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Cognitive bias

A cognitive bias is a pattern of deviation in judgment,


whereby inferences about other people and situations may
be drawn in an illogical fashion.[1] Individuals create
their own subjective social reality" from their perception of the input.[2] An individuals construction of social reality, not the objective input, may dictate their behaviour in the social world.[3] Thus, cognitive biases may
sometimes lead to perceptual distortion, inaccurate judgment, illogical interpretation, or what is broadly called
irrationality.[4][5][6]
Some cognitive biases are presumably adaptive. Cognitive biases may lead to more eective actions in a given
context.[7] Furthermore, cognitive biases enable faster decisions when timeliness is more valuable than accuracy,
as illustrated in heuristics.[8] Other cognitive biases are
a by-product of human processing limitations,[9] resulting from a lack of appropriate mental mechanisms
(bounded rationality), or simply from a limited capacity
for information processing.[10]
A continually evolving list of cognitive biases has been
identied over the last six decades of research on human judgment and decision-making in cognitive science,
social psychology, and behavioral economics. Cognitive
biases are important to study because systematic errors
highlight the psychological processes that underlie perception and judgement (Tversky & Kahneman,1999, p.
582). Moreover, Kahneman and Tversky (1996) argue
that cognitive biases have ecient practical implications
for areas including clinical judgment.[11]

Daniel Kahneman

of their experience of peoples innumeracy, or inability


to reason intuitively with the greater orders of magnitude.
Tversky, Kahneman and colleagues demonstrated several
replicable ways in which human judgments and decisions
dier from rational choice theory. Tversky and Kahneman explained human dierences in judgement and decision making in terms of heuristics. Heuristics involve
1 Overview
mental shortcuts which provide swift estimates about the
possibility of uncertain occurrences (Baumeister & BushBias arises from various processes that are sometimes dif- man, 2010, p. 141). Heuristics are simple for the brain to
compute but sometimes introduce severe and systematic
cult to distinguish. These include
errors (Tversky & Kahneman, 1974, p. 1125).[17]
information-processing shortcuts (heuristics)[12]
For example, the representativeness heuristic is dened
as the tendency to judge the frequency or likelihood of
mental noise
an occurrence by the extent of which the event resembles the typical case (Baumeister & Bushman, 2010, p.
the minds limited information processing 141). The Linda Problem illustrates the representativecapacity[13]
ness heuristic (Tversky & Kahneman, 1983[18] ). Participants were given a description of Linda that sug emotional and moral motivations[14]
gests Linda might well be a feminist (e.g., she is said to
be concerned about discrimination and social justice is social inuence[15]
sues). They were then asked whether they thought Linda
was more likely to be a "(a) bank teller or a "(b) bank
The notion of cognitive biases was introduced by Amos teller and active in the feminist movement. A majority
Tversky and Daniel Kahneman in 1972[16] and grew out chose answer (b). This error (mathematically, answer (b)
1

3 PRACTICAL SIGNIFICANCE

cannot be more likely than answer (a)) is an example of


the conjunction fallacy; Tversky and Kahneman argued
that respondents chose (b) because it seemed more representative or typical of persons who might t the description of Linda. The representativeness heuristic may
lead to errors such as activating stereotypes and inaccurate judgements of others (Haselton et al., 2005, p. 726).

The fact that some biases reect motivation, and in particular the motivation to have positive attitudes to oneself[22]
accounts for the fact that many biases are self-serving or
self-directed (e.g. illusion of asymmetric insight, selfserving bias, projection bias). There are also biases in
how subjects evaluate in-groups or out-groups; evaluating
in-groups as more diverse and better in many respects,
Alternatively, critics of Kahneman and Tversky such as even when those groups are arbitrarily-dened (ingroup
bias, outgroup homogeneity bias).
Gerd Gigerenzer argue that heuristics should not lead
us to conceive of human thinking as riddled with irra- Some cognitive biases belong to the subgroup of
tional cognitive biases, but rather to conceive rationality attentional biases which refer to the paying of increased
as an adaptive tool that is not identical to the rules of attention to certain stimuli. It has been shown, for exformal logic or the probability calculus.[19] Nevertheless, ample, that people addicted to alcohol and other drugs
experiments such as the Linda problem grew into the pay more attention to drug-related stimuli. Common psyheuristics and biases research program which spread be- chological tests to measure those biases are the Stroop
yond academic psychology into other disciplines includ- Task[23][24] and the Dot Probe Task.
ing medicine and political science.
The following is a list of the more commonly studied cognitive biases:

Types

For other noted biases, see List of cognitive biases.

