Cognition
What are some other key biases that
influence judgment? Judgment seems to be
influenced by a variety of things
each have their own implication on judgment.
Overconfidence serves as a
bias on judgment. Fischhoff, Slovic, and Lichtenstein,
in 1997, tested this
idea. The participants were given the question
"Absinthe is a: A) liquer or
B) a precious stone." The subjects were
to choose the correct answer, and
state the probability of being correct. It was
found that when the subjects
were 100 percent confident in their answers, they
were only correct 80
percent of the time. This provides evidence that there is
in fact, a
dissociation between knowledge and awareness. Another bias that
influences
judgment is the hindsight bias. This is commonly referred to as
the
Monday morning quarterback, saying "He should have...." This
bias
works on the premises that hindsight is 20/20. We can see the hindsight
bias in
many psychology experiments where the subjects are asked to predict
the outcomes
of an event, doing so with chance accuracy. After being told the
outcomes, the
subjects say that the predictions would be easy because the
outcomes are
obvious. What they are failing to do is to carefully compare the
outcomes with
reasoning, which may propagate inaccuracy. The confirmation
bias is another bias
which influences judgement. This bias happens in a
variety of forms. First, when
subjects are assessing a belief, they are more
likely to seek evidence that
confirms the belief than evidence that does not
support it. Second, when
disconfirming evidence is made available to them,
subjects often fail to use it,
in adjusting their beliefs. Third, subjects
will forget non-supporting evidence,
and show memory bias toward cases
similar to their beliefs. Finally, subjects
regularly fail to consider
alternative hypotheses, which might explain the
available data as well as the
current beliefs. Logic can influence judgement to
a certain degree. Logic is
concerned with whether a particular conclusion is
brought about by a
particular set of premises. So, when the subjects show the
belief-bias
patterns, they are not distinguishing between good and bad
arguments.
Instead, they are willing to support a bad argument that leads to
a
conclusion which they believe is true, and they are willing to reject a
good
argument, if it leads to conclusions already believed false.
Nevertheless, these
biases can influence judgement, but they can be combated
if recognized in our
cognitive capabilities.