5 ms·

Cognitive biases

66 points by gcheong 14y ago

cristianpascu 14y ago
I must say I have mixed feelings about these biases. One thing I've noticed is that they are used as counter-arguments. "OH, you're saying that because you're biased." Could we say that some people are biased toward seeing biases everywhere? Even if you've rationalized an opinion of yours in its entirety, as deep as it's humanely and currently possible, you can still be subject to, say, "wishful thinking". Say you hold a belief about something that is not yet verified to be true of false. It's a belief. It's not knowledge because you can't justify its truth value yet. A skeptic philosopher might hold that you will never justify it entirely. But that's a different story. However, some people will just trow a "bias" at you for the simple reason they think you wish it to be true, not that you believe and think it to be true.
- Lost_BiomedE 14y ago
  It is better as a tool for self-introspection than a tool of accusation. Thinking in terms of probabilities is good for the not verified stuff.
- frooxie 14y ago
  Reminds me of Eliezer Yudkowsky's comment that "I've seen people severely messed up by their own knowledge of biases. They have more ammunition with which to argue against anything they don't like."
  - confluence 14y ago
    Well if people can use these biases against the things they don't like - then the things they don't like aren't backed up with data, or they aren't reasoned correctly or they are argued fallaciously. Having a deep knowledge of cognitive biases, logical fallacies and the improper use of statistics destroys the vast majority of hypotheses that are stated on a daily basis. This is not because we don't like these things. No, it's because most people are full of shit. See if you can see all examples of biases, fallacious arguments and poor reasoning in my above rant! I've used a fair few. But only because I know all of them. Knowledge allows me to see through people whilst making myself opaque to others. Yes this can be abused. However this is only true to the extent that most things are already bullshit - using these techniques can only change what bullshit people believe. However these techniques don't effect what is true or not - they merely help find it.
    - TeMPOraL 14y ago
      The problem Eliezer tried to highlight is that sloppy thinkers and/or people with no desire to understand the truth of a given matter will tend to look carefully for biases in arguments they don't like, while not applying the same scrutiny to the arguments supporting their position. To some extent, it's problem common to all of us - we tend to be more sceptical about things we don't agree with than with the ones we like. But some people exhibit this very strongly and they will surely hurt themselves more, the more ammunition they have.
bthomas 14y ago
If you like this stuff, I can't recommend Thinking Fast and Slow enough
- alexpopescu 14y ago
  I'd recommend the first 200+/- pages. Afterwards it just keeps repeating.
- mbesto 14y ago
  I came here to say this. Look at my comment stream and you'll see me post the Amazon link probably once a month, haha!
frooxie 14y ago
The best book on cognitive biases that I have read is Irrationality by Stuart Sutherland.
B-Con 14y ago
I believe that knowledge of cognitive biases is useful for identifying flaws in one's own thinking, but I can't say I've seen it used very productively in argument. Especially for the type who is more of the "learn it and sling it" fact-thrower with more knowledge than understanding. It becomes harder to talk to those people because they're convinced they have your psyche all figured out, no matter what logic you employ.
- cma 14y ago
  This reeks of survivorship and hindsight bias.
jakeonthemove 14y ago
I don't know, choosing the middle option seems like a good thing - get the best possible product for the least possible amount of money...
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- strangestchild 14y ago
  That's a good intuition so long as the people trying to sell you a product aren't themselves aware of it. The problem comes when companies sell slightly different products at a greater price to try to influence you into thinking the cheaper option is great value. Check out this excellent TED talk by Dan Ariely for a couple of examples of this phenomenon in action, as well as a few other, similar, effects: http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_ariely_asks_are_we_in_control_of_our_own_decisions.html http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_ariely_asks_are_we_in_control_o...
tokenadult 14y ago
I can't upvote this as much as it deserves. The comments posted before this one point out the delicate issue in learning about biases in human thinking: it's a lot easier to notice the other guy's biases than my own. I'm glad that quite a few Hacker News participants like to share articles about systematic flaws in human thinking. Over time, with practice, that can help us disagree http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html more constructively in comment threads here, and avoid the "worst argument in the world" http://lesswrong.com/lw/ee7/cleaning_up_the_worst_argument_essay/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/ee7/cleaning_up_the_worst_argument_e... as we argue with one another.