A 2012 Psychological Bulletin article suggests that at least


Biases can be distinguished on a number of dimensions.
8 seemingly unrelated biases can be produced by the
For example, there are biases specic to groups (such as
same information-theoretic generative mechanism.[28] It
the risky shift) as well as biases at the individual level.
is shown that noisy deviations in the memory-based inforSome biases aect decision-making, where the desirabil- mation processes that convert objective evidence (obserity of options has to be considered (e.g., sunk costs fal- vations) into subjective estimates (decisions) can produce
lacy). Others such as illusory correlation aect judgment regressive conservatism, the belief revision (Bayesian
of how likely something is, or of whether one thing is conservatism), illusory correlations, illusory superiorthe cause of another. A distinctive class of biases af- ity (better-than-average eect) and worse-than-average
fect memory,[20] such as consistency bias (remembering eect, subadditivity eect, exaggerated expectation,
ones past attitudes and behavior as more similar to ones overcondence, and the hardeasy eect.
present attitudes).
Some biases reect a subjects motivation,[21] for example, the desire for a positive self-image leading to
Egocentric bias[22] and the avoidance of unpleasant
cognitive dissonance. Other biases are due to the partic- 3 Practical signicance
ular way the brain perceives, forms memories and makes
judgments. This distinction is sometimes described as Many social institutions rely on individuals to make ra"Hot cognition" versus Cold Cognition, as motivated tional judgments.
reasoning can involve a state of arousal.
The present securities regulation regime largely assumes
Among the cold biases,
that all investors act as perfectly, rational persons. In
truth, actual investors face cognitive limitations from bi some are due to ignoring relevant information (e.g. ases, heuristics, and framing eects.
neglect of probability)
A fair jury trial, for example, requires that the jury ignore
some involve a decision or judgement being aected
by irrelevant information (for example the framing
eect where the same problem receives dierent responses depending on how it is described; or the
distinction bias where choices presented together
have dierent outcomes than those presented separately)

irrelevant features of the case, weigh the relevant features appropriately, consider dierent possibilities openmindedly and resist fallacies such as appeal to emotion.
The various biases demonstrated in these psychological
experiments suggest that people will frequently fail to do
all these things.[29] However, they fail to do so in systematic, directional ways that are predictable.[30]

Cognitive biases are also related to the persistence of superstition, to large social issues such as prejudice, and
others give excessive weight to an unimportant but they also work as a hindrance in the acceptance of scisalient feature of the problem (e.g., anchoring)
entic non-intuitive knowledge by the public.[31]

Reducing cognitive bias

6 References

Similar to Gigerenzer (1996),[32] Haselton et al. (2005)


state the content and direction of cognitive biases are not
arbitrary (p. 730).[9] Moreover, cognitive biases can
be controlled. Debiasing is a technique which aims to decrease biases by encouraging individuals to use controlled
processing compared to automatic processing (Baumeister & Bushman, 2010, p. 155).[33] In relation to reducing the FAE, monetary incentives[34] and informing participants they will be held accountable for their
attributions[35] have been linked to the increase of accurate attributions.

[1] Haselton, M. G., Nettle, D., & Andrews, P. W. (2005).


The evolution of cognitive bias. In D. M. Buss (Ed.), The
Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology: Hoboken, NJ,
US: John Wiley & Sons Inc. pp. 724746.

