7 Cognitive Biases That Secretly Rule Your Life

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We human beings are funny creatures. Because we’re the only species that’s able to introspect and learn about ourselves.

We’re basically brains trying to understand brains.

But even though most of the time our self-awareness is about as cloudy as your nan’s favourite apple juice, there are 7 cognitive biases, sneaky things our brains do to help us survive, that if understood, can drastically improve our lives.

Here are those 7.

(1) Reciprocity bias (don’t accept free stuff)

Not so long ago, the Hare Krishna foundation used to set up shop in busy airports and train stations.

As you rushed to catch your flight or train they would have gracefully approached you and handed you a flower.

“What’s this?” You might have asked.

“It’s our gift to you.” One of the disciples might have responded.

Fuelled with positive emotion, grateful for your free gift, you’d continue to rush to your departure gate only to be stopped by another disciple.

“I’ve already got a gift” you might have told him.

To which he’d respond, “Care to spare a donation sir?”

Us humans hate being in other people’s debt. And many famous companies and influencers use this to their advantage.

First they give, then they take.

Reciprocity was a useful survival strategy for our ancestors.

Let’s imagine you kill a dear in the 6th century BCE. You have enough to feed you for 2 weeks. But you can’t possibly eat all of it, and refrigerators are still a few centuries away.

So you share it with your fellow tribesmen. Hoping in the future they’ll do the same when you’re out of luck. Their bellies become your refrigerator.

But mostly reciprocity bias is what causes us to invite that couple we don’t even like to dinner just because they invited us to their barbecue the week before.

So the next time you're in a supermarket and someone offers you a sample of wine, olives or some cheese for free, refuse the offer. Unless you want to be heading home with a car full of Italian specialties.

(2) Sunk cost fallacy (why you should forget the past)

Imagine you’re sat in a movie theatre with your girlfriend.

And 1 hour into the 3 hour film you start to get agitated, unimpressed with what you’re watching.

“Ok I’ve had enough, this film is terrible” you say to your girlfriend.

“What!” She replies as if she’s just bitten into a lemon. “We spent £40 on these tickets!”

Refusing to leave in order to get the most out of her investment, your girlfriend has fallen prey to sunk cost fallacy.

So too has your friend who chooses to stay with his cheating partner because they’ve been together for 7 years and breaking up would mean all that time invested would’ve been for nothing. Or your other friend who continues her 5 year degree in a subject she hates just because she’s already 3 years in.

The sunk cost fallacy is most dangerous when we’ve invested a lot of time, money, energy or love into something.

The more we invest, the greater the urge to continue.

The reason we persist in this irrational behaviour is because of consistency. We hate the idea of admitting what we previously thought is now wrong. So we persist in order to delay this realisation.

“We’ve come this far…”

“I’ve already read so much of this book…”

“I’m already 3 minutes into the video…”

Of course it might be worth it to persist in an investment.

But to weigh up if you should, do not think about the benefits it’s already brought you.

Think about the potential benefits, or lack thereof, it could bring you in the future.

(3) The paradox of choice (less is more)

We have so much to choose from.

Go to your local supermarket and you’ll see 30 different types of shampoo, 27 brands of dark chocolate and 9 different types of oat milk. Shop on amazon for books and you’ll have to pick from 2 million different titles. Consider finding your future partner through dating apps and you’ll have to swipe through 470 dead tings before you find that one peng ting.

When our parents were younger they likely had 3 types of yogurt, 4 television channels, 2 types of cheese and 1 type of fish.

In his book the paradox of choice, psychologist Barry Schwarz highlights 2 reasons why having more choice is ruining our lives.

Reason 1 = because it leads to inner paralysis.

A supermarket did an experiment where they allowed customers to try 20 types of jelly and choose one to buy at a discount.

The next day they offered 6 types of jelly for the same deal.

The result? They sold 10x more jelly on day 2. Customers on day one couldn’t make a decision!

Reason 2 = it leads to poorer decisions.

When most people think about what they look for in a partner, they say things like:

• Someone who’s empathic
• Kind
• Takes care of their family
• Bubbly
• Supportive
  

But when it comes to choosing someone from the 200 options at their disposal they base their decision on one thing: physical attractiveness.

So how can you make a sound decision when you have 200 options? The truth is, you can’t.

The more choice you have the more unsure you’ll be you made the right decision.

So what can you do?

Be clear on what you want before you explore existing offers. Write down your criteria and standards and stick to them rigidly.

And when you’re making a decision, forget about the “best” decision and just aim for "good enough".

Yes, even when it comes to life partners.

(4) Loss aversion (why evil strikes harder than good)

Giving you $100 would make you less happy then helping you avoid losing $100.

And this explains why losing a job or ending a relationship hurts so much.

Let's do a thought experiment.

On a scale of 1-10, how do you feel today?

Now consider what would bring that score up to a 10.

A holiday to Spain? A promotion at work? £5000 wired straight to your bank account?

Next question, what would make you drop down by the same number of points?

Alzheimers? A broken leg? Your friend dying? A meth addiction? Financial ruin? Your nan getting kidnapped? Blindness? Death?

What this exercise helps us realise is there are more bad things than good. And they’re much more consequential.

