Cognition

Cognition
What are some other key biases that influence judgment? Judgment seems to be
influenced by a variety of things each have their own implication on judgment.

Overconfidence serves as a bias on judgment. Fischhoff, Slovic, and Lichtenstein,
in 1997, tested this idea. The participants were given the question
"Absinthe is a: A) liquer or B) a precious stone." The subjects were
to choose the correct answer, and state the probability of being correct. It was
found that when the subjects were 100 percent confident in their answers, they
were only correct 80 percent of the time. This provides evidence that there is
in fact, a dissociation between knowledge and awareness. Another bias that
influences judgment is the hindsight bias. This is commonly referred to as the

Monday morning quarterback, saying "He should have...." This bias
works on the premises that hindsight is 20/20. We can see the hindsight bias in
many psychology experiments where the subjects are asked to predict the outcomes
of an event, doing so with chance accuracy. After being told the outcomes, the
subjects say that the predictions would be easy because the outcomes are
obvious. What they are failing to do is to carefully compare the outcomes with
reasoning, which may propagate inaccuracy. The confirmation bias is another bias
which influences judgement. This bias happens in a variety of forms. First, when
subjects are assessing a belief, they are more likely to seek evidence that
confirms the belief than evidence that does not support it. Second, when
disconfirming evidence is made available to them, subjects often fail to use it,
in adjusting their beliefs. Third, subjects will forget non-supporting evidence,
and show memory bias toward cases similar to their beliefs. Finally, subjects
regularly fail to consider alternative hypotheses, which might explain the
available data as well as the current beliefs. Logic can influence judgement to
a certain degree. Logic is concerned with whether a particular conclusion is
brought about by a particular set of premises. So, when the subjects show the
belief-bias patterns, they are not distinguishing between good and bad
arguments. Instead, they are willing to support a bad argument that leads to a
conclusion which they believe is true, and they are willing to reject a good
argument, if it leads to conclusions already believed false. Nevertheless, these
biases can influence judgement, but they can be combated if recognized in our
cognitive capabilities.

User Comments