The Top 10 Errors and Bias We Make When Making Decisions

Decision making is the cognitive process involving judgement to make choices. We make thousands of decisions each day and their importance and effect of our lives varies greatly. At the lower end of the scale we make a decision about what to have for breakfast, and at the top; who we will marry, or whether to start a business, or make an investment.

The top 10 errors and bias we make are:

1. Optimism – overconfidence.
2. Sunk cost bias – increasing commitment because of past expenditures of money or time.
3. Anchoring bias – undue focus on initial information.
4. Group think or peer pressure.
5. Status quo bias – inertia or unwillingness to change habitual thought patterns.
6. Confirmation bias – selective search for evidence that avoids information that contradicts existing views.
7. Illusion of control – underestimating uncertainty.
8. Repetition bias – willingness to believe what is heard most often.
9. Self-serving thinking.
10. Accessibility bias – selecting information for accessibility, not quality.