Cognitive bias modication refers to the process of modifying cognitive biases in healthy people and also refers
to a growing area of psychological (non-pharmaceutical)
therapies for anxiety, depression and addiction called
CBMT. Cognitive Bias Modication Therapy (CBMT) is
sub-group of therapies within a growing area of psychological therapies based on modifying cognitive processes
with or without accompanying medication and talk therapy, sometimes referred to as Applied Cognitive Processing Therapies (ACPT). Although Cognitive Bias Modication can refer to modifying cognitive processes in
healthy individuals, CBMT is a growing area of evidencebased psychological therapy, in which cognitive processes are modied to relieve suering[36][37] from serious Depression,[38] Anxiety,[39] and Addiction.[40] CBMT
techniques are technology assisted therapies that are delivered via a computer with or without clinician support.
CBM combines evidence and theory from the cognitive
model of anxiety,[41] cognitive neuroscience,[42] and attentional models.[43]

[4] Kahneman, D.; Tversky, A. (1972). Subjective probability: A judgment of representativeness. Cognitive Psychology 3 (3): 430454. doi:10.1016/00100285(72)90016-3.

See also
Cognitive bias mitigation
Cognitive bias modication
Cognitive dissonance
Cognitive distortion
Cognitive psychology
Cognitive traps for intelligence analysis
Critical thinking
Cultural cognition
Emotional bias
Evolutionary psychology
Expectation bias
Fallacy
Prejudice
Realism theory

[2] Bless, H., Fiedler, K., & Strack, F. (2004). Social cognition: How individuals construct social reality. Hove and
New York: Psychology Press. p. 2.
[3] Bless, H., Fiedler, K., & Strack, F. (2004). Social cognition: How individuals construct social reality. Hove and
New York: Psychology Press.

[5] Baron, J. (2007). Thinking and Deciding (4th ed.). New


York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
[6] Ariely, D. (2008). Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions. New York, NY:
HarperCollins.
[7] For instance: Gigerenzer, G. & Goldstein, D. G. (1996).
Reasoning the fast and frugal way: Models of bounded
rationality..
Psychological Review 103: 650669.
doi:10.1037/0033-295X.103.4.650. PMID 8888650.
[8] Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1974). Judgement under
uncertainty: Heuristics and biases.. Sciences 185 (4157):
11241131. doi:10.1126/science.185.4157.1124. PMID
17835457.
[9] Haselton, M. G., Nettle, D., & Andrews, P. W. (2005).
The evolution of cognitive bias. In D. M. Buss (Ed.), The
Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology: Hoboken, NJ,
US: John Wiley & Sons Inc. pp. 724746.
[10] Bless, H., Fiedler, K., & Strack, F. (2004). Social cognition: How individuals construct social reality. Hove and
New York: Psychology Press.
[11] Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1996). On the reality of cognitive illusions. Psychological Review 103 (3):
582591. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.103.3.582. PMID
8759048.
[12] Kahneman, D., Slovic, P., & Tversky, A. (1982). Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases (1st ed.).
Cambridge University Press.
[13] Simon, H. A. (1955). A behavioral model of rational
choice. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 69(1), 99
118. doi:10.2307/1884852
[14] Pster, H.-R., & Bhm, G. (2008). The multiplicity of
emotions: A framework of emotional functions in decision making, Judgment and Decision Making, 3, 517.
[15] Wang, X. T., Simons, F., & Brdart, S. (2001). Social
cues and verbal framing in risky choice. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 14(1), 115. doi:10.1002/10990771(200101)14:1<1::AID-BDM361>3.0.CO;2-N

