Biases Hindering Critical Thinking

In today’s complex world, we often find ourselves stuck in decision-making because we pick all related information and try to analyze it without giving a second thought on whether that information is actually relevant or just seems to be relevant. To take a sound decision, we need to think upon the given situation critically. In simpler terms, critical thinking is the tool to analyze the quality and relevance of information i.e., whenever we validate the accuracy of the information or confirm the evidence to be in line with the arguments or ask ourselves "How to find out the authenticity of a given statement?”, we engage in critical thinking.

In the process of looking for the validation of an argument, we encounter certain cognitive biases that occur when we process and interpret the information. For instance, you detect your mom’s fury from her speech and conclude that the only reason for her anger is your messy room. So cognitive bias is not always wrong. It helps you to process things quickly. However, there could be a possibility that today, your mom's mood is bad because of that fruit vendor who refused to bargain the sky-touching price of apple. Now here cognitive bias led you to a poor judgment of cleaning the room on an urgent basis.

Let us understand few types of cognitive biases.

1.  Bias Blind Spot 

We are often quicker in pointing out other’s biases than analyzing our own bias. For instance, we may comment that Mr. A has a judgemental mentality, not realising that we ourselves our judging him.

2.  Affect Heuristic

We often rely on our personal like or dislike for judgment. For instance, Salman Khan is a good actor because I like Salman Khan.

3.  False Consensus Bias

Sometimes we overestimate the amount of agreement to disagreement with our opinion. For instance, the eyes of the entire class are speaking that I performed best in presentation.

4.  Clustering Illusion

It makes us seek patterns in random events and misrepresent correlation with cause. For instance, petrol prices in India are going up and Taliban has taken over Afghanistan. Hence, Taliban is spreading violence in Afghanistan because of an upsurge in the price of petrol in India. This is a clustering illusion

5.  Availability Heuristic

This happens when we overestimate the likelihood of an event after being overly exposed to similar events. For instance, all my friends are breaking up so if I enter into a relationship, I might also end breaking it up.

Now that you know the spots where you can go wrong while thinking critically to make a sound decision, what are you waiting for! Find out that spot that is hindering your critical thinking and minimize it as much as you can. Wait! here is an interesting task for you. Can you identify the type of cognitive bias in the above mentioned example of mom’s fury and cleaning of messy room? Do let us know your answer in the comment box.

Sources:

1. https://beckisaltzman.com/
2. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316486755_Cognitive_Biases_that_Interfere_with_Critical_Thinking_and_Scientific_Reasoning_A_Course_Module