Cognitive biases are heavily pervasive in the many mental processes executed out throughout our days. Most times, they happen/ develop so effortlessly that it can be difficult to discern when your logic if wrapped in a bias. What is a cognitive bias? Pullman describes it as “tendencies towards distortion that all people are prone to.” Unfortunately and fortunately Pullman leaves us (the reader) with a vague definition of what a cognitive bias is. I enjoy Pullman’s text for this reason; he forces the reader(s) to create their own definition(s) of phrases based on implicit descriptions. In my mind, a cognitive bias is a simple error in reasoning that in unavoidable. Whether consciously or unconsciously, our minds are (at some point in our day) forming logical explanations for phenomena from common errors in reasoning such as arguments from availability, anchoring, assimilation bias, bandwagon effect, coherence, confirmation bias, exposure effect, recency effect, simultaneity and causation, and hindsight bias, to name a few.
I’ve realized after reading the last part of this chapter that I still actively engage cognitive biases throughout my day easily. The recency effect and taste/value confusion biases are most prevalent in my line of reasoning throughout my day(s). I find that my proximity to the quality of an event (e.g. the event being a “good” or “bad” experience) determines my perspective for imminent events. My perspective of an impending event, in my opinion, should be affected by the quality of that event alone in that moment in time, not any other experience in the past. Far too often, for example, our predilections towards or predictions for the quality of an event wrongfully aligned with commonly established opinions of prior events. Taking an example of romance, I tend to look for the antithesis of relationship A, that just ended, in relationship B. Or on the contrary, I look for “good qualities found in relationship A in relationship B. What is “good” and what is “bad?” The two terms seem simple, within the context of your own logic, but when searching for common ground amongst varying perspectives, you find yourself on shifting grounds. If perspective is reality and we all (presumably experience reality differently) then can we uniformly have a coherent definition of what’s “good” and “bad”? Is a talkative personality a “good” or “bad” quality to you? How are these terms quantified across varying perspectives? I tend to measure what’s “Good” to me as events or things that generally bring me satisfaction or pleasure. While “bad” things generally bring me discomfort. Is a level of tolerance a factor in determining what goodness and badness of something? I found that in digesting cognitive biases, taste/value confusion is one of the most difficult to escape because so much of our reality is based on our perspective and we all respond to events and stimuli differently. What cognitive biases do you find yourself caught in often? Do you feel there is a way to truly esacpe cognitive biases?
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