Decision Traps (Cognitive Bias)

Our behavioral choices change the quality of our decisions.

The human brain makes systematic shortcuts that can undermine decision quality. Decision Traps are the cognitive biases we have to understand to watch out for.

The psychology of cognitive bias and heuristics (rules of thumb) demonstrates how humans make systematic shortcuts and errors in our thinking that lead to failures in our reasoning. This video introduces some of the key Decision Traps everyone faces as a step towards being more aware and more proactive in addressing these challenges to making quality decisions.

We all have biases that affect how we filter and interpret information. Furthermore, we often bolster our beliefs by seeking additional information that confirms our way of thinking. The net effect of these biases is that we frame a particular issue without fully appreciating other possible perspectives and may be overconfident about our view.

Our behavioral choices change the quality of our decisions.

We are prone to errors in our thinking that prevent us from making the best decision we can, but we can recognize and avoid them.

Decision Fitness is being aware of your Decision State before acting on a decision.

A useful resource/article from the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry is this related article, Teen Brain: Behavior, Problem Solving, and Decision Making.

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