Understanding Cognitive Biases

by Alexander B. Swan (Author, Narrator), The Great Courses

As you read this sentence, your brain has just processed about 20 million bits of information. In fact, every second of every day, your brain processes about 11 million bits. And yet, that astonishing number just isn’t enough to get you through your day. Consequently, your brain takes some shortcuts—and it’s those shortcuts, called heuristics, that make it all work. Some shortcuts are completely benign and helpful—such as your ability to recognize your child even if half his face is in shadow or your ability to imagine tomorrow even though you will never actually see it.

The shortcuts of cognitive biases, however—when the brain fills in gaps of solid, reliable information with a lot of guesswork for efficiency’s sake—can lead to errors of memory and judgment and cause faulty decision-making with unintended, even dire, consequences. For example, take confirmation bias. This tendency to consider only information that confirms our existing beliefs can cause us to make incorrect assumptions about the cause of a coworker’s behavior, misinterpret experimental data, or even make disastrous engineering decisions resulting in loss of life.

In Understanding Cognitive Biases, you will learn how to recognize these biases for what they are, counteract them when necessary, and even use them to your advantage in some instances. In 24 fascinating lectures, Dr. Alexander B. Swan uses examples from psychology experiments, history, politics, movies, TV, comics, social media, and more to illustrate dozens of cognitive biases that affect us all. You’re not alone in your sometimes irrational judgments and interpretations of events or people. But you can learn how to make better decisions—no matter what shortcuts your brain wants to take!

Genres: Psychology, Science, Audiobook, Nonfiction

11 pages, Audible Audio

Published January 6, 2023

Reviews

[Alice · Rating 4 out of 5]

Straightforward and easy to understand. Could be part of the puzzle on that "mandatory" self awareness journey for each of us.

[David R · Rating 5 out of 5]

Genuinely good lecture series!

[JanaT · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's packed with examples. Yes, occasionally they are overlapping or repeating, but honestly, I needed to remind, so happy am I.

[Lexi Mag · Rating 4 out of 5]

It bothers me that this says it’s only 11 pages- the audible was 12 hours long!

Super interesting. Probably not the best for someone who just got a degree in psychology because most of this I had already learned. Still pretty great.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

A cognitive bias is a systematic, predictable error in thinking (often unconscious) that affects how people process information and make decisions. Instead of weighing all available facts objectively, the brain takes mental shortcuts, which can lead to distorted or inaccurate judgments.

This Great Course lecture series is just a general survey of cognitive biases. But one bias in particular struck a chord of familiarity with me – groupthink. Not that the concept is anything new, but in this day and age of social media, echo chambers, and polarization, it is strikingly relevant and pervasive. Prof. Swan goes back further to use the example of Kennedy and the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion. Before the invasion, all of his advisors and military experts unanimously supported the action, but as Kennedy later said, “Five minutes after it began to fall in, we all looked at each other and asked how could we have been so stupid?” This failure of decision-making is attributed to groupthink—"a pattern of thought characterized by self-deception, forced manufacture of consent, and conformity to group values and ethics” (Merriam-Webster). Causes include group homogeneity (similar political attitudes and socioeconomic status, similar life experiences, similar backgrounds), high group cohesiveness (which discourages group member individuality and encourages them to follow the thrust of the group), and pressure to conform. Swan also notes that cohesiveness tends to engender a sense of invulnerability, overoptimism, and feelings of moral superiority. In these situations, there tends to be self-censorship—people don’t speak up or dissent. There might even be people in the group who actively look for dissenters to silence them. Sound familiar? Swan also warns of a new form of groupthink: group polarization. This is the tendency of a collective group’s attitudes to shift toward more extreme positions when connected in a group of like-minded people.

Wait, today we’re being told that diversity and inclusion are bad things. But never mind that, just go along with the group.

[Gilbert Stack · Rating 5 out of 5]

This Great Courses class is a fascinating tour of how people think and categorize a wide variety of knowledge—and why that is sometimes a good thing and sometimes a bad one. We all know what biases are and, according to Swan, tend to minimize the number we personally have and how much they influence us. One of the delightful things about this course is how lecture after lecture reveals just how wrong we are about this subject.

Swan starts with a few obvious biases such as confirmation bias, but he keeps going and quickly comes to types of bias I wasn't aware of. And by defining them and giving excellent examples of how these biases work, Swan opens up a new level of self-awareness in the reader. This one is well worth your time.

[Bimal Garg · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book definitely helps with understanding and becoming aware of the basic cognitive biases we all have. 3.9/5
May be we can all take into account these biases while pondering over the big thoughts or decisions in our lives.
As good as this book is, I feel it is a beeter read for someone starting out their interest in psychology.
For someone who enjoyd these lectures I would suggest you the YouTube Red series by the YouTube channel 'Vsauce' of the name 'Mind Field'.
Which shows the studies actually being performed and explained.

[G. Lawrence · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting

[Lee Radford · Rating 5 out of 5]

I find cognitive biases so interesting, as they provide such important insights into how we arrive at the thoughts and conclusions we have.

[Fed · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great eye opener for different types of biases.

[Justin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyable introduction and brief discussion of several biases