Knowing and Overcoming Biases In Learning
We’re Not As Objective As We Think We Are
Most of us probably think we’re pretty good at thinking objectively. We’ve learned about one or more specialty areas, we’ve experienced life in different settings, and we’ve spent time with a lot of different people. So we conclude that whatever the situation, we can think clearly and objectively about whatever the topic may be. But we may not be able to see things as clearly and objectively as we think.
In their book “Coaching the Brain: Practical Applications of Neuroscience to Coaching,” Joseph O’Connor and Andrea Lages note that “Our usual way of thinking distorts, simplifies and downright mangles the information we get[1].” We have two ways of thinking: automatic and mostly unconscious and the other is slow, conscious, and reflective (O’Connor, J. & Lages, A., 2019). If we want to think as clearly as possible, we need to limit the first way of thinking and encourage the second.
O’Connor and Lages (2019) offer several biases that can influence our reasoning and decision making:
Loss aversion: we hate losing more than we love winning.
Attention bias: we look for things that are familiar in new settings.
Confirmation bias: we tend to notice information that confirms what we already believe.
Availability bias: we pay attention to what is available.
Outcome bias: we evaluate decisions by the outcome rather than by the process.
Fundamental attribution error: we credit results to people without fully considering the context.
Correlation vs. cause: sometimes events occur together without one causing the other.
No matter what your business or organization does, those who lead the organization need to be aware of logical biases in their thinking that affect their decision making. Once one is aware of theses biases, they can train themselves to pursue “System 2” thinking, although doing so “demands effort and inhibiting that fast, obvious (but often wrong) answer form System 1 (O’Connor & Lages, 2019).
As a leader in your organization, you may want to spend some time with your team exploring how you can avoid the traps of System 1 thinking and spend more decision-making effort in System 2 thinking.
[1] O’Connor, J. & Lages, A. (2019). Coaching the Brain: Practical Applications of Neuroscience to Coaching. Routledge.