bane 14y ago
I highly recommend this book for anybody interested in this https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/psychology-of-intelligence-analysis/ https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intellig...
gregholmberg 14y ago
Here is an alphabetical list of cognitive biases. There seem to be more than 170, including a 'Google effect'. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases . Daniel Kahneman (prominent psychologist, 2002 Nobel in Economics) helped develop "reference class forecasting" to avoid poor project management decisions on novel or unusual projects. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reference_class_forecasting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reference_class_forecasting
Wingman4l7 14y ago
I highly recommend checking out the articles on http://lesswrong.com/ http://lesswrong.com/, which is a whole online community devoted to understanding and overcoming cognitive biases.
SparrowOS 14y ago
brain cell is 10 Hz Can 10,000 women make a baby in 1 hour? Any electrical engineer will laugh you to scorn. God says... which thou hast chosen, and toward the house that I have built for thy name: 8:45 Then hear thou in heaven their prayer and their supplication, and maintain their cause. 8:46 If they sin against thee, (for there is no man that sinneth not,) and thou be angry with them, and deliver them to the enemy, so that they carry them away captives unto the land of the enemy, far or near; 8:47 Yet if they shall bethink themselves in the land whither they were carried captives, and repent, and make supplication unto thee in the land of them that carried them captives, saying, We have sinned, and have done perversely, we have committed wickedness; 8:48 And so return unto thee with all their heart, and with all their soul, in the land of their enemies, which led them away captive, and pray unto thee toward their land, which thou gavest unto their fathers, the city which thou hast chosen, and the house which I have built for thy name: 8:49 Then hear thou their prayer and their supplication in heaven thy dwelling place, and maintain their cause, 8:50 And forgive thy people that have sinned against thee, and all their transgressions wherein they have transgressed against thee, and give them compassion before them who carried them captive, that they may have compassion on them: 8:51 For they be thy people, and thine inheritance, which thou broughtest forth out of Egypt, from the midst of the furnace of iron: 8:52 That thine eyes may be open unto the supplication of thy servant, and unto the supplication of thy people Israel, to hearken unto them in all that they call for unto thee. ----- Slavery, you mother fuckers!! Fucken God enslaved the Jews for being sinful. Don't give me no shit on black people. read numbers 11. God is no chump. Thou shall not covet or really bad shit happens. Read numbers 11 you God damn morons! STFU!
chris123 14y ago
There are many good Wikipedia pages on this. Start with the lists and drill down to pages for individual items: https://www.google.com/search?q=wikipedia+bias+fallacy https://www.google.com/search?q=wikipedia+bias+fallacy
thewarrior 14y ago
Do these biases give us any cognitive advantages ? We wouldnt have evolved them unless they gave us some evolutionary benefits.
- oftenwrong 14y ago
  >We wouldnt have evolved them unless they gave us some evolutionary benefits. Not necessarily.
- strangestchild 14y ago
  Absolutely. For example, the ingroup bias allows a group of related individuals to benefit at the expense of those with whom they are less likely to share genetic material; and the observation bias allows our brain to focus on information that is more likely to be of interest - if I tell you tigers have stripes, you're likely to notice more stripes and maybe spot more tigers. In general, though, fallacies like this arise because the brain prefers rules that are simple and quick to apply - they may not be optimal in terms of the solution obtained, but they are effective heuristics once cost and time are factored in. It's better to spot a hidden tiger quickly but occasionally get it wrong, than to be the world's greatest tiger spotter given half an hour to think about it. Most probabilistic and decision-making fallacies fall into this bracket - the middle-choice fallacy is actually a pretty good heuristic (as another poster pointed out)- but there are edge cases where it can trick us if we don't think over our decisions rationally when we have the time and freedom to.
strangestchild 14y ago
It's a shame to see the driving/flying statistic trotted out again. My absolute chance of dying in a car crash as opposed to a plane crash is irrelevant when deciding which to take - as an individual I'm far more likely to die of drowning than of acid burns, but I'd still rather go swimming in plain old H2O. Neglecting the base rate is itself a common probabilistic fallacy. In fact the relative risk of flying versus driving depends significantly on the way you choose to assess risk: chance of death per journey, per mile, or per hour. Further, a straightforward mortality assessment does not factor in the risk of nonlethal but debilitating injury. Like all good questions, it's not as simple as it first appears.

