10 Common Cognitive Biases

So what is cognitive bias?

Cognitive biases are systemic errors (tendencies or ways of thinking) in our thought process that influence our decisions and assessments, and therefore also our lives and work. They are irrational thinking errors that occur with almost everyone under the same circumstances and situations. Causes are often social (group) pressure, individual motivations, and simply the limit of the human mind to process certain information.

Here are the 10 most common ones (slideshow in the bottom)

1 Groupthinking bias
Definition: The phenomenon where people strive for consensus within a group, putting aside their personal opinion and conviction.
Example: During a brainstorming session, John and Amy settle with Lisa's idea because they do not want to question her judgment, disregarding the opportunity to make a rational decision.

2 Survivorship bias
Definition: The human tendency to focus solely on the success stories and not look at the negative outcomes.
Example: Amy thinks her business idea is going to work for Company X became very successful with that strategy, ignoring to the 9 other companies that failed with the same strategy.

3 Bandwagon effect
Definition: When people do something primarily because others do it, regardless of their own beliefs, which they are ignoring or discarding.
Example: While they vote for ideas during a brainstorming session, John places his votes on ideas that have received the most votes thus far.

4 Confirmation bias
Definition: Giving preference to information that confirms your previous existing belief or bias.
Example: While doing market research, Lisa finds information that leads to a solution to her own interests. Instead of continuing with objective research, she will look for more evidence to support this idea.

5 Dunning-Kruger Effect
Definition: The less you know, the more confident you are. The more you know, the less confident you are.
Example: Michel assures the team that they do not need an innovation lead, because he believes it is part of marketing and he is an excellent marketer.

6 Self-serving bias
Definition: Human tendency to attribute positive events to individual character, and negative events to external factor.
Example: John: “My first startup was a success thanks to my entrepreneurial skills. My second startups failed due to the economic recession."

7 Framing effect
Definition: When our choices and opinions are influenced by the way in which the different words, settings and situations are framed.
Example: John sees the marketing campaign as a failure because of a conversion rate of only 15%. Michiel sees the campaign as a success: the conversion rate is 3 times higher than the previous campaign.

8 Projection bias
Definition: The assumption of people that their taste and preference will remain the same over a longer period (which often leads to the false consensus bias).
Example: Amy is surprised that some team members disagree with her marketing plan. Based on the previous plan, she assumed that they shared the same ideas and vision as she did.

9 False consensus effect
Definition: People tend to overestimate the extent to which people share the same line of thought.
Example: Without conducting any research, the team starts brainstorming a new approach to customer service based on what they think are customer needs.

10 Authority bias
Definition: We trust - and are often influenced by - the opinion of people with authority.
Example: During a strategic brainstorming session, the ideas of the team leader receive a surprising number of votes.

Conclusion
Remember that cognitive biases are not necessarily bad: they ensure that we can reach a decision quickly in dangerous and threatening situations. Although supposed threats can turn out to be no threat at all, these types of shortcuts ensure that we can work ourselves out of dangerous, threatening or uncomfortable situations quickly. Within your company, cognitive errors can lead to irrational dealing with analyzing data or processing information, which often leads to unfounded or incorrect decisions that negatively influence your business. It is therefore important that you (especially as a decision-maker) can understand and recognize most cognitive biases, and estimate when a situation has been approached rationally and when not.

Now that you know the most common ones, share this article with colleagues to overcome them together.