"the mother of all biases" - RSA

"the mother of all biases"

Blog 4 Comments

  • Education
  • Social brain

From the boardroom to the classroom to the living room, we aren’t always as in control of our decisions as we think we might be. As uncomfortable as it may feel to some, scores of academic studies and personal anecdotes point to the fact that our decisions, actions, and behaviour are often not the result of calculated reasoning, but rather, are often snap responses based on emotion and intuition, shaped by the surrounding environment.

From the boardroom to the classroom to the living room, we aren’t always as in control of our decisions as we think we might be. As uncomfortable as it may feel to some, scores of academic studies and personal anecdotes point to the fact that our decisions, actions, and behaviour are often not the result of calculated reasoning, but rather, are often snap responses based on emotion and intuition, shaped by the surrounding environment.

 

image via The Middle Road

 

Judgements underlying our behaviour can systematically differ from what we might otherwise expect them to be given the facts of the situation, and this is called ‘cognitive bias’ in the behavioural science literature. At the RSA, the Social Brain Centre and the Education team are currently exploring the ways in which an understanding of cognitive bias might be applied to education policy and practice.

One of the biases we are looking at in detail is the confirmation bias – which is the tendency for us to seek out and to interpret information in such a way as to confirm or support our pre-existing beliefs. (It is often so much easier to recognise this in others than in ourselves.  Consider the last heated difference of opinion you’ve had with your spouse, a friend, colleague, parent, or politician…).

Why is this important? To start, the way in which we praise students may actually serve to reinforce the confirmation bias. If we praise a student for providing only evidence that supports his or her claim -rather than asking for counter-evidence as well to get a fuller, more balanced perspective- then the natural tendency to confirm their own claim is further supported by these social norms.  

The confirmation bias may perpetuate a certain self-perception

Additionally, the confirmation bias may perpetuate a certain self-perception. For example, a student may begin a school year with an expectation about his or her own potential, or what ‘type’ of student s/he is. Similarly, a teacher may form an expectation of a student’s likely performance based on an initial impression (this is sometimes known as the ‘halo effect’ in behavioural science; I’ve been told that this same term is used slightly differently in other circles). Given our natural tendency to notice cues and information that support what we already think, these student identities might be reinforced and locked in. In turn, this self-perception itself could have implications for student performance, student-teacher or peer interaction, and effort.

Given that this particular bias seems to be so important for how we learn content, our potential careers, and on a student’s self-perception, I have already devoted a lot of thought to it. So I was absolutely delighted when Rolf Dobelli, speaking at the LSE on Thursday, referred to the confirmation bias in passing as “the mother of all thinking biases”.

Even though we are currently exploring cognitive biases specifically in the context of educational policy and practice, it is not hard to see how they are relevant to non-educationalists, too.  Of course, many people reading this have themselves been formally educated at some point, or have children who are in school.  But even beyond that, replacing the word ‘student’ with the words ‘colleague’ or ‘family member’ in the paragraphs above may help shed light on unexpected outcomes stemming from decisions made at work or at home.

To find out more about the work of the Social Brain Centre and the Education Matters team, sign up to receive our blogs directly to your inbox, and if you are interested in supporting our work please contact me at [email protected]

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4 Comments

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  • Hi
    Simon, sorry for the delayed response - for some reason just seeing this now!
    Lots to respond to: first, I agree that it would be really great to see some
    practitioners from other fields such as health, education, human resources, etc.
    The sales-heavy presence may be down to the fact that increasing sales seems to
    be the most easily-recognisable application of BE, although we know there are far more applications.

    Next, the Dan Ariely course is great! I must admit I've only had time to watch a few of the lectures, but he seems to be covering a wide range and highlighting the seminal research. I've found many of the lectures to be similar content to his
    books. If you are pressed for time and want an overview, the week 1 lectures
    are good.

    I don’t know anyone in Denmark doing BE personally, but I have heard of a group there who have been experimenting with Nudges to influence food choices and reduce food waste. They are at: http://www.inudgeyou.com/danis...

    And finally, you put forward an interesting idea. I don’t know of anyone looking at these particular connections, but will keep thinking and let you know if I come across anyone.

  • (The link does'nt work - there's an ')' at the end)

    Your career list in the article contained a bit to many 'sales' interests for my liking, but the important thing is to spread knowledge about it beyond that.. :)

    Any quick thoughts on these ?:
    1. At the moment i'm taking a free course on Coursera.org by Dan Ariely ('A beginners guide to irrational behavior'). Do you have any 'must see' links to lectures on the subject that you would like to recommend ?

    2. Do you know of a Danish/Copenhagen based group like LBEN ?

    3. It seems to me that there is a hierarchical tree-system of causes for bias'es - something like: Predictive sequence memory (Jeff Hawkings) -> Cognitive dissonance/consonance -> confirmation bias, etc. Do you know of anyone trying to track the different biases from cell-level to cognitive behavior to group dynamics in such a way?

    I'll look forward to other articles on this fascinating 'self' shattering subject and to see how your project pans out :)

  • Hi Simon, thanks for your comment. Indeed, our aim with this project is to help extend the discussion of cognitive biases beyond behavioural/decision scientists and social psychologists out to others who could benefit from a better understanding of human decision making. (And see a previous blog post for some thoughts on the types of people who this might be! http://www.rsablogs.org.uk/201...

  • All our bias'es should be known by everyone, and the links to our irrational behavior at society-level should be explored. Politicians should be educated at once..