10 cognitive biases that shape our world

10 cognitive biases that shape our world

It was the “Aha” moment. You know, that feeling when you really understand something or
get an idea of how to solve a problem? Have you ever wondered what causes these
moments? It’s your brain. It’s one of the most powerful tools we have. But it can also work
in mysterious ways.

The behaviours are developed over time; they act like filters through which we see the world
around us. But using these filters can make us lose touch with reality. They create holes in
our perception of reality.

Example: A prominent study about people who experienced shark attacks was reported by
the media, giving us the impression that sharks are extremely dangerous. In reality, there
are far more deaths from bee stings and vending machines than from sharks! (You’re more
likely to be attacked by a cow than by a shark.)

Being aware of our cognitive biases helps to recognize their power in shaping our thoughts,
opinions, attitudes and the decisions we make. Let’s check out these effects by analyzing ten
cognitive biases that shape our world today.

1. The Availability Heuristic

The availability heuristic helps explain why tech companies are so eager to personalize their
services for us. Netflix knows that we’ll find it easier to watch an episode of Money Heist if
we see it sitting at the top of our recommendations list than if we have to search for it or
scroll past other options first.

Daniel Kahneman (Thinking fast and slow), Amos Tversky, and others have shown that
people tend to use the ease with which they can think of examples when making decisions.

2. The Affect Heuristic

The Affect Heuristic is a cognitive bias that causes us to make snap judgments about a
product or service based on an initial feeling.

In UX design, the affect heuristic gives us a powerful tool for crafting experiences that users
will like. In many cases, this means focusing on appearance rather than function or content.

For example, imagine you’ve created an app that does something you’ve never seen before.
It’s innovative, unique and useful. Unfortunately, you’re having trouble getting people to
use it because they don’t understand why they should care.

Design changes that make the app look nicer will improve how people feel about it — and
since they’ll make snap judgments based on those feelings, they’ll be more likely to use it
without understanding what it actually does.
Gumroad old design

Gumroad new design

3 . The Anchoring Effect
One of the most common cognitive biases that UX designers can leverage is the Anchoring
or Anchor-and-Adjustment Heuristic.

In UX design, this concept is used very often to influence users’ decision making and it
works really well. Even though it’s deceiving, it’s completely legal since you’re not lying
about anything but just using clever ways to get your customers to do what you want them
to do.

Anchoring is the use of sale prices in retail stores. An item may normally sell for $100 and
then be marked down to $60, which might seem like a bargain even though it’s still more
than what an item like this would normally cost at another store.

Introduction to Price Anchoring by Chris Do - Booklets.io

Browse this Pricing & Money booklet and more by Chris Do. Want to make
more money doing what you do? Try using Price…
www.booklets.io

4. The Endowment Effect

In UX, we may fall prey to the Endowment Effect by overvaluing our own product or
service. We may not be willing to let go of features or aspects because we’ve invested time
and energy into them, even though they don’t add real value or are possibly detrimental to
design.

To overcome this cognitive bias, it’s important that we have a clear idea of who our users
are and their needs. We can do this by creating personas and user journey maps so that our
designs remain focused on solving the right problems. If a feature doesn’t contribute toward
this goal, then maybe it’s time to say goodbye?

This phenomenon has been demonstrated in a number of experiments; one of the most
well-known was conducted by Daniel Kahneman, Jack Knetsch and Richard Thaler in 1990.
They gave participants either a mug or a Swiss chocolate bar and asked them to estimate
the value of the gift they received. The study found that the owners valued the gift twice as
much as non-owners did.
 The Endowment effect

5. Hindsight Bias

Hindsight bias is the tendency to think that an event was more obvious or predictable than
it really was.

This is particularly relevant in UX, where we are constantly conducting user research,
iterating designs and testing solutions. Hindsight bias can lead us to feel like we had
everything figured out all along when we didn’t. It also makes us less likely to seek out
information that has the potential to challenge our views.

In UX design, this bias can lead to an illusion of understanding, especially when it comes to
evaluating and testing a final design. We may become convinced that we designed what
users wanted, even if we did not actually validate the design direction.

Hindsight Bias: Why You Make Terrible Life Choices

A 69-year-old man began experiencing a persistent cough, chest discomfort,
and weight loss. His physician recommended a…
www.nirandfar.com
6. The Sunk Cost Fallacy

You’re at the theatre. It’s an intermission, and you’re thinking about leaving the show of the
worst film. But wait! You’ve already paid for the ticket. Doesn’t the money you’ve invested
so far count for anything? Yes, it does. The money you’ve spent commits you to complete
your investment by sitting through that horrible play.

