Topic > Understanding Cognitive Bias: Impacting and Debiasing Strategies

Introduction: A cognitive bias disrupts normal cognitive processes such as reasoning, evaluation, and memory recall. This perception mainly derives from the tendency of individuals to put their beliefs, their mood and their preferences above any external facts or opinions. Cognitive bias is a distortion in our perception of reality. It is a systematic pattern of deviation from normal rational judgment. Background: Individuals create their own “subjective social reality” from their particular perception of input. Their construction of social reality, and not objective inputs, may dictate their behavior in the social world (1). Cognitive biases can also lead to perceptual distortions, biased judgments, irrational thinking, and illogical explanations. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay There are many types of cognitive biases that influence everyday decision making, including: confirmation bias, bandwagon effect, blind spot bias, clustering illusion, outcome bias, overconfidence, ostrich effect, information bias, effect placebo, selective perception and zero-risk bias. This phenomenon is the result of various processes that can be difficult to distinguish between when trying to narrow down the source of a particular bias situation. Thesis Statement: Although cognitive bias is a widespread and frequent occurrence, it can be controlled if an individual is willing to follow steps to change their thinking patterns. Debiasing is a technique that aims to reduce bias by encouraging individuals to use controlled processing over automatic processing (Baumeister & Bushman, 2010, p.155). This training has been shown to reduce cognitive biases. The process of changing cognitive biases is called cognitive bias modification and is used in healthy people and is also used in a number of therapies for anxiety, depression and addiction called cognitive bias modification therapy (CBMT). An example of a cognitive bias that affected events in my life would be classified as a memory bias. A memory distortion improves or impairs recall of a memory. It may change the content of a memory, the time it takes to recall it, or whether the memory can be recalled. Topic sentence: There are several types of memory bias, including: bizarreness effect, change bias, childhood amnesia, context effect, cryptomnesia, egocentric bias, fading effect bias, false memory, rosy retrospection, and the google effect. I will discuss my experience with hindsight bias and how it has affected my recall of important memories and behaviors. There was a moment in my life when I had a very close friendship with a person to whom I entrusted every detail of my life and with whom I shared everything, even my home. Blinded by my love for this person, I experienced a shock when our relationship began to decline. His behavior at the time baffled me, and because I was in emotional distress, I couldn't clearly see the signs that were right in front of me. I went on to lose more than just trust as a direct result of the fall of that relationship. I spent some time, after continuing with my life, reflecting on what I should have done differently. As I reflected, I realized that I had known for months before this person's true colors were revealed what would happen. I realized that the feeling of discomfort I had brought with me for.