Can Being Aware of Cognitive Biases Lessen Susceptibility to Bias Blind Spot?

[FlexGunship]

I've wondered this for a while:

Can you decrease your susceptibility to decisioning yourself by becoming aware of self-deceptive practices?​

The reason this is not an open-and-shut case is because cognitive biases are unconscious, and therefore they cannot be consciously self-examined. In fact, the act of consciously self-examining your own cognitive biases is counter-productive because it can only wrongly reassure you that you have no biases to begin with!

I'll say that again: because cognitive biases are unconscious, they are not subject to conscious scrutiny. Therefore, any introspection can only serve to falsely reassure the introspector that he or she has no cognitive biases.

To restate the question: Can being aware of cognitive biases lessen your susceptibility to them?

NOTE: It seems that "introspector" should be a word yet Google Chrome auto-correct disagrees.

EDIT: I should add that I'm the only one intellectually capable of truthfully answering this question because I have no cognitive biases. I checked. :tongue:

 

[Math Is Hard]

To restate the question: Can being aware of cognitive biases lessen your susceptibility to them?

Absolutely. When I was a research assistant (working on experiments that involved cognitive biases) we had to take special precautions not to clue in participants to what we were studying- it would destroy the effect of the bias.

Some biases are stronger than others I suppose. I have a friend who has had a few watch batteries go dead on her after a few months of wear. She's convinced there is "something special about the magnetic field" of her body that breaks watches, and isn't open to other explanations. I've even discussed with her that this might be a sort of availability heuristic, and while she agrees 100% that this type of bias exists, she is quite sure it doesn't apply to what is going on with her watches.

 

[Pythagorean]

Of course it can; we can consciously catch ourselves doing unconsious things all the time. It's not easy but by no means is it impossible.

 

[DanP]

At the same time, you must consider that even the most trained psychologists are still vulnerable to cognitive biases. No one is completely immune.

 

[Pythagorean]

Agreed, but the negated statement was "can" aka a "there exists", not a "for all" so your statement was already implied.

 

[DanP]

Agreed, but the negated statement was "can" aka a "there exists", not a "for all" so your statement was already implied.

It still must be spelled out loudly :P

 

[DanP]

I'll say that again: because cognitive biases are unconscious, they are not subject to conscious scrutiny. Therefore, any introspection can only serve to falsely reassure the introspector that he or she has no cognitive biases.

Btw, Freud is dead and Freud was wrong. There is no "unconscious mind". The origin of cognitive biases does not lie into a mystical unconscious. They are automated processes, but not unconscious.

herefore, any introspection can only serve to falsely reassure the introspector that he or she has no cognitive biases.

Introspective thinking is far from being a infallible process. It can easily lead to serious
errors.

 

[Andre]

Can being aware of cognitive biases lessen your susceptibility to them?

Yes, I think so, but it appears to require a constant awareness of one's heuristic problem solving approach and framing.

I think we have seen a most excellent example of that here in the landmark game:

Usually we start by posting the image, then give clues as needed. I'm going to start with clues (hard ones at first) ..

84
57
60

Po
La
Nd.

That took some thinking!

I was thinking about date or something

Wow! OK you got the country...I was going to keep that 'code' for the next hints but since it's been cracked, I'll have to think a bit now...give me a bit of time...

(link added by me)

Yes, if Ms Music had not given away her brilliant find, she could have posted the solution of the landmark while I was still trying to fit in all those ages, dates, distances, dimensions, coordinates.

So we see here the heuristic frame or thinking box of the routine landmark players, seeing numbers in relation to landmarks, while the outsider, Ms Music, completely unaware of cognitive bias thinking boxes, sees a series numbers in a game as they usually are, a secret code. Realizing that, was the reason of this random thought:

Outsiders think out the box.

So yes specialists should realize they think in a box and can only escape by stepping back, shed off the heuristic approach and ask more fundamental questions, it's not about: what does a series numbers mean in the landmark game, but is about: what does a series of numbers mean?

 

[DanP]

So yes specialists should realize they think in a box and can only escape by stepping back, shed off the heuristic approach and ask more fundamental questions, it's not about: what does a series numbers mean in the landmark game, but is about: what does a series of numbers mean?

Why ? The context is important.

