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In this episode Joel and Antonia point out the cognitive biases we all tend to use and offer alternatives to them.

In this podcast on cognitive biases you’ll find:

  • Have you ever experienced buying something you think is unique, then all of the sudden, you notice that everyone else has started using it?
  • Cognitive Biases happens in our minds because we have these programs or scripts from ancient wiring. These wirings in our heads existed so long ago.
  • These scripts result in multiple cognitive biases and these can be harmful.
  • How can these scripts mess us up or help us? Why do they exist?
  • When a person’s subjective perspective or social experience overrides the objective data, it generates an irrational or illogical conclusion.
  • These scripts that you are running are processes that are replicable.
  • Our brains naturally work so that once we figure out a way to do something, our brains acknowledges the strategies we’ve implemented as effective strategies.
  • On a biological level, our brains are creating mental super highways and protects it with a layer of fat. For example, when we drive our way to work, we don’t need as much focus or concentration as before. We can listen to some music and still be able to arrive at our destination.
  • On a subconscious level, our brains have already created these systems many years ago. There are scripts that we inherit biologically. Some of these scripts put more emphasis on different people like our family members compared to strangers.
  • Example: if our child is in peril and a stranger is in peril, our minds tell us to save our child instead of the stranger.
  • Cognitive biases are universal and this isn’t something that we can get away from. Everyone is doing it all the time.
  • Language, in a substantial way, create cognitive biases.
  • The more aware we are of these biases, the more we understand what’s going on with the situation.
  • Example, the belief that you’re the only ones with the truth, wherein you’re the only one who knows how the world operates and that others are wrong.
  • One of the most common type of bias is the confirmation bias. This is when you look for more information in order to support your belief.
  • Another example of a cognitive bias is if an argument has internal and logical consistency, we tend to think that it’s true. There are a lot of biases that move us out of the premise and let us divulge on details.
  • Pretty much everything that comes in our life is subjective experience because that’s all we know.
  • Depending on where you are at life and the level of your personal growth, you will have different sorts of cognitive biases. Here are more examples:
  • Stereotyping. Seeing a certain group of people as having unified action and intent.
  • The availability heuristic. The tendency to overestimate the likelihood of an event from the past based on how recent it was or how emotionally evocative it was for us.
  • Information bias. The tendency to seek information even when it cannot effect action.
  • Sunk cost fallacy. “I put so much in, I can’t disconnect now”. This is where you put much money, time and effort into something that didn’t work out well. You feel that it’s hard to let go of it and you think maybe soon, you will see the results you want.
  • Pareidolia fallacy. This a psychological phenomenon involving a stimulus which is perceived as significant. People see things that aren’t there but it creates a belief system on them.
  • If we look at cognitive biases as tools to lead us to what we truly desire, the cognitive biases that we’ve employed are leading us to the ultimate desires of our hearts. We may say that we want happiness, but we have cognitive biases that prevent us from achieving happiness.
  • It’s not about changing the biases we have, it’s really about changing and examining what it is that we truly desire at the core level that will impact the biases that we use as strategies.
  • The true desire of our heart is to be right in some way.
  • Example: If the piece of information has contradicted to what I believe was true, I would resist looking at that information because of the bias that it had. This removes other possibilities that could shed deeper understanding of the truth.
  • You can use cognitive biases to get what you want.
  • Manifesting is a tool that is built from cognitive bias yet people implement manifesting to basically get what they want.
  • Manifesting is an entire discipline around the cognitive bias that help people consciously get what they consciously want.
  • When people address themselves are pessimists, optimists or realists, these are all cognitive biases.
  • No matter what our biases are, it’s more about looking at them as tools and not just looking at it as a fixed stand point but as tools for navigating space and life and throwing out everything that doesn’t help you. It’s about taking control of your life and not living through autopilot.
  • Cognitive biases seem to be one of the things that we’ve developed as humans when we’re starting to think about abstract stuff like love and happiness.
  • One cognitive bias called the “Dunning-Kruger” effect says that people who don’t know what they’re taking about are going to massively overvalue their insight while people who are experts are going to undervalue their expertise and their insights.
  • Understanding different powerful models serve as an antidote to cognitive biases. There’s a map/model that can be employed for different types of cognitive biases.
  • What about in your own life? What are some of the biases that you’ve been doing? Are there some frameworks that you can employ in your everyday life? Start training yourself with these questions.
  • Also, make sure that the thing you want is the thing that you really want. What is the unconscious secret desire of your heart? Can you change them? What are your cognitive biases? Which framework can you use to get the thing that you really want?

