Reading time: 5 minutes
It’s 6:30 a.m., you get up, turn on the radio and make your coffee while listening to the morning news (okay, the alarm clock was more like 7:30 a.m.). You hear the radio host announce that this weekend, a dog bit a little girl on the face. Instinctively you think ” And again! It’s the 5th time this year and it’s only February. You really shouldn’t let children near a dog – it’s dangerous! “. First cognitive trap of the day, you’ve fallen into therake effect: you consider chance to be more regular than it really is. You finish getting ready quickly so as not to be late (because let’s face it, the alarm clock was actually at 8am #miraclemorning) and hop on the metro to try and get to work on time. Luckily, there’s a seat available. During your journey, you overhear the conversation of the two men in front of you and realize that they are doctors. Immediately, a sort of positive halo settles over them, you find them handsome, clean, intelligent, serious and so on. The effect wouldn’t have been the same if you’d heard they were drug dealers. This is the halo effect. You have perceived these men according to your opinion of just one of their characteristics.
It’s now 11am, and your colleagues are offering you a coffee break. You accept with great pleasure. You discuss your weekends and work together, and in the course of a conversation, a colleague announces ” Have you heard the latest? Apparently we’re about to be bought out. !” To which you reply ” I knew it! I knew it, I knew it! “. You’re caught red-handed with hindsight bias: you tend to overestimate in retrospect the fact that events could have been anticipated.
It’s lunchtime and you need to buy a new cell phone. You know exactly what model you want and want to store around to compare prices. You go into the first store and see the phone you want for €350. At this point, the anchoring bias begins. You’ll keep this price in mind and use it as a reference when you visit other stores, influencing your perception of their prices. Seeing a €450 phone won’t have the same effect on you if the first phone you saw was €350 versus €790.
Once you’ve bought your phone, you return to work very satisfied with your purchase. You show it to your colleague and start to explain that you had to buy a new phone because “I’d had the other one for 4 years, and it was getting a bit tired“, “it was just bellowing, I could hardly make a phone call“, “the battery was almost dead“. In short, without feeling guilty and without your colleague having asked you to do anything, you are under the influence of the a posteriori rationalization bias of your behaviors. The name of this bias speaks for itself.
As the afternoon wears on, you’re in full flow at work and making good progress on your tasks. That is, until the doorbell jolts everyone in the open space out of their concentration. Everyone, including you, turns their head quickly towards the door and… gets back to work without moving a finger. This is thewitness effect or dilution of responsibility. Each individual’s behavior is inhibited by the mere presence of others. We say to ourselves “someone will open the door”. The person waiting behind the door becomes impatient and rings a second time. At this point, your colleague Cedric gets up and opens the door, reassuring you that it wasn’t you who got up in the first place.
At the end of your working day, you join your brother Paul to go to the cinema. As you’re waiting for the film to start, Paul reminds you about the family lunch on Sunday. You grumble , “Oh no, I don’t want to go at all… The last family lunch was so awful, with Uncle throwing another fit when we started talking politics”. To which Paul replies “I think you’re exaggerating, apart from that we had a great day!You’re under the influence of negativity bias: you remember negative information more easily.
Ah, the film begins! After 10 minutes, you’re thinking this might not be the film of the year. 20 minutes later, it’s a total bore. You find the script flat and the acting lacklustre. You haven’t been absorbed in the film for a single second and there’s still 2 hours to go. Endless. And yet, you stay. To the very end. It’s the unity bias. Humans tend to want to finish what they start, especially when they’ve already invested time and energy in it (a film at the cinema, a book, a dish they cooked but missed…) because it’s the feeling of completion that satisfies. Two hours later, the film ends and you feel like you’ve wasted 2 hours 30 minutes of your life. But as you leave the theater, you can hear the people around you exclaiming “That film was incredible !”, “It’s an Oscar-winner for sure”,“The lead actress was so touching and relevant in her performance”,“I was gripped from beginning to end, I’ve never seen such a poignant film“. And your brother adds ” Wow, I feel like I’ve been slapped in the face. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a film this good. “. You begin to doubt and you hear yourself say ” Yes, it was really quite good. I think it’s a film that has to be digested to be fully appreciated. “. And that’s it, you’ve fallen into the conformism bias. We tend to think and act as others do, even if we think it’s of our own free will.
You leave Paul and head home. You don’t want to hang around too long, as you still have to get up at 6:30 tomorrow morning.
*Definition of cognitive bias A cognitive bias is automatic thinking that is falsely logical. Cognitive biases cause us to analyze reality through irrational and illogical reasoning, making us think or act without our knowledge. Originally, their function was to enable our brain to save time and energy by developing mental shortcuts. But in the complexity of our modern world, they drive us to make foolish decisions.
Author: Anaïs Roux