66 points by gcheong 14y ago

I must say I have mixed feelings about these biases. One thing I've noticed is that they are used as counter-arguments. "OH, you're saying that because you're biased." Could we say that some people are biased toward seeing biases everywhere? Even if you've rationalized an opinion of yours in its entirety, as deep as it's humanely and currently possible, you can still be subject to, say, "wishful thinking". Say you hold a belief about something that is not yet verified to be true of false. It's a belief. It's not knowledge because you can't justify its truth value yet. A skeptic philosopher might hold that you will never justify it entirely. But that's a different story. However, some people will just trow a "bias" at you for the simple reason they think you wish it to be true, not that you believe and think it to be true.

Lost_BiomedE 14y ago
It is better as a tool for self-introspection than a tool of accusation. Thinking in terms of probabilities is good for the not verified stuff.
frooxie 14y ago
Reminds me of Eliezer Yudkowsky's comment that "I've seen people severely messed up by their own knowledge of biases. They have more ammunition with which to argue against anything they don't like."
- confluence 14y ago
  Well if people can use these biases against the things they don't like - then the things they don't like aren't backed up with data, or they aren't reasoned correctly or they are argued fallaciously. Having a deep knowledge of cognitive biases, logical fallacies and the improper use of statistics destroys the vast majority of hypotheses that are stated on a daily basis. This is not because we don't like these things. No, it's because most people are full of shit. See if you can see all examples of biases, fallacious arguments and poor reasoning in my above rant! I've used a fair few. But only because I know all of them. Knowledge allows me to see through people whilst making myself opaque to others. Yes this can be abused. However this is only true to the extent that most things are already bullshit - using these techniques can only change what bullshit people believe. However these techniques don't effect what is true or not - they merely help find it.
  - TeMPOraL 14y ago
    The problem Eliezer tried to highlight is that sloppy thinkers and/or people with no desire to understand the truth of a given matter will tend to look carefully for biases in arguments they don't like, while not applying the same scrutiny to the arguments supporting their position. To some extent, it's problem common to all of us - we tend to be more sceptical about things we don't agree with than with the ones we like. But some people exhibit this very strongly and they will surely hurt themselves more, the more ammunition they have.

bthomas 14y ago

If you like this stuff, I can't recommend Thinking Fast and Slow enough

alexpopescu 14y ago
I'd recommend the first 200+/- pages. Afterwards it just keeps repeating.
mbesto 14y ago
I came here to say this. Look at my comment stream and you'll see me post the Amazon link probably once a month, haha!

frooxie 14y ago

The best book on cognitive biases that I have read is Irrationality by Stuart Sutherland.

B-Con 14y ago

I believe that knowledge of cognitive biases is useful for identifying flaws in one's own thinking, but I can't say I've seen it used very productively in argument. Especially for the type who is more of the "learn it and sling it" fact-thrower with more knowledge than understanding. It becomes harder to talk to those people because they're convinced they have your psyche all figured out, no matter what logic you employ.

cma 14y ago
This reeks of survivorship and hindsight bias.

jakeonthemove 14y ago

I don't know, choosing the middle option seems like a good thing - get the best possible product for the least possible amount of money...

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
strangestchild 14y ago
That's a good intuition so long as the people trying to sell you a product aren't themselves aware of it. The problem comes when companies sell slightly different products at a greater price to try to influence you into thinking the cheaper option is great value. Check out this excellent TED talk by Dan Ariely for a couple of examples of this phenomenon in action, as well as a few other, similar, effects: http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_ariely_asks_are_we_in_control_of_our_own_decisions.html http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_ariely_asks_are_we_in_control_o...

tokenadult 14y ago

I can't upvote this as much as it deserves. The comments posted before this one point out the delicate issue in learning about biases in human thinking: it's a lot easier to notice the other guy's biases than my own. I'm glad that quite a few Hacker News participants like to share articles about systematic flaws in human thinking. Over time, with practice, that can help us disagree http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html more constructively in comment threads here, and avoid the "worst argument in the world" http://lesswrong.com/lw/ee7/cleaning_up_the_worst_argument_essay/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/ee7/cleaning_up_the_worst_argument_e... as we argue with one another.

bane 14y ago

I highly recommend this book for anybody interested in this https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/psychology-of-intelligence-analysis/ https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intellig...

gregholmberg 14y ago

Here is an alphabetical list of cognitive biases. There seem to be more than 170, including a 'Google effect'. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases . Daniel Kahneman (prominent psychologist, 2002 Nobel in Economics) helped develop "reference class forecasting" to avoid poor project management decisions on novel or unusual projects. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reference_class_forecasting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reference_class_forecasting

Wingman4l7 14y ago

I highly recommend checking out the articles on http://lesswrong.com/ http://lesswrong.com/, which is a whole online community devoted to understanding and overcoming cognitive biases.

