Humans as a species tend to use short-cuts to arrive at a
decision. Using these mental short-cuts is what makes us biased. And we hate
being challenged. While there are many books on the subject, hopefully I will
end up reading more and learning more but to start with there are two books
that anyone can start with.
The Art of Thinking Clearly by Rolf Dobelli. Herein,
are 99 chapters highlighting the most common of mental short-cuts we use and it
highlights the errors or benefits that we derive from them. Its been written in
simple language, with lots of examples, thus, making it easier to understand.
If you don’t have interest in reading so many different biases, but would like to read about the common ones
then The Little Book of Stupidity: How We Lie to Ourselves and Don't
Believe Others by Sia Mohajer. In this book, the author highlights just
the 10 biases and then gives a chapter to exercise by identifying. The book is
again written in simple language.
"The failure to think clearly, or what experts call a ‘cognitive error’, is a systematic deviation from logic – from optimal, rational, reasonable thought and behaviour. By ‘systematic’ I mean that these are not just occasional errors in judgement, but rather routine mistakes, barriers to logic we stumble over time and again, repeating patterns through generations and through the centuries. For example, it is much more common that we overestimate our knowledge than that we underestimate it. Similarly, the danger of losing something stimulates us much more than the prospect of making a similar gain. In the presence of other people we tend to adjust our behaviour to theirs, not the opposite. Anecdotes make us overlook the statistical distribution (base rate) behind it, not the other way round. The errors we make follow the same pattern over and over again, piling up in one specific, predictable corner like dirty laundry while the other corner remains relatively clean (i.e. they pile up in the ‘overconfidence corner’, not the ‘underconfidence corner’)."
– The Art of Thinking Clearly
Meanwhile,
"Q1) Cindy is sick of arguing with her boyfriend. They are both stubborn people and have an itchy trigger finger for anything they deem to be unfair. They often get into huge arguments that build into shouting matches that can last for hours. They are both exceptionally talented at recalling previous incidents where one of them was overly unfair or biased. Cindy thinks her boyfriend, John, lacks the ability to see how ignorant he is about certain points which are crystal clear to her. She feels that if John had the same level of clarity and honesty as she has, they wouldn't argue as much.
Q2) John works in the sales department. He likes his job but he likes his lunch break even more. He usually spends his lunch break chatting with his coworkers. Last week, John noticed how awkward one of his coworkers was toward him. She didn't look at him when she spoke and she only responded to questions with a few words. John later spoke about this to several people. John told them that he thought she was impolite, unprofessional and not very friendly. His later interactions with her were slightly tainted by this impression."
-- Guess the Bias, The Little Book of Stupidity: How We Lie to Ourselves and Don't Believe Others