For our ancestors this was even more so. Anything bad could’ve lead to waving bye bye to life. Carelessness on a hunt, an inflamed tendon, social exclusion and so on.

So if you want to convince someone of something, don’t highlight the advantages to them, highlight how you can help them dodge the disadvantages.

And the next time you’re wondering why you haven’t “gone all in” on your passion project and taken more risks, you have your answer.

There’s no escaping it, we notice bad more than good.

So the next time you end a relationship, quit a job or give up on a dream, be very careful about framing it as a loss.

(5) Action bias (why watching and waiting is torture)

There’s a psychological phenomenon that plays out with goalkeepers in football.

When the opposing player has to take the last penalty in a shoot out for his team to win, the goalkeeper will never stay in the middle. He’ll always dive to his left or right, even though on average players who take penalties shoot one third of the time to the left, a third to the right and a third down the middle.

Why?

Appearance.

It looks better to lose making an effort than to lose while standing still.

Do anything, action bias tells us, even if it achieves nothing.

We can see action bias play out in junior police officers who are too eager to get involved in situations a senior officer might have observed from a distance. Doctors, even when they’re unsure of a patients diagnosis, will prescribe pills for the patient to take. Because who wants to leave a doctor’s clinic after being told “I don’t know what’s wrong with you.”?

We are prone to action bias because we are descendants of humans who were rewarded for making lightning fast decisions.

Our ancestors, gazing out from the valley peak, wouldn’t have exercised a philosophical thought experiment to dissect what that scary long-toothed silhouette might have been. Saber-toothed tiger or not, they would’ve made a dash for it.

However our world today is different because it rewards reflection. Even when our instincts tell us otherwise.

But we’re likely to be scorned by others if we’re seen sat thinking and waiting instead of rashly acting. Even when doing so is for the good of our careers, relationships and sanity.

So although you might not experience a parade of honour for your long-sightedness and patience to act, if a situation is unclear, hold back and assess your options. Take time, if you have that luxury, to dissect it, allowing as much time to pass as possible.

For time reveals all.

As Blaise Pascal said “all of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”

(6) The hedonic treadmill (be careful what you wish for)

Dan Gilbert, a Harvard psychologist, studied lottery winners.

And he realised their happiness fizzled out after a few months of then winning millions.

This is because we’re always running on the hedonic treadmill.

We work hard, earn good money, buy nice things, buy more nice things and yet none of this makes us any happier.

This inability to predict our emotions is what’s called affective forecasting. And it’s also what explains belief we hold after a breakup that our life will be this miserable forever. Until a few months later we’re back on the dating scene.

Ahhh, wouldn’t it be nice if we could predict how happy things would make us?

Well, here are 3 scientific methods you can use to help you do so:

1.) Avoid negative things that you cannot grow accustomed to (such as commuting, noise or chronic stress)

2.) Expect only short-term happiness from material things (such as cars, houses, bonuses prizes and clothes)

3.) Aim for as much free time and autonomy as possible (because long-lasting positive effects come from what we actively do)

Follow your passions even if you have to sacrifice part of your income, and invest in friendships.

As Naval Ravikant says “if you can’t be happy with a coffee, you won’t be happy with a yacht.”

(7) Inability to close doors (why you should set fire to your ships)

Next to my bed I have around 20 books I dip in and out of at any given time.

And I know that doing so doesn’t lead to focused insight where I’m thinking only about one thing, and that I should probably just pick one, so why do I always do this?

It’s because as humans we do everything to keep open the maximal number of options.

We all know that one person who’s dating at least 3 women at once, convinced he could build a family with each of them, but never chooses.

When then Spanish were overtaking the aztec empire, the conquistador Hernán Cortés noticed his men were demotivated, longing to return to the shores of Spain to see their wives. But on the cusp of an immense victory to overtake Tenochtitlan (modern day Mexico City and the main Aztec stronghold) he ordered someone to secretly burn all the Spanish ships, so his men had no option but to stay on the shores of Mexico and fight. Later overthrowing the Aztecs.

So to combat this bias we must realise:

Each decision costs mental energy and eats up precious time for thinking and living.

We want to keep as many irons in the fire as possible and entertain as many options as we can imagine. But this is a fantasy which leads nowhere. We must learn to close doors.

So don’t write up a list of what you want to do in life, write down a list of things you don’t want to do. The regrets you willingly choose.

Then whenever a new opportunity arises, consult your list of do-nots so you don’t have to assess each option blindly. Think hard once and you’ll save yourself lots of thinking time.

As Rolf Dobelli says: “most doors are not worth going through, even when the handle seems to turn so effortlessly.”

Realisation of the week:

Give yourself the benefit of the doubt.

I think too often we discount our efforts because we overlook the myriad of factors which influence our mood.

Perhaps we throw a fit of anger because we wasted a day scrolling instead of being productive, when really we were just tired.

Maybe we feel guilty for not being able to concentrate, when really we we're just hungry.

As the saying goes, a bad 5 minutes doesn't mean it was a bad day in general. Sometimes you're going to get things wrong and not feel 100%.

We're all just doing our best.

Give yourself some slack.

Until next week!

Lewis

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