Cognitive biases in decision making

Since learning about confirmation bias, I see it everywhere. As someone who spend more than two decades helping successful families make better decisions, I see these biases in action daily. If you’re a busy professional, you’re no stranger to decision fatigue. Every day, you’re bombarded with more information than you can process. Yet, you’re expected to make quick, confident decisions. That’s where cognitive biases come in. Our brains are wired to take shortcuts. These shortcuts help us make sense of the chaos. Sometimes they’re helpful. Other times, they lead us astray. Understanding cognitive biases is key to avoiding costly mistakes in decision making.

Decision fatigued decision-making

If you’re a top professional, you’re no stranger to decision fatigue. Every day, you’re bombarded with more information than you can process. Yet, you’re expected to make quick, confident decisions. That’s where cognitive biases come in. Our brains are wired to take shortcuts. These shortcuts help us make sense of the chaos. Sometimes they’re helpful. Other times, they lead us astray. Understanding them is key to avoiding costly mistakes.

Why do cognitive biases exist?

Quite simply, because we’re human. Cognitive biases help our brains save time and energy. They help us solve four big problems:

1. Too much information – We filter.
2. Not enough meaning – We connect the dots.
3. Need to act fast – We jump to conclusions.
4. What’s worth remembering? – We pick what seems useful.

Challenge 1 | Too much information

There’s an endless stream of information flying at us. To manage it, you:

• Notice what’s familiar or repeated. Ever researched a car, then suddenly started seeing that exact model everywhere? That’s availability heuristic.
• Spot what’s unusual or dramatic. If it’s bizarre, funny, or striking, it grabs our attention. You’re more likely to remember a heated moment in a negotiation than the calm discussions leading up to it. Think bizarreness effect or humour effect.
• Focus on change. We fixate on differences. If someone’s behaviour shifts—say, a colleague suddenly becomes less responsive—we’ll likely overanalyse it, sometimes reading too much into it (anchoring bias).
• Seek out confirmation. We notice details that confirm what we already believe, while ignoring anything that contradicts us. This is confirmation bias, and it’s a regular culprit when we assess risks or evaluate strategies.

Challenge 2 | Not enough meaning

The world is messy. You try to make sense of it by:

• Finding patterns where there are none. Let’s say you’ve had a run of bad luck with clients. It’s easy to assume a “trend” when it’s really just a blip. Think gambler’s fallacy or recency bias.
• Filling in gaps. When you lack details, you lean on stereotypes or assumptions. For instance, you might unconsciously expect a well-dressed candidate to be more competent (halo effect or bandwagon effect).
• Simplifying probabilities or numbers. You tend to make poor probability estimates when you don’t have complete information. Our gut feelings about chances and odds often lead us astray, especially when we’re missing key pieces of data. Examples of this are survivorship bias or normalcy bias.
• Projecting our feelings onto others. You think you know what others are thinking or assume they see the world the way you do. This curse of knowledge often shows up in all aspects of life. For example, you might think your plan to save for retirement is clear, but a loved one who isn’t involved in the details might feel totally in the dark. An example here is hindsight bias.

Challenge 3 | Need to act fast

You’re not a robot. You’ve got deadlines, clients to meet, and lives to live. So, you cut corners:

• Overconfidence drives action. You overestimate your ability to control outcomes. Whether it’s believing you’ve found the “perfect” investment strategy or assuming you’ll nail a negotiation, this illusion of control can backfire (one example is the Dunning-Kruger effect).
• Focusing on the short term. When faced with a choice between short-term and long-term security, we often pick what feels good now. This bias (hyperbolic discounting) explains why people overspend on luxuries now but procrastinate protecting their future purchasing power.
• Sticking with what we’ve started. Once you’ve invested time or money into something, you struggle to walk away. Think of clinging to a bad case at work, because you’ve spent months building it (sunk cost fallacy).

Challenge 4 | What’s worth remembering?

Our brains prioritise memories that seem useful. This can lead to:

• Editing memories after the fact. You might misremember a difficult project as worse (or better) than it really was (misattribution).
• Generalising to save space. You simplify details to get the gist. For instance, you might not remember every nuance of a client meeting, but you’ll recall the key points (stereotypical bias).
• Focusing on peaks and ends. When you look back, you give more weight to the most intense part and how it ended (peak-end rule). That’s why a disastrous holiday can still feel worth it, if the last day went well.

The upside (and downside) of biases

Biases aren’t all bad. They help us filter noise, act quickly, and adapt. But they also distort our thinking. Here’s the takeaway: we can’t eliminate biases, but we can learn to spot them and accept they will affect us, permanently.

Start by asking yourself:

• Am I jumping to conclusions?
• Have I ignored evidence that contradicts me?
• Is this decision based on a pattern I’ve imagined?

The next time you feel the pull of a mental shortcut, pause. Reflect. That’s often enough to keep you on track.

What biases do you recognise in your own decision-making?