Mapping The Mind
To date, scientists have identified about 180 cognitive biases[1] that influence our decision-making. This large and growing number of biases is increasingly detailed, highly specific, and sometimes confusing. While each bias tells us something valuable about the choices we make, they tend to be quite disconnected from each other.
For example, there is the IKEA effect[2], which says that consumers value a product more if they partially created it themselves. Or the rhyme-as-reason effect[3], which suggests that we believe statements are more truthful if they rhyme.
There are many articles and websites dedicated to listing all the various biases we have and providing fun and engaging examples. We might read something that resonates with us and feel a brief sense of recognition. But usually, we do not change our decision-making or reflect on our choices beyond these fleeting moments of recognition.
The goal of our cognitive assessment tools is to change that. But to make cognitive science more useful to individuals, it first needs to be more understandable. To that end, one of our ongoing projects at CausalCampus is to map the mind. Rather than providing you with a list of disconnected biases you might have, we provide you with your own unique behavioral map. This map identifies your personal bias level in six broad categories that reflect not specific biases but underlying decision-making patterns. Each of these decision-making patterns can show up in a number of specific biases, but more than that, they explain a way of thinking that likely shows up in many areas of your life.
A categorization like this is, of course, imperfect. There will always be biases that are not captured by any of our categories or that do not neatly fit into just one. Despite that, we believe there is value in trying to make behavioral science more useful for individuals. Existing categorizations tend to focus on the perspective of the researcher, while we focus on the perspective of the individual. Therefore, we continuously work on improving our methodology and revising our categories.
1. Loss Aversion
Loss aversion is our tendency to feel losses more strongly than gains.[4] There are many examples of this tendency influencing our choices in daily life. For example, we tend to find it easier to spend money via a card than with cash because we feel the loss more strongly in the latter scenario. This is called the cashless effect.[5] More generally, we often choose options that minimize the potential for regret in the future[6] or avoid risky decisions that have the potential to lead to a loss, even if a gain is more likely.
A version of this tendency is also used by companies that offer “buy now, pay later” services.[7] By moving the loss of money further into the future, we can avoid having to deal with it in the present moment and are more likely to say yes to a purchase we otherwise wouldn’t have made.
2. Optimism Bias
As the name suggests, the optimism bias is our tendency to view the world more optimistically than it really is. This can show up in many different ways. For example, we likely underestimate how long a project will take and how many obstacles we will face, leading to missed deadlines. This is called the planning fallacy.[8] Or we display the Ostrich effect, avoiding negative information or feedback to maintain a positive image of the world and ourselves.[9]
Interestingly, while the majority of us display at least some degree of the optimism bias, a minority actually displays the opposite – the pessimism bias – overestimating the likelihood of negative events and underestimating the likelihood of positive events.[10]
The optimism bias is frequently used in advertising by creating the illusion that the positive future shown in an ad could be yours—if only you bought the product.
3. Egocentrism
Egocentrism and the optimism bias are closely related but slightly different. Egocentrism is our tendency to view the world from our own point of view and to see ourselves in a more positive light than others. This leads to many cognitive biases in our decision-making, such as the self-serving bias. This bias suggests that we tend to blame external circumstances for our failures while taking excessive personal credit for our successes[11]. Another example is the spotlight effect, which suggests that we overestimate how much attention other people pay to us.[12]
One domain where the self-serving bias plays an important role is politics and redistribution. Even though success is usually based on a combination of effort and luck, the self-serving bias can lead successful people to underestimate the role that luck played in their success, making them less inclined to share their success with others, such as through redistribution.[13]
Another domain where egocentric biases are used is, again, marketing. Companies like to play on these biases by referring to consumers’ special skills, knowledge, or experience related to their product to encourage a more positive response to the advertisement.
4. Social Conformity
Our desire to fit in with the group we belong to—or want to belong to—is at the center of many cognitive biases that influence our choices. While there are specific biases, such as the bandwagon effect,[14] which refers to our tendency to adopt behaviors and beliefs simply because many other people have done the same, social conformity influences our choices much more broadly. From the clothes you wear to the words you use, almost everything you do is likely influenced by the people around you or the people you aspire to have around you.
This is not necessarily a bad thing. There are evolutionary reasons why social conformity has such a strong effect on us. But if we are unaware of its influence, it can lead us to make decisions that go against our own best interest or even cause us to actively harm those whom we perceive to be different from us (known as the in-group bias).[15]
5. Need for Predictability
Many cognitive biases can be explained by a fundamental need for predictability. Uncertainty—or, as it is called in research, cognitive dissonance—is exhausting for our brains and requires a lot of mental capacity.[16] As a result, our brains do everything they can to make the world feel as predictable and stable as possible. Unfortunately, reality is almost never fully predictable, which is why this group of biases can be quite damaging to our decision-making.
One example of this is the authority bias, which states that we are more likely to accept information if it comes from a perceived authority figure, even if this figure lacks more knowledge on a subject than we do.[17] If you have ever purchased a product marketed by a social media influencer or a celebrity, you have experienced this bias firsthand.[18]
Another example is belief perseverance, which says that we tend to stick to our initial beliefs on a subject even when faced with contradictory evidence.[19] Similarly, confirmation bias describes how we tend to seek out information that confirms our pre-existing beliefs.[20]
More broadly, a high score on the need for predictability can make us more susceptible to prejudice and more likely to resist change, even when it is for the better.
6. Cognitive Saving
This category focuses on our tendency to minimize the mental energy needed when making decisions. Our need for predictability, in a way, also falls into this category, but as it is a specific case of cognitive saving, we decided to distinguish the two.
There is, for example, the availability heuristic,[21] which describes our tendency to use information that comes to mind quickly when making choices. Or choice overload, which describes how we struggle with decisions and feel less satisfied with our choice when too many options are available.[22] Another effect is decision fatigue, which describes how we make worse decisions over time and feel overwhelmed when we have too many decisions to make.[23] If you have ever felt overwhelmed by choosing what to cook for dinner, you have experienced decision fatigue.
A fairly recent example of cognitive saving is the Google effect, which describes how we tend to forget information that we can easily access, such as general knowledge, phone numbers, or photos stored on our phones. Because they are easily accessible, we offload them to reduce our mental load.[24]
Individual Differences
Academic research focuses mostly on identifying cognitive biases and explaining them. While we only use bias elicitation methods that have been validated by published academic research, our goal is slightly different. We try to identify individual differences in cognitive biases and, by doing so, help you focus on the categories that most affect your decision-making.
References
[1] https://www.jmir.org/2023/1/e43251
[2] https://myscp.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1016/j.jcps.2011.08.002
[3] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/sjop.12069
[4] https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-abstract/106/4/1039/1873382
[5] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022435924000216
[6] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1111/1467-8721.00203
[7] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214635023000023
[8] https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1995-04284-001
[9] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11166-009-9060-6
[10] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0749597808000563?via%3Dihub
[11] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1037/1089-2680.3.1.23
[12] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1111/1467-8721.00039
[13] https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3928022
[14] https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0148296322000972
[15] https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.99.1.295
[16] https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2019-11198-001
[17] https://www.jstor.org/stable/2064024
[18] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1017/S0021849905050452
[19] https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1976-07163-001
[20] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1037/1089-2680.2.2.175
[21] https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1991-33131-001
[22] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1057740814000916
[23] https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.1018033108
[24] https://www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1126/science.1207745