Sapolsky gave a interesting example in one of his classes with the following series, asking what the next number should be:

4 14 23 34

The answer is clear to New Yorkers , is 42. Others may be dumb-folded. Or did I understood you wrong, Andre ?

 

[Andre]

I think it's the other way around.

Trying to illustrate that routine landmark solvers devellop a heuristic expectation patterns while solving. Numbers in hints have routinely been dates, ages, dimensions, coordinates; hence, if you see numbers, it's likely dates, ages, dimensions, coordinates, while develloping a blind spot for other interpretations like a secret code, which has never been used in the game before (for numbers that is).

Outsiders to the game just see a secret code, which it was indeed. But notice that also Lisab -as a routine player- assumed that that blind spot mechanism would work, as she did not anticipate that it would have been cracked so quickly, by an outsider without the blind spot.

 

[DanP]

Trying to illustrate that routine landmark solvers devellop a heuristic expectation pattern during the solvings, numbers in hints have routinely been dates, ages, dimensions, coordinates, hence if you see numbers, it's likely dates, ages, dimensions, coordinates, while develloping a blind spot for other interpretations like a secret code, which has never been used in the game before (for number).

.

Ah, OK, I got what you want to say now.

 

[Andre]

To elaborate more on the 'outsiders think out the box', maybe that the ever more complex scientific specialisms cannot avoid creating a tight thinking box, which is fine as long as that branch is on the right track. However, if it is not, it becomes a very restrictive liaibility, cognitive bias - blind spots just makes it impossible to see the big picture, the right track of the truth veering to the left suddenly. Obviously the outsider doesn't have that handicap then.

Maybe that's exactly the mechanism that Thomas Kuhn mentions in the The Structure of Scientific Revolutions:

Those who achieve fundamental inventions of a new paradigm have generally been either very young or very new to the field whose paradigm they changed.

(chap VIII F 3 C ii)

 

[Klockan3]

I've wondered this for a while:

Can you decrease your susceptibility to decisioning yourself by becoming aware of self-deceptive practices?​

The reason this is not an open-and-shut case is because cognitive biases are unconscious, and therefore they cannot be consciously self-examined. In fact, the act of consciously self-examining your own cognitive biases is counter-productive because it can only wrongly reassure you that you have no biases to begin with!

Step 1: get a perfect memory.
Step 2: remember how and what you thought about everything at different times.
Step 3: Look for changes in your thinking patterns and identify possible reasons, look for patterns in what makes you change your mind. Also look for patterns in how you think about objects which are almost the same but with some differences. It gets more interesting if you apply this to people, why do you like A and dislike B? You aren't born liking/disliking people so something have triggered it at some point.
Step 4: Alter your bias mentally to do away with any you create, one way to do this is to think about things you like when you are angry while keeping the anger inside you or vice versa for things you don't like. Always double check by comparing with several similar objects that you got the bias on the correct level.
Step 5: Never stop this process.

Of course if you remove all of your cognitive biases then you won't have any friends since the act of becoming friends relies heavily on cognitive biases but at the same time you won't really dislike people either for the same reason. The same thing with having different tastes in music, tv shows, science etc. Cognitive biases is such an important process that you can't really live a descent life without them.

Also a problem with the things above is that cognitive biases alters your memories so to get a perfect memory you already need to have done away with most cognitive biases.

 

[Pythagorean]

Step 1: get a perfect memory.
Step 2: remember how and what you thought about everything at different times.
Step 3: Look for changes in your thinking patterns and identify possible reasons, look for patterns in what makes you change your mind. Also look for patterns in how you think about objects which are almost the same but with some differences. It gets more interesting if you apply this to people, why do you like A and dislike B? You aren't born liking/disliking people so something have triggered it at some point.
Step 4: Alter your bias mentally to do away with any you create, one way to do this is to think about things you like when you are angry while keeping the anger inside you or vice versa for things you don't like. Always double check by comparing with several similar objects that you got the bias on the correct level.
Step 5: Never stop this process.

Of course if you remove all of your cognitive biases then you won't have any friends since the act of becoming friends relies heavily on cognitive biases but at the same time you won't really dislike people either for the same reason. The same thing with having different tastes in music, tv shows, science etc. Cognitive biases is such an important process that you can't really live a descent life without them.

I didn't read step 2-4 because I can't do step 1. Is there a pill I can take for that or something? Maybe surgery?

