Decision-making is an important part of our life, we use them since childhood to decide with which partner to play, when to do homework, what shirt to wear, what candy to eat, what to buy, or what to do in class.
Statistics show that we make more than 2,500 decisions a day, most of them obviously, unconsciously, and this is because according to Daniel Kaneman, considered the father of behavioral economics, our mind is managed with 2 systems.
The first is the task of solving the logical, emotional and simple problems that are carried out intuitively and without realizing it, for example, when they tell us 2 + 2 = 4, in this system most of the decisions pass, which is very important because if we reasoned the 2500 daily we would go crazy.
The second system is responsible for processing rational and complex problems that require some time and analysis to reach a solution, for example 162 x 134 = X.
To make our lives even easier, these two systems are able to communicate and share information to make decisions faster, that is, when a complex problem presents itself, our mind channels this information to the first system, which unconsciously processes it. and it returns it to the second system, which makes us believe that our decision is based on a rational process when in fact it was made intuitively and emotionally. Psychologists call these processes heuristics or "mental shortcuts."
The problem with heuristics is when they lead us to make an erroneous decision, believing that it is based on rational and coherent information but that it was actually made intuitively and unconsciously, so in many situations the decision turns out to be illogical. These errors in decision making are called cognitive biases.
The first works and research on cognitive biases were carried out by Daniel Kanheman in 1971, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2002. One of his experiments was carried out with his partner Amos Tversky and was one of the most conclusive to demonstrate the veracity of these biases, this experiment was as follows:
Two independent groups of people were formed, who had to choose between two treatments for 600 people infected with a deadly virus.
In group 1, it was stated that with treatment A, 200 people would save their lives while with treatment B, there was a third of the probabilities of saving 600 and two-thirds that all would die.
Outcome? 72% of people chose treatment A, that is, to ensure 200 lives.
In group 2, by contrast, it was said that with treatment A, 400 people would die, while with treatment B there was a third chance that no one died and two thirds that all would die.
Here, only 22% of those present opted for treatment A.
In the previous example, the loss aversion bias is present, which makes us more sensitive to losses than possible gains. Although the result of the treatments in the two situations proposed is the same, most of the participants in group 1 preferred to insure 200 lives, while with a different approach in group 2, most took the risk of treatment B, before losing 400 people.
These types of decisions are considered cognitive biases or "systematic errors in decisions" since we guide ourselves subjectively to make a decision instead of evaluating it objectively and rationally.
The bias of aversion to loss has been widespread that in the popular imagination has been translated with the phrase: "Better is a known bad than a good to know." Obviously, this prejudice can create problems for us since it keeps us tied to the past, things and people we know, and we close ourselves to new possibilities.
Before keeping something that only hurts you, you should ask yourself: Is it in my best interest? Or is it not what suits me best?
Why is it important to know cognitive decisions and biases?
Because all experience starts from a previous decision, we experience who we are and what we want to be through our decisions, this is where our deepest thoughts lie, which are the root and the key to make a change within ourselves, if we do not know which is what we are deciding we will not be able to correct the behaviors or attitudes that affect the most important aspects of our work, personal and social life.
Mistakes in decisions can be very dangerous to the point of making us very unhappy. To make a real change in us we must first know what we are deciding and for this we will show you the most important biases that once you overcome them you will be pulling from the root the least favorable characteristics and adopting invaluable attributes.
Biases and the technique to overcome them
Biases occur because most of the time we think of two or more opposing options, this load of information causes our decision making to be complex, but instead of processing it in our rational system, our mind simplifies it by way of, not so reliable, from the unconscious.
Next, we will show you the most important biases and a simple technique that will prevent you from falling into them.
Representativeness bias: Consists of an inference about the probability that a stimulus (person, action, event) belongs to a certain category.
Example:
Brenda is a very jealous person, so she always dials her husband Julián twice a day to find out what he is doing. He works every day from 9 to 6 p.m. One day, Brenda dials him and sends her to the mailbox, she continues to insist, but all day Julián does not answer her, which makes her think that he is cheating on her, until he arrives at his house and explains what happened. Brenda has to decide what is most likely: Julián could not answer because he was up to his neck at work or because he was cheating on her with another. Brenda decides to believe that he is more likely cheating on her, simply because the fact that he did not answer her all day fits a certain stereotype of unfaithful people. But this means overlooking the fact that Julian is busy at work from 9 to 6 p.m.making it much more likely that it was working.