SparrowOS 14y ago

brain cell is 10 Hz Can 10,000 women make a baby in 1 hour? Any electrical engineer will laugh you to scorn. God says... which thou hast chosen, and toward the house that I have built for thy name: 8:45 Then hear thou in heaven their prayer and their supplication, and maintain their cause. 8:46 If they sin against thee, (for there is no man that sinneth not,) and thou be angry with them, and deliver them to the enemy, so that they carry them away captives unto the land of the enemy, far or near; 8:47 Yet if they shall bethink themselves in the land whither they were carried captives, and repent, and make supplication unto thee in the land of them that carried them captives, saying, We have sinned, and have done perversely, we have committed wickedness; 8:48 And so return unto thee with all their heart, and with all their soul, in the land of their enemies, which led them away captive, and pray unto thee toward their land, which thou gavest unto their fathers, the city which thou hast chosen, and the house which I have built for thy name: 8:49 Then hear thou their prayer and their supplication in heaven thy dwelling place, and maintain their cause, 8:50 And forgive thy people that have sinned against thee, and all their transgressions wherein they have transgressed against thee, and give them compassion before them who carried them captive, that they may have compassion on them: 8:51 For they be thy people, and thine inheritance, which thou broughtest forth out of Egypt, from the midst of the furnace of iron: 8:52 That thine eyes may be open unto the supplication of thy servant, and unto the supplication of thy people Israel, to hearken unto them in all that they call for unto thee. ----- Slavery, you mother fuckers!! Fucken God enslaved the Jews for being sinful. Don't give me no shit on black people. read numbers 11. God is no chump. Thou shall not covet or really bad shit happens. Read numbers 11 you God damn morons! STFU!

chris123 14y ago

There are many good Wikipedia pages on this. Start with the lists and drill down to pages for individual items: https://www.google.com/search?q=wikipedia+bias+fallacy https://www.google.com/search?q=wikipedia+bias+fallacy

thewarrior 14y ago

Do these biases give us any cognitive advantages ? We wouldnt have evolved them unless they gave us some evolutionary benefits.

oftenwrong 14y ago
>We wouldnt have evolved them unless they gave us some evolutionary benefits. Not necessarily.
strangestchild 14y ago
Absolutely. For example, the ingroup bias allows a group of related individuals to benefit at the expense of those with whom they are less likely to share genetic material; and the observation bias allows our brain to focus on information that is more likely to be of interest - if I tell you tigers have stripes, you're likely to notice more stripes and maybe spot more tigers. In general, though, fallacies like this arise because the brain prefers rules that are simple and quick to apply - they may not be optimal in terms of the solution obtained, but they are effective heuristics once cost and time are factored in. It's better to spot a hidden tiger quickly but occasionally get it wrong, than to be the world's greatest tiger spotter given half an hour to think about it. Most probabilistic and decision-making fallacies fall into this bracket - the middle-choice fallacy is actually a pretty good heuristic (as another poster pointed out)- but there are edge cases where it can trick us if we don't think over our decisions rationally when we have the time and freedom to.

strangestchild 14y ago

It's a shame to see the driving/flying statistic trotted out again. My absolute chance of dying in a car crash as opposed to a plane crash is irrelevant when deciding which to take - as an individual I'm far more likely to die of drowning than of acid burns, but I'd still rather go swimming in plain old H2O. Neglecting the base rate is itself a common probabilistic fallacy. In fact the relative risk of flying versus driving depends significantly on the way you choose to assess risk: chance of death per journey, per mile, or per hour. Further, a straightforward mortality assessment does not factor in the risk of nonlethal but debilitating injury. Like all good questions, it's not as simple as it first appears.