Thinking Errors Or 7 Common Cognitive Biases

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

There are many situations in which human thinking systematically produces errors, leading to incorrect estimates, conclusions, and decisions. And this is due to the desire of the brain to simplify and compress information if it is too voluminous or difficult to understand.

When faced with any unpleasant outcomes of situations, we sometimes use phrases such as: “I was disappointed or deceived”, “definitely, it should have been this way, but for some reason it turned out differently”, “I will not even try to change it, because that I know the outcome”and so on. etc. It is precisely behind such statements that automatic thoughts often hide as a result of cognitive distortions, in other words, such errors of thinking that are formed under the influence of the experience.

Scientists have already described and experimentally proven a large number of such cognitive distortions, but in this and the next article, I would like to briefly touch on precisely those distortions, the meaning of which is known and understood by everyone, even from everyday sayings and aphorisms. At the same time, even knowledge about such errors of thinking does not save one from their consequences and often spoils people's lives.

I'll start with such an effect, the meaning of which, for me personally, is close to the meaning of the phraseological unit “don't judge a book by its cover,” namely: halo effect or halo effect.

It manifests itself in an error in assessing another person or phenomenon, because the general impression is formed not for objective reasons, but because of some particular peculiarities. As a generalized example, we can give a situation when the eyes of a stranger are somewhat similar to the eyes of, say, a caring father. And for this reason alone, such qualities as kindness, ability to care, reliability can be unreasonably attributed to a stranger, and accordingly, certain expectations from this person can arise, although he himself could not give any reason for them.

It is impossible to insure yourself against the occurrence of the halo effect, because you cannot get away from value judgments at the first impression, but the consequences of this phenomenon can be minimized. For this, the ability to not be an extremely categorical person is suitable, so as not to divide everything into black and white, good and bad, but to recognize the presence of halftones, thus it will be possible to draw more objective conclusions, and not adjust them to the initial impression. Try to see the dynamics of the development of events, and then give an assessment.

The old adage “if you don't try, you won't know” is the solution to the following cognitive bias, namely: generalization of special cases.

This error of thinking is associated with the tendency to generalize without reason, moving from the particular to the general. In other words, on the basis of any particular characteristics or, say, isolated cases, a person draws categorical conclusions about predetermination and does not admit the possibility of other different options. Plus, the tendency to trust one's own experience more than suppose the same statistics plays a significant role in this bias. For example, if a person has experienced cheating in one relationship, he may latently expect it in new ones, demonstrating his distrust and trying to control the life of another. Or, another example might be a situation when a person is sure that he will not cope with the task at hand, if something similar did not work out for him. Completely ignoring the facts that at the moment he has everything he needs to achieve his goal.

You can try to fight this phenomenon with rationality, sorting out all the available information and searching for the missing information in order to find real similarities with previous experience, but be able to influence them and find differences that in any case will show that future experience may be different …

External conformity represents a person's compliance to change his opinion, assessments, behavior under real and sometimes imaginary pressure from another person or a group of people. That is, the "standards" of others are accepted without subjecting them to critical analysis. This submission to the opinion of others is associated with an attempt to avoid censure or to gain approval. To give examples, I think, it makes no sense, because it can be described simply by one expression "step on your throat." According to E. Fromm, conformity can help not to experience anxiety and loneliness, but the other side of the coin is the loss of one's “I”.

The level of conformity depends on many factors, making it difficult to find a recipe for getting rid of. On the one hand, it often happens that the manifestation of a different opinion or behavior can be perceived very aggressively, therefore, first of all, it is necessary to understand how to remain yourself without being exposed to danger. On the other hand, it is great to understand that the saying “one in the field is not a warrior” has a continuation: “one in the field is not a warrior, but a traveler”, but do you need a “team”, which one and for what purpose it is up to you to decide.

It also happens internal conformity, but this is about something else - this is about changing your opinion in connection with the actual internal acceptance of the other, recognizing it as more reasonable and objective.

