Simply being aware of the shortcuts your mind takes when thinking can put you in a better position to solve any problem.
How easy would life be without any problems? Smooth sailing right?
However, life wouldn’t be life without them. Also, many of the greatest problems are potential opportunities waiting to be discovered.
Fortunately, we can all learn how to be better at solving them.
Aside from learning problem solving techniques, one of the most helpful things to be aware of when solving problems is your own cognitive biases.
These are distortions in your own thinking that are easy to overlook and lead you to making poor decisions. The CIA describes them as being “… mental errors caused by our simplified information processing strategies.”
Here are three of the most common ones to be aware of:
1) Confirmation bias
This occurs when we favour information that confirms our existing beliefs. For example, during an election, people tend to seek out positive information that puts their favoured candidate in a good light. The media use this to their advantage all the time. They provide compelling points to encourage us to formulate an opinion. Any other evidence that might contradict this is…
