You can sharpen your thinking and decision making skills when you’re aware of your cognitive biases.

Cognitive biases are patterns of thinking that can trick you into making irrational decisions. They affect your better judgment and your ability to be more discerning. They can block your ability to hear and respond to your intuition.

You know the feeling. You thought you were making the right decision only to you find yourself asking, how did I get into such a mess?

Cognitive biases can adversely affect your ability to manifest your future.

Everyone is susceptible to cognitive bias, especially if your personal energy budget is running low, and more so if it’s in debt. When you’re stressed because you’re low on physical energy and under pressure, these conditions are perfect for making hasty or ill-conceived decisions.

A cognitive bias is like a spell cast over your ability to think clearly. One way to break the spell is to become conscious of it, to bring it into your awareness.

Here are just a few of the most popular:

The Anecdotal Evidence Bias

This bias leads you to base a decision on anecdotal evidence such as other people’s opinions or experiences. A colleague of yours recommends their friend, a relationship counsellor, but after a few sessions you and your partner realise the counsellor is out of their depth. After doing some research you discover that the counsellor is not qualified in that area. Solution: do your research before making a decision.

The Halo Bias

The halo bias leads you to assume your impression of someone or something in one area of life influences your impression of them in other areas of life. For example, you assume because a colleague is forthright at work that this would extend to other areas of life, but in fact the reverse is true in their romantic life. Solution: question your first impressions before making a decision.

The Ostrich Bias

This bias can affect how you source the information you need to make a decision. When under the spell of the ostrich effect, you tend to avoid information that you think might be unpleasant. For example, you avoid searching for a qualified relationship counsellor because participating in counselling could deliver bad news about your relationship. Solution: feel the fear then use the energy behind it to make a conscious decision.

The Pessimism Bias

This bias leads you to overestimate the likelihood of things going wrong in the future. For example you assume that relationship counselling is not worth the effort because the relationship is doomed anyway. Solution: put your pessimism to better use by imagining the worst case scenario (and this will assist you to face your fear) then create a risk management strategy before making a decision.

The Optimism Bias

Also known as the Pollyanna effect, or worse, toxic positivity, can make you naïve to risk or danger. For example, your rose coloured glasses make you blind to the signs that indicate your relationship is in trouble. Solution: remember that too much of a good thing will reduce your personal agency when making a decision.

The Fundamental Attribution Bias

This bias leads you assume that the other person’s behaviour is simply a result of their personality. However, it may be due to a lack of effective personal energy budget management skills combined with environmental conditions that exacerbate the situation. For example, you attribute your partner’s silence to their personality when they are simply taking some time out to collect themselves after a stressful day at work. Solution: assess the condition of the physical, emotional, mental and environmental contexts before making a decision.

The Bandwagon Bias

This bias leads you to think or behave in a certain way, good or bad, because there’s an assumption that it will lead to success, everyone is doing it, or thinking it, so it must be okay. For example, everyone at work (but you) is either separated, divorced or their relationship is on the rocks. Solution: if everyone else is doing it, then consider the consequences of doing the opposite before making a decision.

The Illusion of Transparency Bias

This bias leads you to assume that others can see through you when that is not what’s happening. For example, you assume that your partner knows what you’re thinking or feeling, or that your partner can read your mind, but they don’t pick up on your thoughts or your personal energy or the conditions in the surrounding atmosphere as well as you think. Solution: be prepared to be vulnerable and communicate your needs before making a decision.

The Hindsight Bias

The hindsight bias leads you to assume that based on past experience, your prediction of a future event is more accurate than is the case. For example, your previous relationships were all short term so you assume that your current one will be short lived. Solution: identify the possibilities, probabilities, and potentials before making a decision.

The Overkill Bias

This bias occurs when you assume that a less complicated explanation is always the best alternative. For example, you assume that a keep-it-simple approach is the answer to resolving relationship difficulties, and that there is always a simple explanation for complex problems. However, if you consistently succumb to this bias, you would reinforce your belief in simpler alternatives when a more complex one is required. Solution: investigate the simple option and the complex option before making a decision.

The Blind Spot Bias

A blind spot bias makes you less aware of your own biases than you think. You focus more on your partner’s blind spots and less on being aware of, and learning from, your own. As a result you can end up assuming that you are less susceptible to that blind spot. Solution: identify and question your projections before making a decision.

An unchecked cognitive bias can sabotage the decisions you make. Unchecked cognitive biases can impact your intuitive decisions, and adversely affect your future.

You don’t need to recruit the same old patterns of thinking.

Checking for cognitive bias before making a decision is one way to break the spell of a cognitive bias. Checking for cognitive bias can sharpen your intuitive skills.

Don Miguel Ruiz, author of The Four Agreements was right. Don’t make assumptions.

References

Ruiz, M & Mills, J 1997, The four agreements: practical guide to personal freedom, Amber-Allen Publishing, California.

Shatz I, 2022, Debiasing: how to reduce cognitive bases in yourself and in others, Effectiviology, <https://effectiviology.com/cognitive-debiasing-how-to-debias/&gt;.