Brenda had to decide between 2 opposing options, so her mind took a "mental shortcut" that made her come to a quick but wrong conclusion.
The technique to consciously reason this decision making without going through the first system is to stop seeing two options and only see the positive and negative side of a single option as shown in the following diagram:
Diagram 1.
+ ???? ??? ???? ?????????? (????????) Option 1; positive and
2 negative options (Process
contrary - ?? ???? ??? ???? ?????????? (????????) conscious and rational)
(process
unconscious and intuitive). + ???? ??? ?? ???? ???? ñ ???? (????????) Option 2; positive and
negative (process
- ?? ???? ??? ?? ???? ???? ñ ???? (????????)
conscious and rational)
Just seeing the positive and negative sides of an option will make the problem easier by being aware of it, allowing us to make the most reasonable option.
Experiment:
This technique was used in two groups of men and women who considered themselves jealous of their partners. The first group had the same problem as Brenda, giving them 2 contrary options. The results were that only 20% of those involved decided to believe that their partner was working.
The second group was presented with the same problem, but with the difference that they were given only one option (option 1 in diagram 1). The results were that 80% of those involved decided to believe that their partner would be working.
The results showed that under this technique people reason better a decision making giving a more objective and probable answer. Imagine being able to make your partner stop being jealous under this simple technique, great don't you think?
Explanation of this technique
One option, positive and negative, creates simplified decision making without passing into our emotional and intuitive system making it possible for us to consciously reason. It is as if we had 2 magnets, their equal sides (positive or negative) repel each other making the union impossible, while their opposite sides, positive with negative or vice versa, create a magnetic field. It is the same in atoms, their opposite sides create structures of molecules and in turn compound substances. For this reason, decision-making with two or more contrary options (equal signs) is more complicated to reason than those with only one option (different signs).
The following biases are part of the experiments that demonstrate how this technique is capable of making us more objective and rational people and, therefore, overcoming emotional obstacles that previously prevented us from achieving our goals.
Confirmation bias: This is the tendency to favor the data that confirms our beliefs and to discard those that deny them, a phenomenon that is more strongly appreciated when it comes to content of an emotional nature or when beliefs are deeply rooted. This bias also leads us to interpret the ambiguous evidence in favor of our position. For example, a person who is against abortion will tend to look for evidence that confirms her ideas.
As we are victims of this bias, we close ourselves to new ideas or positions that are different from ours, with which we remain in our position and refuse to go a step further, even if it is to achieve an understanding with the other person or to broaden our horizons.
This bias is responsible for not seeing our mistakes, not knowing how to apologize, not knowing how to learn and looking for culprits for our failures.
Whenever we make an excuse to justify some wrongdoing, we are not accepting our mistake, let alone learning from it. For example, at work, when our boss entrusts us with a certain activity that goes wrong we start by making excuses: it is that you did not tell me this… it is that I did not reach to call her… it.
We fall into this bias in the same way as others; we unconsciously try to decide between two or more opposing options:
+ Did I do the right thing? or
- Didn't I do the right thing? 2 contrary options
+ Am i wrong? - Am I not mistaken?
Most of the time we always think that we are right so we make excuses to justify why we did it wrong, although it is a complete inconsistency since if you have to resort to excuses it means that not everything you did was correct. The use of words like "but" or "is that" are signs of the presence of confirmation bias that we can avoid if we use the technique to simplify decision-making, as shown below:
+ Did I do the right thing? o One option, positive
- Didn't I do the right thing? and negative.
Experiment:
A patient with a high degree of presence of confirmation bias was asked to do this technique when he detected any excuses he was saying. The results were that he realized that many things he did were not correct, for example; his way of expressing himself sometimes hurt people for his comments and excused himself saying that people were very heartfelt. With this technique, he was able to accept that he was wrong, so he learned to apologize and think of a way to correct his communication.
Status bias: This bias refers to when a person considers that he has a certain status, he will tend to deny and defend himself against any comment that contradicts him, even if he must deceive himself.
This bias is closely related to the confirmation bias and usually occurs with people with high positions such as; entrepreneurs, managers, administrators, etc.
It is easier to contradict a boss who is doing things wrong when he is in private, since the status he has does not allow him to observe a different point of view in front of his team, because to accept his mistake would be to lose respect.
To overcome this bias, we must perform the same exercise as the confirmation bias to think rationally about whether we are right or just being victims of status bias.
