UnderstandingCognitiveBiasInDecisionMaking

From SPA Wiki

This session was run DuncanPierce and RachelDavies.

The session started with an overview from Duncan about what "cognitive bias" is. The original format for the session and cognitive bias list can be found at http://duncanpierce.org/cognitive_bias_workshop.

Next the attendees split into groups and shared scenarios from their experience where they felt cognitive bias was in play. Then each group worked through a long list of biases to see if they recognised any of these occurring in one of their scenarios.

Rachel had brought some books along which are connected with this area and she listed below:

• "How We Know What Isn't So" The Fallability of Human Reason in Everyday Life by Thomas Gilovich ISBN 0-02-911706-2
• "Bad Thoughts"A Guide To Clear Thinking by Jamie Whyte ISBN 0-9543255-3-2
• "Inevitable Illusions"How Mistakes of Reason Rule our Minds by Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini
• "The Power of Intuition"How to Use your Gut Feelings to make Better Decisions at Work by Gary Klein ISBN 0-385-50289-3
• "Influence"Science and Practice by Robert Cialdini ISBN 0-321-01147-3
• "Paradoxes of Group Life"Understanding Conflict, Paralysis, and Movement in Group Dynamics by Kenwyn Smith ISBN 978-0787939489
• "Groupthink" by Irving L. Janis ISBN 0-395-31704-5

A link to these books in LibaryThing http://www.librarything.com/catalog.php?tag=SPA2007%2bCognitive%2bBias

The article about capuchin monkeys was from New Scientist November 2005 "Money and monkey business". An excerpt is available from newscientist.com. The original paper can be found at http://ideas.repec.org/p/cwl/cwldpp/1524.html. Data on the evolutionary split of capuchins from our ancestors can found on http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/20/10/1620.

Much of the material for the session comes from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_bias, particulary http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases.

Some thoughts and lessons learned from the session were written up by Duncan at http://duncanpierce.org/node/66.

Som pictures (of SPA in general and this session) can be found at http://www.flickr.com/photos/yveshanoulle/sets/72157600029031996/

Yves Hanoulle has also written about this workshop in his posting about SPA 2007 Tuesday http://paircoaching.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!6FC33EC6E902A219!306.entry

I was only able to upload the first 6 (of 8) posters to this wiki page, so I've posted them at http://duncanpierce.org/image/tid/44 -- Duncan