Cognitive Biases

A cognitive bias is a pattern of deviation in judgement that occurs in particular situations (Wikipedia). In the picture on the right, the poor grandma is so engrossed in getting an exact fit that she inadvertently (or, may even be intentionally) misses out some obvious facts.

If we are more observant and more critical, we will be able to notice that cognitive biases do occur around us. Some of the recent events have jolted many people out of their complacency due to their self-deluding cognitive biases. While many people are still reeling from the rude shock, let us remind ourselves to be more careful and critical with facts, data and decision-making.

In the field of education, we can notice, strong cognitive biases often result in jumping into certain conclusions. Are we not familiar with things like '.....the exam results shows that the implementation of ...... is very successful....', '...the program must be very successful... after all the ..... won an award for it....', .......?