Present bias : This bias includes two behavioral tendencies: The propensity to exaggerate immediate costs and benefits relative to those that will occur in the future, on the one hand; and the propensity to address in a much more balanced way the delayed costs and benefits that will occur in the future, on the other. The famous decisions to diet or save money “tomorrow” unite both propensities: the weight that is given to immediate costs makes the person reluctant to assume the immediate sacrifices of dieting or saving money, but the more balanced perspective than you have on the future makes the person want to impose those actions "in the future."
It is responsible for us to postpone the necessary things for tomorrow due to the difficulty of facing the present reality, trusting that tomorrow we will have desire.
Experiment:
One person had been trying to lose weight for several months, but always postponed dieting or exercising.
The problem, as we mentioned, is the way to see the options:
+ Am I going for a run today? or
- I'm not going for a run today? 2 contrary options
+ Shall I go for a run tomorrow? or
- I'm not going for a run tomorrow?
Then he was asked to use the technique to simplify decision making:
+ Am I going for a run today? o One positive option - Am I not going for a run today? and negative.
A few days later, he began to go out for a run and do exercise routines since he mentioned that when he saw only one option it was easier to assess the situation, so he realized how urgent it was to start doing things.
Anchor bias. It is a tendency to "anchor" yourself to one feature or part of the information and ignore the rest. We are victims of this bias when, for example, we are going to buy and we only consider the price of the product or when we get angry with our partner for an isolated event and we focus exclusively on the defect, making its qualities disappear.
The Anchor Effect leads us to adopt a very partial view of reality, it is as if we were walking through life wearing blinders that do not let us see more than some details. In this way, we never manage to analyze situations as a whole, we do not have a global vision of events and, in the long run, this leads us to make bad decisions.
This bias can be detected when we generalize the facts, for example in couples: "You are always distracted…" "You are always fighting with me…" "You are never attentive to me…" "You never tell me that you love me…" We anchored on one occasion in that he was not detailed or that he did not tell us that he wanted us to generalize the situation, without seeing the times when he was. This can be a big problem since if we think this way we are more likely to be sadder, more distressed and in a bad mood.
The simplified decision making to avoid this bias is:
+ Do you always fight me? o One positive option - Don't you always fight me? and negative.
+ Is it true that you are never a retailer? o A positive option - Is it not true that you are never a retailer? and negative.
+ Is it true that you never tell me you love me? o One option, positive
- Isn't it true that you never tell me that you love me? and negative.
Experiment:
This exercise was performed on three people who claimed that their partner never told them that they loved them. We asked them the question under the previous technique, their responses were: "Sometimes if she tells me that she loves me" "It's weird, but sometimes she tells me" "She doesn't tell me much, but she shows me."
With these responses they remembered the times when their partner did tell them that they loved them, so they felt calmer.
Impact bias : This bias refers to the tendency we have to overestimate our emotional reaction, overestimating the duration and intensity of our future emotional states . But research shows that most of the time we don't feel as bad as we expected when things don't go our way, for example. This bias is one of the reasons why we are often wrong in predicting how future events will affect us emotionally. Studies have shown that months after a relationship ends, people are usually not as unhappy as they expected and that people who have won the lottery, eventually return to their usual degree of happiness or had before winning the award.
Another example is when we deny our children an insane request, such as eating sweets, some people tend to think, exaggeratedly, that they will be very sad if they do not comply with their whim, so they choose to fulfill them.
Experiment:
5 parents were asked to think of an unhealthy whim that they normally fulfill to their child, when asked, What will happen if they are not fulfilled? His response was: "He is going to be sad" "He is going to be upset". Then they were asked to think about the following decision-making based on their response:
+ Are you going to be sad? o One option, positive
- Aren't you going to be sad? and negative.
+ Are you going to bother? o A positive option - won't you bother? and negative.
In this decision making, her answer made them feel calmer: "No, they don't have to be angry or sad" "They are going to be fine, nothing is going to happen to them"
In the first answer, they overestimated the emotions their son might have when he refused to comply with his whim. In the second response, there was an estimate of your child's emotions that was closer to reality.
Availability bias : Availability bias is a mechanism that the mind uses to assess how likely it is that an event will or will not happen. The more accessible the event, the more likely it will appear to us, the more recent the information, the easier it will be to remember, and the more obvious, the less random it will appear.