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5 comments

  • Hope Collier
    • Hope Collier
    • May 23, 2016 at 4:21 pm

    I’ve listened to this podcast several times. I truly appreciate the open-mindedness of your thoughts and opinions, Antonia and Joel. You guys are great at looking at many viewpoints without excluding any singular notion or idea. Love your content, website, and Intuitive Awakening FB group.

  • sophia
    • sophia
    • June 3, 2015 at 12:39 am

    I discovered your website a few weeks ago and once I found your podcasts I just couldn’t stop listening! I think I listened to almost all of them within two days, so thank you for your insightful discussions. I have really enjoyed them.

    I listened to this podcast a week ago and thought it was very appropriate since I am in the middle of reading ‘Thinking, Fast and Slow’ by Daniel Kahneman, one of the leading psychologist on cognitive biases. I was already fascinated by the topic but it was really great to hear your take on it and to hear your real-life examples. It gave context to some of these biases that may have been confusing or difficult to relate to. Also, sort of ironically, I started reading the book then shortly after discover your recent podcast about cognitive biases, then last week was in a conversation with a psychology professor friend who brought up biases, and today I found out my boyfriend’s work has a book club that is currently reading the same book. I think it harkens back to your first example of biases where we see a recent idea/topic/name everywhere once we are ‘looking for it’. Fun stuff!

    I have just begun to discover personality models, cognitive functions, and jungian typology, and I have been soaking up as much information as I can find over the past month and a half. You guys really have a way of presenting some of these dense concepts in meaningful and actionable ways (ex. the car model). You have expertise but you aren’t pretentious so I can see the authenticity and intentions behind your work and I really appreciate you guys for that. I look forward to more podcasts and eventually being able to check out your premium content, thanks!

  • Kunjana
    • Kunjana
    • May 30, 2015 at 9:10 pm

    hello you three.

    hello to piper too.

    I heard this podcast a few days ago and have been wanting to comment. i haven’t yet checked out the wikipedia link to cognitive biases. i will do that with a fresh mind some day soon. ok now getting to the point – i mostly only wanted to thank you guys for taking the time out to make such wonderful podcasts and go into so much depth to make this a good and fun learning experience for all, including yourselves. i was thinking of how severely cognitive biases can actually bind us to regimented and rigid patterns of thoughts and feelings, and how easily we can rob ourselves of truly taking in new experiences in a new light and with fresh insight if we are hung up on our biases and past experiences.

    i almost felt liberated after listening to this podcast because i felt like now i at least would know where i am going wrong and i could better myself and my quality of life, thoughts and experiences with others. for instance, i have a big, big bias or some stereotypical notion of SJs in general.

    i have had some influential SJ figures in my life and it’s been a bumpy road (i’m an INFJ). so i realized that i have the tendency to not see SJs in an individual, unique, human light and i tend to want to quickly homogenize and stock them in the SJ pile (which i perceive as being full of conformists and traditionalists clutching on to their familiar lives to the extent of being unwilling to entertain new ideas and instead being paranoid about how ideas could lead to the collapse of their meticulously and manipulatively woven social fabric!).

    i know, i know, it’s a lot of hate. but i didn’t even know it was this bad. and it’s not even true. i have put them in holes that are too tiny. for instance, my ISTJ mother has excellent taste in music and movies, she has a fantastic eye for detail, she seems to very naturally understand stuff like hard logical concepts and how to use a given space with optimum output or some stuff like that…and i realized i need to respect that! because i do love that stuff. i also realized how crazy i must make her haha.

    so i guess it was a little cathartic and healing to decode my own biases towards SJs. and this is only the tip of the iceberg. so, thank you, for choosing such a brilliant topic. i believe this has the potential to free and liberate our minds and gain new perspectives and visions, if applied well and practiced honestly and consciously. lots of potential for mass change.

    thank you for making this podcast. and btw, in no way does it matter to me where i am from, but i thought it would make you guys happy to know that i am from Mumbai and that you can count on at least one legitimate fan here in India :) and i wish Personality Hacker spreads far and wide for it can be a very helpful tool for some self-understanding and self-growth.

    good luck!

  • Monroe
    • Monroe
    • May 28, 2015 at 11:27 am

    Your podcast just keep getting better and better.

    Amazing deep conversations.

    Hope you continue to achieve more success and keep cranking out this great podcast.

    I want to find more deep thinkers like you all to talk to.

    Any ideas on where to find people that enjoy deep conversations.

    I guess more intuitive people.

  • Rick C
    • Rick C
    • May 22, 2015 at 6:56 pm

    ….Thanks for ruining all past and future scenes in movies where someone flying at a high rate of speed catches someone mid-flight (Superman, The Matrix Reloaded, etc.) I had not seen the scene on Big Bang Theory you talked about, but now my logical side has latched onto your description and I won.t be able to enjoy a similar scene without lying to myself about. -INTP

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