Common Cognitive Biases that Affect Discernment and Decision-making

Without going into detail, below are common cognitive biases that can negatively affect our decision-making or our ability to discern the voice of truth out of the cacophony of voices vying for our attention daily.

1. Confirmation bias:
2. Anchoring bias
3. Illusory superiority / Dunning-Kruger.
4. Overconfidence Bias
5. Illusion of control
6. Fundamental Attribution Error
7. Gambler’s Fallacy
8. Cognitive dissonance

Related article: Anchoring bias and your life.

References

1. Cognitive biases, risk perception, and venture formation: How individuals decide to start companies,  by  Mark Simona, Susan M.Houghton, and Karl Aquinoc https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0883902698000032

2. https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/avoiding-psychological-bias.htm

About the Author

Dr. Kenneth Acha, MD, DMin.

Kenneth’s mission is to use medicine, spiritual formation, poverty alleviation, and leadership development to help people live lives to the fullest. He holds two doctorate degrees: the first is in medicine and the second is in spiritual formation. He is a practicing U.S. physician, an assistant professor of medicine, and a senior professor of leadership and spiritual formation at Servants University (SU). Kenneth is also a core faculty in the department of orphan care and poverty alleviation at SU and the founder and president of the Kenneth Acha Foundation, an organization that has helped thousands of orphans in Cameroon and trained many leaders since 2005.

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