This cognitive bias applies to many spheres of our lives, for example, a person who claims that smoking is not so harmful to health, based on the fact that his grandfather lived more than 80 years and smoked three packets a day, an argument that passes overlooked the possibility that his grandfather was a statistically outlier.
This bias also applies in the moments when we think "that will never happen to me…" based on the fact that no one in our immediate circle has ever had it before, so we deduce that it is unlikely to happen to us. The typical "nothing happens" when you do not bring contraceptives or get in front of the wheel in a drunk. They are very irrational decisions that at the time seem good, but once the unexpected happens we feel like asses.
The simplified decision making to avoid this bias is:
+ Is it possible that it happens to me? o One option, positive
- Can't it happen to me? and negative.
This single option makes us think about the true probabilities that something that we do not want happens to us. It makes us be more prudent about actions that lead to a serious consequence by making a much more rational decision based on statistical information.
Corrupt power bias: Surely many will not be surprised by the reality of this bias, which says that there is a demonstrated trend in which individuals with power are easily corruptible , especially when they feel that they have no restrictions and possess full freedom. Does it sound like something? Politicians, businessmen, famous actors, elite athletes and even royalty are rife with corruption cases.
Sometimes these types of people may think that it is okay to steal simply because they need it. Which is an irrational decision since ethically, stealing is wrong.
When we can think of doing something ethically wrong, we can use the simplified methodology as follows:
+ Is it correct to do so? o One option, positive
- Isn't it right to do it? and negative.
This decision making will keep you away from problems, keep your job or even even save you from a place in prison.
In some actions it is possible that we find more than one cognitive bias, for example; If we want to quit smoking: The bias of the present that makes us postpone quitting this bad habit, the bias of availability that makes us think that smoking is not so bad, the bias of impact that makes us believe that we will be very bad can coexist. We leave it and the bias of loss aversion that makes us consider this habit as something proper to be part of our personality, for which we cannot leave it. Then we must reason each of the biases to make a root change within us and form new experiences through new decisions.
There are many situations in life in which we are victims of biases, there is even a blind spot bias, which makes us think that we are not affected by any bias. Perhaps you have identified with one or you have realized that many of the decisions you make are illogical, but if you look at them under this technique it will not be so difficult to make a real change in your life.
As I usually say: “Life is not complicated, it is simple; it all depends on how we see it ”.
Author: Emmanuel Reyes Sandoval
Tlaquepaque, Jal. As of April 11, 2017
Bibliography:
Think fast, think slowly by Daniel Kahneman https://psicologiaymente.net/inteligencia/heuristicos-atajos-mentales-pensamiento. https://artenara.wordpress.com/tag/cada-dia-tomamos-ientos-de-decisiones/. https://artista360.com/cuantas-decisiones-tomamos-al-dia/. http://www.abc.es/20110324/ciencia/abci-cerebro-toma-decisiones-milisegundos 201103241031.html. https://psicologiaymente.net/inteligencia/heuristicos-atajos-mentales-pensamiento. https://psicologiaymente.net/inteligencia/heuristicos-atajos-mentales-pensamiento. https://www.psicoactiva.com/blog/25-heuristicos-sesgos-cognitiva-errores-juicio/. http://verne.elpais.com/verne/2014/09/29/articulo/1411970154_000194.html. https://www.yumpu.com/es/document/view/14410770/harvard-deusto-business-review-ean/5. http: //www.circuloeconomiaalicante.com / blog / procrastination-or-the-habit-of-procrastination /. http://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias/2014/03/140226_como_tomamos_decisiones_finde. file: /// C: /Users/Usuario/Downloads/Dialnet-LosSesgosCognitivesEnLaTomaDeDecisiones2875682.pdf. https://sites.google.com/site/misitiowebmabm/administracion/escuela-de-toma-de-decisiones. http://saunefa.blogspot.mx/2013/12/teoria-de-la-toma-de-decisiones.html. https://es.slideshare.net/garciara/toma-de-decisiones-herbert-simon-28855493. https://www.psicoactiva.com/blog/25-heuristicos-sesgos-cognitiva-errores-juicio/mx / 2013/12 / theory-of-decision-making.html. https://es.slideshare.net/garciara/toma-de-decisiones-herbert-simon-28855493. https://www.psicoactiva.com/blog/25-heuristicos-sesgos-cognitiva-errores-juicio/mx / 2013/12 / theory-of-decision-making.html. https://es.slideshare.net/garciara/toma-de-decisiones-herbert-simon-28855493.