[16] Kahneman, Daniel; Shane Frederick (2002). Representativeness Revisited: Attribute Substitution in Intuitive
Judgment. In Thomas Gilovich, Dale Grin, Daniel
Kahneman. Heuristics and Biases: The Psychology of Intuitive Judgment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
pp. 5152. ISBN 978-0-521-79679-8.
[17] Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1974). Judgement under
uncertainty: Heuristics and biases.. Sciences 185 (4157):
11241131. doi:10.1126/science.185.4157.1124. PMID
17835457.
[18] Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1983). Extensional versus intuitive reasoning: The conjunction fallacy in probability judgement. Psychological Review 90: 293315.
doi:10.1037/0033-295X.90.4.293.
[19] Gigerenzer, G. (2006). Bounded and Rational. In
Stainton, R. J. Contemporary Debates in Cognitive Science.
Blackwell. p. 129. ISBN 1-4051-1304-9.
[20] Schacter, D.L. (1999). The Seven Sins of Memory: Insights From Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience. American Psychologist 54 (3): 182203.
doi:10.1037/0003-066X.54.3.182. PMID 10199218.
[21] Kunda, Z. (1990). The Case for Motivated Reasoning. Psychological Bulletin 108 (3): 480498.
doi:10.1037/0033-2909.108.3.480. PMID 2270237.
[22] Hoorens, V. (1993). Self-enhancement and Superiority
Biases in Social Comparison. In Stroebe, W. and Hewstone, Miles. European Review of Social Psychology 4.
Wiley.
[23] Jensen AR, Rohwer WD (1966). The Stroop colorword test: a review. Acta psychologica 25 (1): 3693.
doi:10.1016/0001-6918(66)90004-7. PMID 5328883.
[24] MacLeod CM (March 1991). Half a century of research on the Stroop eect: an integrative review. Psychological Bulletin 109 (2): 163203. doi:10.1037/00332909.109.2.163. PMID 2034749.
[25] Jones, E. E., & Harris, V. A (1967). The attribution of
attitudes. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 3:
124. doi:10.1016/0022-1031(67)90034-0.
[26] Mahoney, M. J. (1977). Publication prejudices: An experimental study of conrmatory bias in the peer review
system. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 1 (2): 161
175. doi:10.1007/bf01173636.
[27] Jermias, J. (2001). Cognitive dissonance and resistance
to change: The inuence of commitment conrmation
and feedback on judgement usefulness of accounting systems. Accounting, Organizations and Society 26: 141
160. doi:10.1016/s0361-3682(00)00008-8.
[28] Martin Hilbert (2012) Toward a synthesis of cognitive biases: How noisy information processing can bias human
decision making" Psychological Bulletin 138(2), 211
237; free access to the study here: martinhilbert.net/
HilbertPsychBull.pdf
[29] Sutherland, Stuart (2007) Irrationality: The Enemy Within
Second Edition (First Edition 1994) Pinter & Martin.
ISBN 978-1-905177-07-3

REFERENCES

[30] Ariely, Dan (2008). Predictably Irrational: The Hidden


Forces That Shape Our Decisions. HarperCollins. p. 304.
ISBN 978-0-06-135323-9.
[31] Gnter Radden, H. Cuyckens (2003). Motivation in language: studies in honor of Gnter Radden. John Benjamins. p. 275. ISBN 978-1-58811-426-6.
[32] Gigerenzer, G. (1996).
On narrow norms and
vague heuristics: A reply to Kahneman and Tversky
(1996)". Psychological Review 103 (3): 592596.
doi:10.1037/0033-295x.103.3.592.
[33] Baumeister, R. F. & Bushman, B. J. (2010). Social psychology and human nature: International Edition. Belmont, USA: Wadsworth.
[34] Vonk, R. (1999).
Eects of outcome dependency on correspondence bias..
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 25: 382389.
doi:10.1177/0146167299025003009.
[35] Tetlock, P. E. (1985). Accountability: A social check
on the fundamental attribution error. Social Psychology
Quarterly 48: 227236. doi:10.2307/3033683.
[36] MacLeod, C., Mathews, A., & Tata, P. (1986). Attentional Bias in Emotional Disorders Journal of Abnormal
Psychology 95(1), 1520.
[37] Bar-Haim, Y., Lamy, D., Pergamin, L., BakermansKranenburg, M. J., & van, I. M. H. (2007). Threatrelated attentional bias in anxious and nonanxious individuals: a meta-analytic study. Psychol Bull, 133(1), 124.
doi:10.1037/0033-2909.133.1.1
[38] Holmes, E. A., Lang, T. J., & Shah, D. M. (2009). Developing interpretation bias modication as a cognitive
vaccine for depressed mood: imagining positive events
makes you feel better than thinking about them verbally. J
Abnorm Psychol, 118(1), 7688. doi:10.1037/a0012590
[39] Hakamata, Y., Lissek, S., Bar-Haim, Y., Britton, J.
C., Fox, N. A., Leibenluft, E., ...
Pine, D. S.
(2010).
Attention bias modication treatment: a
meta-analysis toward the establishment of novel treatment for anxiety Biol Psychiatry 68(11), 982990.
doi:10.1016/j.biopsych.2010.07.021
[40] Eberl, C., Wiers, R. W., Pawelczack, S., Rinck,
M., Becker, E. S., & Lindenmeyer, J. (2013). Approach bias modication in alcohol dependence: Do
clinical eects replicate and for whom does it work
best?" Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience 4(0), 3851.
doi:10.1016/j.dcn.2012.11.002
[41] Clark, D. A., & Beck, A. T. (2009). Cognitive Therapy of
Anxiety Disorders: Science and Practice. London: Guildford.
[42] Browning, M., Holmes, E. A., Murphy, S. E., Goodwin, G. M., & Harmer, C. J. (2010).
Lateral
prefrontal cortex mediates the cognitive modication
of attentional bias Biol Psychiatry 67(10), 919925.
doi:10.1016/j.biopsych.2009.10.031

