The concept of self-leadership is bubbling up as a major theme in this challenge. To lead others, you must first lead yourself. As a leader, consider the various forms of wealth you have access to. One of them is a sound mind, and therefore sound thinking. To think soundly is to think correctly. It is to think like Jesus thinks – it is wholesome, accurate, powerful, effective thinking. Sadly, humans don’t always exhibit soundness of mind. One of the reasons for that is cognitive bias which comes in many forms.

Cognitive biases are systematic deviations from rationality in judgment and are often studied in psychology, sociology, and behavioral economics. They represent mental shortcuts, or heuristics, that the brain uses to make quick decisions. The problem is that these heuristics can lead to errors in judgment. We are all prone to biases, some subtle, others more obvious. Many of us are not aware of these snakes in the grass that greatly impact our lives by influencing beliefs, distorting our thinking, and swaying our decisions.

Here are 10 insidious types of unsound thinking that impact us negatively:

1. Confirmation Bias- Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, focus on, and remember information in a way that confirms your existing ways of thinking. This causes you to favor information that reinforces what you already believe, causing you to ignore or downplay evidence to the contrary. For example, if you only follow social media accounts or news sources that align with your political views, you strengthen you existing beliefs and limit your exposure to alternative perspectives. This can lead to lopsided understanding of reality, making poor choices, and an inability to engage with opposing viewpoints.
2. False Consensus Effect – The false consensus effect is the tendency to overestimate the extent to which others share one’s own beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors. People often assume that their personal opinions and preferences are widely held by the general population. This bias frequently holds hands with the confirmation bias above, whereby you mostly associate with others who believe like you and therefore have a flawed sense of consensus. This bias can result in an overestimation of your own opinions and a failure to consider others.

3. Anchoring Bias – The anchoring bias, or focalism, is the tendency to rely too heavily on the first piece of information encountered (the “anchor”). Subsequent judgments are then adjusted around this initial anchor, even if the information is irrelevant or inaccurate. If you go to the sunglasses store and are greeted by a gorgeous display with $1,000 sunglasses, that sets your mind up for a very different purchasing point than if they have $50 dollar sunglasses at the front. That initial price becomes the “anchor” price for your expenditure and influences your further discussions. In the first case, you could leave with a $500 pair of sunglasses and feel great about the “deal” you got (compared to $1,000; or you can leave with a $100 pair and feel great about your significant upgrade.  Either way, you may have just made a suboptimal decision and overlooked other factors in favor of the initial reference point.

4. Halo or Horns’ Effect – This bias is somewhat related to focalism above. It is the tendency for an initial impression of a person (or product) to influence overall perceptions of their other traits. For instance, if someone is physically attractive, they might also be perceived as more intelligent, kind, or competent – that’s the halo effect. This was a bias that my son James used when I shared in a previous post that he thought a person was a bad guy because he was dirty – that’s the horns effect.

5. Availability Heuristic – The availability heuristic is the tendency to overestimate the likelihood of events that you remember more easily. These are more “available” in your memory bank because they are recent, unusual, or emotionally charged. The error is that these are more memorable, so you think they are more frequent or probable. For example, after watching repeated news of a plane crash, you might come to believe they are very common. The next time you need to fly, this may cause you anxiety. This mental shortcut then greatly affects your well-being.

6. Hindsight Bias – Hindsight bias, also known as the “I knew it all along” phenomenon, is thetendency perceive past events as more predictable than they actually were. After an event has occurred, you may insist you knew the outcome all along, even if you had no basis for such a prediction beforehand. This bias can stem from misremembering previous predictions or a need to feel in control of events. It can lead to overconfidence in one’s predictive abilities, potentially unwise risk-taking, and missing out on future opportunities based on past ones.

7. Actor-Observer Bias – The actor-observer bias describes the tendency to attribute your own actions to external, situational factors, while attributing others’ actions to internal, dispositional factors. As the “actor”, you know the factors that go into your own situation, and therefore are gentler in your assessments, whereas as an “observer” you poorly judge someone whose situation you don’t know. For example, if you are experiencing poor health, you blame the doctor or genetics. If someone else has ill health, you blame them for not taking care of themselves. This bias can lead to pride as well as a lack of empathy, because you don’t consider the situational variables influencing someone else’s behavior.

8. Self-Serving Bias – The self-serving bias is related to the actor-observer bias. It is the tendency to attribute successes to internal factors (e.g., one’s own ability or effort) and failures to external factors (e.g., bad luck or circumstances). For example, a student might credit good grades to their intelligence but blame poor grades on a difficult teacher. The goal of the self-serving bias is to protect your self-esteem. It causes inaccurate self-evaluations and a reluctance to take responsibility for shortcomings.

9. Optimism Bias – The optimism bias is the tendency to overestimate the likelihood of experiencing positive events and underestimate the likelihood of experiencing negative events. Individuals often believe that bad things are more likely to happen to others than to themselves. This can lead to risky behaviors, such as neglecting preventative health measures or failing to purchase insurance. While it can foster hope and motivation, it can also result in a lack of preparedness for potential challenges.

10. Status Quo Bias – The status quo bias causes you to resist change even when it might be beneficial. This bias leads individuals to favor the current state of affairs and to choose the easiest, most automatic, or default option available. For example, as a consumer you may be more loyal to a familiar brand, even when superior or more cost-effective alternatives are available. That’s the reason that razor companies used to give teenagers a free razor, banking on the familiar and therefore preferred product in a market that offered numerous options. This trait is founded on the concept of cognitive miserliness or effort avoidance (which refers to preferring to stick with what is familiar that making to effort to explore alternative.) This preference for inaction can prevent individuals from pursuing opportunities or making necessary adjustments, even when they are beneficial.

CTA:

1. In vulnerability, pick one bias that you may have a tendency to use and share it in the comments. If you can’t think of one, ask someone close to you to point one out.
2. Determine to identify it when you employ it in the future and ask someone to help point it out.
3. Pick one bias and explain it to someone in your life.