributing suggested ideas as actual memories.
• Sunk-Cost Fallacy: Making decisions based on past investments rather than current circumstances.
• Superiority Bias: Overestimating one's own abilities compared to others.
• Survivorship Bias: Focusing on successful outcomes while ignoring failures, leading to flawed conclusions.
• System Justification: The inclination to defend the status quo, often at the cost of collective interests.
• Telescoping Effect: Misplacing the timing of recent or distant events in memory.
• Testing Effect: Better retention of information through rewriting rather than mere rereading.
• Time-Saving Bias: Misjudging the time impact of speed changes on tasks.
• Tip of the Tongue Phenomenon: The frustration of recalling parts of information while being unable to retrieve the whole.
• Trait Ascription Bias: Viewing oneself as variable while seeing others as more predictable.
• Turanism: A belief in ethnic unity among diverse peoples of Central Asian descent.
• Two Factor Theory: Bias influenced by emotional and moral motivations.
• Ultimate Attribution Error: Attributing the actions of an entire group to individual characteristics.
• Ultracrepidarianism: Judging matters beyond one’s expertise.
• Underestimating Uncertainty: Misjudging one’s control over future events.
• Unit Bias: The desire to complete tasks or items entirely.
• Verbatim Effect: Retaining the essence of statements rather than exact phrasing.
• Von Restorff Effect: Enhanced recall of distinctive items compared to others.
• Well-Travelled Road Effect: Misjudging the time taken on familiar versus unfamiliar routes.
• Wishful Thinking Bias: A tendency to view situations in an overly positive light.
• Worse-Than-Average Effect: Believing oneself to be less capable than others in challenging tasks.
• Zeigarnik Effect: Better recall of unfinished tasks compared to completed ones.
• Zero-Risk Bias: Preferring to eliminate small risks over significantly reducing larger ones.
• Zero-Sum Heuristic: An intuitive perception of situations as zero-sum, where gains and losses are perceived as correlated.

Chapter 2: Strategies for Mitigating Bias

In this chapter, we will explore effective techniques for reducing cognitive biases in decision-making processes.

The first video titled "The Impact of Bias in Critical Thinking" discusses how cognitive biases influence our thought processes and decision-making. It provides insights into recognizing these biases and offers strategies for improving critical thinking skills.

The second video, "CONFIRMATION BIAS - Digital Glossary," explains the concept of confirmation bias and its implications. The video illustrates how this bias can affect our perceptions and decisions, emphasizing the importance of being aware of our cognitive limitations.

This exploration into cognitive biases not only enhances our understanding of human behavior but also equips us with the tools to navigate our subjective realities more effectively.