The 25 Cognitive Biases
What problem does this book solve?
Well… we are going to teach you how people think. Decision-making is at the heart of all life. The decisions we make ultimately define our fates. So understanding the fundamentals of how our minds bias the decision making process is literally the key to human interaction.
Cognitive Bias (n) - the tendencies to think in certain ways that lead us to systematic deviations from a standard of rationality or sound judgment. They are studied in psychology and behavioral economics because they give us a deep understanding of why people make decisions the way they do.
It’s not only about understanding why others make decisions, but how we bias our own decision making processes. Most of the cognitive biases that we will discuss are unconscious. That makes complete sense from an evolutionary standpoint as humans in a life or death struggle had to streamline, or “systematize”, the decision making process. When you’re running through the woods being chased by a bear, it won’t do to stop and give consideration to each and ever one of your options. By the time you come to grips with the best option, the bear is tearing you to ribbons.
Humans in a life or death existence has to streamline thinking so that decisions happened as close to instantly as possible, given the relative danger surrounding them. But we, most of us, came out of the forests and jungles and now live together in these civilized societies, villages, cities, metropolis, etc.
Life has changed for most of us. Now the decisions we make aren’t as crucial. When we deal with a salesperson, or family members, or waiters at a local restaurant we aren’t typically making life or death decisions. Our normal human-to-human interactions don’t result in getting eaten. We have all kinds of social situations and scenarios that we find ourselves in. With the Internet and ever expanding social media, the things we say and do are not only recorded forever, but shared in real time with anyone and everyone willing to listen.
Our actions echo now, more than ever before in history. What we are going to do is give you a blueprint for why humans make decisions the way we do. Understanding the 25 (or more) cognitive biases will give you a deep and incisive peek into all of the underlying little quirks and oddities in thinking. You’ll understand why your neighbor says some of the things he says when he’s out there mowing the lawn. You’ll start to see why you act and react the way you do when the news comes on.
Understanding and truly comprehending the basic cognitive biases will allow you to make, on the aggregate, less bad decisions. You’ll be a better decision maker because you’ll see these biases in your own thought processes and you’ll be able to step back from the normal reactionary decision making process and consider the facts of a situation.
So, without further ado, let's learn about the Cognitive biases and how they affect and effect our lives. Give me the next 45 minutes of your time and I believe we can make a positive change in your life moving forward.
We will cover:
1.Projection Bias
2.Hyperbolic Discounting
3.Fundamental Attribution Error
4.Course of Knowledge
5.The Dunning-Kruger Effect
6.Framing Effect
7.Hindsight bias
8.The Identifiable Victim Effect
9.Sunk Cost Fallacy (irrational escalation)
10. Loss Aversion
11.Outcome Bias
12.Overconfidence Effect
13. Risk Compensation (Peltzman Effect)
14.The Halo effect
15.The Illusion of Asymmetric Insight
16.Self-Serving bias
17.The Illusion of Truth Effect
18.The Spotlight Effect
19.The Survivorship Bias
20.The Availability Bias
21.The Swimmer’s Body Illusion
22.The Negativity Bias
23.The Anchoring Effect (relativity trap)
24.Confirmation Bias
25.Bias Blind Spot