[43] Eysenck, M. W., Derakshan, N., Santos, R., & Calvo,


M. G. (2007). Anxiety and cognitive performance:
Attentional control theory. Emotion, 7(2), 336353.
doi:10.1037/1528-3542.7.2.336

Further reading
Eiser, J.R. and Joop van der Pligt (1988) Attitudes
and Decisions London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0415-01112-9
Fine, Cordelia (2006) A Mind of its Own: How your
brain distorts and deceives Cambridge, UK: Icon
Books. ISBN 1-84046-678-2

Tavris, Carol and Elliot Aronson (2007) Mistakes


Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions and Hurtful Acts Orlando,
Florida: Harcourt Books. ISBN 978-0-15-1010981
Funder, David C.; Joachim I. Krueger (June 2004).
Towards a balanced social psychology: Causes,
consequences, and cures for the problem-seeking
approach to social behavior and cognition. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 27 (3): 313376. PMID
15736870. Retrieved 3 May 2011.

8 External links

Gilovich, Thomas (1993). How We Know What


Isn't So: The Fallibility of Human Reason in Everyday Life. New York: The Free Press. ISBN 0-02911706-2

The Roots of Consciousness: To Err Is human

Haselton, M.G., Nettle, D. & Andrews, P.W.


(2005). The evolution of cognitive bias. In D.M.
Buss (Ed.), Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology,
(pp. 724746). Hoboken: Wiley. Full text

Cognitive Bias Parade

Heuer, Richards J. Jr. (1999). Psychology of Intelligence Analysis. Central Intelligence Agency.
Kahneman D., Slovic P., and Tversky, A. (Eds.)
(1982) Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and
Biases. New York: Cambridge University Press
ISBN 978-0-521-28414-1
Kahneman, Daniel (2011) Thinking, Fast and Slow.
New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux ISBN 978-0374-27563-1
Kida, Thomas (2006) Don't Believe Everything You
Think: The 6 Basic Mistakes We Make in Thinking
New York: Prometheus. ISBN 978-1-59102-408-8
Nisbett, R., and Ross, L. (1980) Human Inference:
Strategies and shortcomings of human judgement.
Englewood Clis, NJ: Prentice-Hall ISBN 978-013-445130-5
Piatelli-Palmarini, Massimo (1994) Inevitable Illusions: How Mistakes of Reason Rule Our Minds New
York: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 0-471-15962-X
Stanovich, Keith (2009). What Intelligence Tests
Miss: The Psychology of Rational Thought. New
Haven (CT): Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0300-12385-2. Lay summary (21 November 2010).
Sutherland, Stuart (2007) Irrationality: The Enemy
Within Second Edition (First Edition 1994) Pinter
& Martin. ISBN 978-1-905177-07-3

Cognitive bias in the nancial arena


A Visual Study Guide To Cognitive Biases

9 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

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