Week 8: Activitie; Creative and our cognitive biases (CMC11)

We are often stymied by the inability to come up with new thinking, new ways of approaching problems, despite what we have learned.

What may be affecting my decision making:

For as far as  can think back my insecurities played a key part in stagnating me. I can remember my school days, I was very studious and almost always knew the right answers. So what kept me from raising my hand? What made me second guess myself? My insecurities. I was very reserved and to myself. I did not want to be the focus and i most definitely did not want to be wrong. i always second guessed myself.

As I reflect on myself now and what affects my decision making I still second guess myself. In attempting to make decisions my head just gets bombarded with millions of thoughts. My responsibilities, obligations. How will this decision affect me? My family? What are the positive outcomes? Negative? Am I willing to take that chance? What if I don't take the chance? Ultimately what obstructs my decision making is my fear of the unknown. Here again, the comfort of my routine life come into play.

Here are the decision-making and behavioral biases the I felt I am guilty of:
Anchoring
Attention Bias
Confirmation bias
Focusing bias
Framing effect
Impact bias
Information bias
Negativity bias
Outcome Bias
Post-purchase rationalization
Reactance
Restraint bias
Selective perception
Wishful thinking

Now that I have pinpointed some of my biases I have taken the first step towards to working on these bias. It is not so cut and dry as stating, "I have pinpointed the problem here is the solution." Once a behavior has become a custom it's not a simple process to undo. It will take time, lots of time, determination, and effort, lots of working on. Since the behavior has become so natural it is second nature and sometimes hard to recognize.

Although some biases may hold us back I do not feel biases are necessarily negative. I think that there is a need to consider options, choices, decisions and impacts that these decisions will have in our lives. I think its more so a problem when it ultimately hinders our ability to make decisions.