 

[Klockan3]

I didn't read step 2-4 because I can't do step 1. Is there a pill I can take for that or something? Maybe surgery?

I added another row :p

Without having a perfect memory you already lost against cognitive biases, since they are stored in a different place than your memories so you won't be able to find them all.

 

[Pythagorean]

Did you make that up?

 

[Klockan3]

Did you make that up?

What part of it?

 

[Klockan3]

If you wonder about biases, experiments have found that even amnesic patients who have no memory of the events still show biases from those events. Read the introduction here:
http://www.jneurosci.org/cgi/content/full/29/12/3760

Edit: It is as if these biases are hardwired.

 

[Pythagorean]

If you wonder about biases, experiments have found that even amnesic patients who have no memory of the events still show biases from those events. Read the introduction here:
http://www.jneurosci.org/cgi/content/full/29/12/3760

But these are particular kinds of biases and particular kinds of memory. You seemed to be addressing all memory and biases in your last post.

Amnesic and Parkinson's patients display different kinds of memory deficits, for instance.(hippocampal vs. basal ganglia). Amnesiac's still have memory functions associated with the basal ganglia (fear/reward based learning).

 

[Klockan3]

But these are particular kinds of biases and particular kinds of memory. You seemed to be addressing all memory and biases in your last post.

Amnesic and Parkinson's patients display different kinds of memory deficits, for instance.(hippocampal vs. basal ganglia). Amnesiac's still have memory functions associated with the basal ganglia (fear/reward based learning).

When I talked about memory I was talking about what laymen considers memory ie recollection of events. Most don't consider love to be a memory for example.

And of course I can't adress all biases at once, but as I see it there are processes fetching information for your conscious self and those processes are what can be biased. If that covers all the biases I don't know but it should cover plenty of them. So thus your first task to get unbiased would be to get some unbiased source, like having a perfect recollection of events, not having that means that your recollection is biased. Then you won't even have a fighting chance since you would have nothing but biased things to go on from the start.

 

[Pythagorean]

When I talked about memory I was talking about what laymen considers memory ie recollection of events. Most don't consider love to be a memory for example.

And of course I can't adress all biases at once, but as I see it there are processes fetching information for your conscious self and those processes are what can be biased. If that covers all the biases I don't know but it should cover plenty of them. So thus your first task to get unbiased would be to get some unbiased source, like having a perfect recollection of events, not having that means that your recollection is biased. Then you won't even have a fighting chance since you would have nothing but biased things to go on from the start.

Framed in the specific context of the paper, I do think it's an interesting insight that you have; I just didn't like the implication of a clear cut separation of memory and bias.

 

[FlexGunship]

But (not to go too far down the rabbit hole, here), when a person is aware of the existence of a cognitive bias doesn't that create a false sense of immunity?

I know all about the Dunning-Kruger effect, but I still honestly think I'm really good at my job. If I was good at it, shouldn't I be concerned that I feel mediocre or average? Am I disarming the Dunning-Kruger effect by knowing about it? Or am I secretly incompetent and unable to see it?

That is to say, am I more susceptible to the Dunning-Kruger effect because I think I'm immune to it, or have I completely protected myself against it?

EDIT: What I'm getting at here, is that everyone is answering "yes, knowing about a bias can help you guard against it." But what if that feeling of protection were actually just another cognitive bias?

Example: I try to be an excellent driver. I know all the state laws. But people still honk at me when I refuse to pass on the right (illegal in NH). I'm making a conscious effort to be a good driver... is it causing me to become a bad driver AND to be ignorant of it?

 

[Klockan3]

I'd say that the Dunning-Kruger effect is dismantled by taking all criticism seriously which people in general don't do. When people honk at you it is a sign of criticism for example, if you understand why they honk at you then you also understand if it is you or them which is at fault. But until you know why then you can't be certain. A good driver is a driver which do what other drivers expect them to do, adapting to what people actually do on the road is more important than any written rule so just following the rules doesn't make you a good driver in itself.

"But what if that feeling of protection were actually just another cognitive bias?"
Cognitive bias will always be there as long as you don't know everything. The only defense is to constantly criticize all of you feelings and thoughts, especially when you start to dismiss peoples opinions without considering them first, no matter the reason for dismissing them. The same thing with just accepting what some people say without criticizing the statements first. For example if you dismiss those who honk at you as just people who are ignorant towards the law who shouldn't be listened to then you are susceptible to this bias.