This mistake of thinking, in my opinion, is inherent in most people and, day after day, sowing disappointment among them.

Distortion due to projection - this is nothing more than the unconscious belief of a person that other people share the same thoughts and values, that they have the same beliefs and positions in life. In support of the prevalence of this phenomenon, remember how often you have heard or yourself used the phraseological unit “Measure by yourself”. Many personal relationships collapse from the fact that people do not tell each other their goals in life, do not communicate priority values, but hope that they are identical in their partner. But not only in personal, but also in business relationships, it is better to clarify those moments that do not have clear clarity, because who, if not we ourselves, must protect ourselves from disappointment.

It is so easy to succumb to the next distortion, which has a name that is not clear to everyone, because “you see a speck in someone else's eye, but you don’t notice a log in your own”.

Fundamental attribution error. Attribution (from Lat. Attributio attribution) in psychology is defined as the subjective opinion of a person about the reasons for the behavior of another. And the fundamental mistake of attribution is the tendency of a person to explain the actions of other people by their personal characteristics, often underestimating or completely ignoring the significance of external circumstances, and his own actions or behavior in a similar situation, exactly the opposite, is more often explained by external circumstances with an underestimation of the influence of personal characteristics. An example would be a situation when a person explains why he did not fulfill, say, his promise to someone. An answer in the style of "I was lazy" seems unlikely, most likely he will talk about difficult circumstances beyond his control. But in the case when someone else does not fulfill his promise, most likely, this will be regarded as optional, lazy or bad attitude.

But no less interesting is that in situations related to success or achievements, everything happens in exactly the opposite way: their results are assessed as justly deserved, but others, as luck accompanying life.

You can protect yourself from the influence of this cunning distortion by allowing others to explain before you label them. And remember that your own self-esteem is much better influenced by trying to achieve your goals and the results of your own actions than looking for reasons outside why they do not satisfy you.

“The world is dangerous not because some people do evil, but because some people see it and do nothing” words belonging to A. Einstein fully reveal the meaning of the following distortion.

Underestimating inaction - This distortion is associated with the tendency of people to underestimate the consequences of inaction. Simply put, when choosing between action and inaction, which can lead to a similar negative result, a person is more likely to choose the second option. On the one hand, it is easy to understand such a strategy: to any censure from the outside in case of inactivity, you can always answer “I have something to do with it? It all happened by itself. On the other hand, this is how a person can deprive himself of the chance to influence the change in the result for the better. And it is clear that fears of taking responsibility for an action are great, but you can try to analyze what and how could be done in order not to expose yourself to real danger, but to throw imaginary away.

Procrastination (from the English. "delay, postponement") or the effect of tightening. It consists in the tendency to constantly postpone previously planned tasks or plans for later, even if they are very important. Such postponement differs from laziness in that a person realizes the importance of the transferred and experiences anxiety and other negative experiences because of this. And the instructions of B. Franklin “Don't put off until tomorrow what you can do today”, alas, can not always help to get out of the state of procrastination.

You can try using the following scheme:

- to analyze the relevance of the task for you;

- try to find the most acceptable course of execution, perhaps dividing the task into subtasks, it will come out to get pleasant sensations from small, but achievements.

- try to control your impulsivity, which contributes to procrastination.

- weigh the value for you of the result you want to get.

Do not set a goal to eradicate procrastination from your life, chasing the firebird and constant excessive self-control is not the road to happiness.

Unfortunately, not succumbing to cognitive distortions at all is unlikely to succeed, because there are many of them and they arise involuntarily, but trying to trace the presence and consequences is quite realistic in order to be able to control them. According to the principle: "knowledgeable means armed."

I hope that after reading about these distortions, as if from the outside, someone will be able to avoid something in time, someone will achieve something or influence something, and not just analyze after the fact why an unpleasant outcome could have happened.