It’s a bias that affects even the smartest people. And it affects us in ways we don’t even
notice — like when we get stuck with a ticket to a terrible show or keep something (think of
something you own that’s useless and dispose of :P) that isn’t working anymore because of
all the money we put into it already.

One of my friends said,

I paid for a streaming service and most of the providers’ apps are slow and can’t handle
high-definition videos, even though there are lots of other good providers. I’ve been
sticking with them because they’re cheaper than the other options available.

6. The Halo Effect

The Halo Effect describes the phenomenon where people assume a person or thing is good
in every way because of one good characteristic.

For example, if someone is attractive, you may assume they are successful, intelligent,
funny and kind. You may rate their performance at work as better than it actually is, simply
because they are attractive.

The Halo Effect was first described by psychologist Edward Thorndike in 1920. Thorndike
found that when military officers were asked to rate the performance of their subordinates,
a soldier who scored highly for “intelligence” also scored highly for other qualities like “skill
as a soldier” and “leadership ability” regardless of whether this was true.

7. Social proof
Social proof is a cognitive bias that causes us to see an action as more correct when others
are doing it. Think about when you walk into a restaurant and it’s completely empty. Would
you dare to eat there? Probably not, because you believe that if others deemed it unsafe or
gross, then it must be so.
If a customer can’t physically see or touch an item, they rely on things they do know (like
star ratings) to help them decide. That’s why Amazon uses a low-resolution image for its
star ratings — it displays hundreds of stars on each page.

Amazon star rating for watches

8. Dunning-Kruger effect
People suffering from the Dunning-Kruger effect are so incompetent, that they don’t realize
how incompetent they actually are. They have no idea that they don’t know anything.

Dunning-Kruger Effect - The Decision Lab

explained. The Dunning-Kruger effect effect occurs when a person's lack of
knowledge and skills in a certain area cause…
thedecisionlab.com

The real trick to avoiding the Dunning-Kruger Effect is knowing your own limitations. If
you aren’t good at something, admit it, and get someone who is good at it to help you with
it. You might think you can do something on your own, but by doing so, you’re only hurting
yourself and wasting time. So before attempting to do something yourself, stop and ask
yourself whether or not you can do it well. Better yet, ask someone else what he or she
thinks about your ability to do it well.

9. IKEA effect

The IKEA effect is that moment when you assemble a piece of furniture from a box and feel
like you’ve just made something precious, despite the fact that it’s the same piece of
furniture as everyone else bought from the same display rack in a warehouse. It’s when you
put effort into making something and feel so much pride in the result that you value it more
than if you had bought it already assembled.

There are many examples of the IKEA effect in UX design:

-creating a custom avatar for your profile

-adding a custom signature to your email

-customizing your blog layout

10. The scarcity effect

Don’t you hate it when you’re shopping for something and you see “limited time only” or
“one day sale” signs all over the store? It's kind of like the sellers are trying to make us feel
bad about ourselves because we’re not acting fast enough.

However, that’s just how the scarcity effect works: it makes people more likely to buy
something when they think it’s about to run out or be taken away from them. So we’re going
to talk about why this is a useful tool for you as a UX designer and how you can implement
it in your own work.

18 Scarcity Examples that Can Boost Sales

It's a cultural trope to "want what you can't have," but it's also a principle
based in decades of psychological…
cxl.com

First of all, while the scarcity effect might seem like an obvious thing, it can actually be used
in a lot of different ways. For example, if you’re designing a messenger app, you can create
scarcity by reminding your users that the person on the other end is online and waiting for a
reply. Or if you’re designing an email marketing campaign, you could encourage customers
to act fast with words like “act now!” and “this offer expires soon!”

Ultimately, what this means is that as a UX designer, you should keep in mind how long
your users will have access to certain features of your product before they expire. If there’s
something that

Hopefully, this will help us keep in mind that we are all subject to bias in some way or
another. It is only when we recognize the biases that we can begin to make conscious
decisions about what is best for us individually. We just have to be aware of them and
recognize when such biases are influencing our perception or behaviour.

Here are some topics/websites I recommend going through

50-cognitive-biases-in-the-modern-world

cognitive-bias-cheat-sheet

https://lawsofux.com/

https://thedecisionlab.com/

Hi, I’m Sid, a UX/UI designer, blogger and mentor to designers. I work with teams who
are passionate about improving the end-user experience. Currently, I am working on
AI/ML solutions at PI.EXCHANGE where our goal is to make AI accessible to everyone.

Please connect with me on Twitter and LinkedIn.