 

[DanP]

The only defense is to constantly criticize all of you feelings and thoughts, especially when you start to dismiss peoples opinions without considering them first, no matter the reason for dismissing them. The same thing with just accepting what some people say without criticizing the statements first.

It won't work. You don't have the physical time to navigate social world this way. You'll be a social failure long before analyzing half of the self serving biases we have. Besides, all introspective processes can easily become biased as well.

Biases are here to stay.

 

[mugaliens]

I've wondered this for a while:

Can you decrease your susceptibility to decisioning yourself by becoming aware of self-deceptive practices?​

The reason this is not an open-and-shut case is because cognitive biases are unconscious, and therefore they cannot be consciously self-examined. In fact, the act of consciously self-examining your own cognitive biases is counter-productive because it can only wrongly reassure you that you have no biases to begin with!

I disagree with this quite emphatically!

For the last 25 years, both http://www.e-publishing.af.mil/shared/media/epubs/AFI11-290.pdf"which can cause a pilot to miss or discount a key piece of information or situation, or to focus on an unimportant piece of informatin or situation to the exclusion of more important ones.

I'll say that again: because cognitive biases are unconscious, they are not subject to conscious scrutiny.

This is incorrect, as they're only unconscious until the affected individuals...

(drum roll)

...become conscious of them!

CRM training utilizes several tools, including reviews and reenactments of previous aircraft mishaps, as well as videotaped simulator flights, to help aviators become conscious of their cognitive biases. Once they're made conscious of those biases (sometimes by having their noses rubbed in it courtesy of their videotaped failures in the simulator), they're taught tools, techniques, and methodologies to minimize the effects of those biases, as well as recognizing when they occur, either in themselves, or in another crewmember.

I absolutely works, as evidenced by aircraft safety records dropping not just a sizeable percentage, but several times lower per 100,000 flight hours, to the point where these days, traveling via air is eight times safer per passenger mile traveled than by bus, the next safest means of travel.

The same approach to recognition and counter-action can be used in most areas of cognitive bias. Getting people to actually spend the time, money, and effort on it, however, is a very difficult task.

 

[Klockan3]

It won't work. You don't have the physical time to navigate social world this way. You'll be a social failure long before analyzing half of the self serving biases we have. Besides, all introspective processes can easily become biased as well.

Biases are here to stay.

I didn't say that it is optimal if you want to live your life as a human being, I agree with you :p

 

[sascha]

Hi folks, maybe I am some sort of outsider ;-) slightly amused at these scientistic and logicistic ways of approaching the problem of the cognitive biases aka blind spots. Don't forget that anybody who is implicitly following a scientistic line, is prey to a blind spot on principle due to the basis in distinguishing, describing, measuring, etc. Adherents of such lines of thought then spend their time in shifting around endlessly their blind spot into ever new dimensions by means of ever more subdifferentiations. But this procedure is not the fate of human being and can be overcome on principle - not only by degrees.

For a true solution you might consider
http://edoc.unibas.ch/1421/1/Systematische_Ganzheitlichkeit.pdf

The link above is for a cumulative doctoral thesis, whose title and introductory part is written in German, but whose substance is in the previously published articles, of which most are written in English. The title of the thesis would translate as:
Systematic integrality - A methodological arbitration between Perspectivity and Integrality …

The essential idea is to avoid predicating on worldly matters before having fathomed in a strictly complete way the instrumentation through which strictly all predication takes place. Many attempt this, but most with methods that must fail at some point.

This link offers a PDF, so you can search the text conveniently by keywords. As an Anglophone, for getting a idea of the whole book you might first consider the extensive Abstract in English (page v).

So, giving an answer to the question "Can being aware of cognitive biases lessen your susceptibility to a bias blind spot?" would here be refined to : sure, becoming aware can lessen your susceptibility, and best by becoming aware (1) of the nature-given laws that are at the root of the laws of logic, and (2) of your own activity in performing mental processes.

 

[jim hardy]

""Can you decrease your susceptibility to decisioning yourself by becoming aware of self-deceptive practices?""

Answer is a resounding "Absolutely !"

Once begun it's like Peer Gynt's onion.

IMHO Eric Hoffer is the best medicine.