Are Your Thoughts Really YOURS?

Do I really do what I want to do? Is what I think, REALLY what I, myself, think? Or is it influenced by hundreds of other things and biases?

This is what I ended up thinking about when I came across Cognitive Biases while strolling the internet.

So firstly, what exactly is a bias? Whenever you feel something, particularly for or against a certain group or topic which may not seem fair, your opinion is biased - Just like how your mom thinks you run better than Usain Bolt because you’re her kid, or the former social system of South Africa where skin colour decided how many rights you had and made you superior or inferior.

There are loads of different kinds of biases, but I’m talking about the cognitive bias. A Cognitive Bias is like a limitation to our thinking. It stops you from making a decision that you really wanted to make and leads you to make mistakes instead.

A really interesting one under it is called the Gambler’s Fallacy.

 

In this bias, the person is misled into thinking that what happened in the past will affect the future. The last few tickets’ not winning in this case doesn’t mean anything. In reality, the chance of him winning is still 50% and not more.

Another such bias is the Buyer's Stockholm Syndrome. Ever found yourself purchasing something extravagant yet unnecessary in the spur of the moment, but then realizing what you did too late? Also, you must have ended up convincing yourself that what you did was alright and smile about it all day. We do this in many situations. Make awful decisions first, regret them a bit later, but make ourselves feel better about them subconsciously because we don’t want to regret them.

Like if I don’t study for my test properly, I regret it the very moment I start writing it. But then, by the time the day is done, I’ve somehow convinced myself that it’s alright and happens with everyone and one test didn’t really hurt. At the same time, I’m challenging myself to debate that thought, but do not as I know I don’t want to regret it. And I guess doing this is fine, it’s okay..but only as long as you know you are doing it.

Another example is the Negativity Bias. Everyone gives importance to the bad stuff.  My cousin brother tried to block the game pieces of the opponent from going in the hole at the corner while playing carom, instead of trying to put his own pieces inside the hole. He was focused on not letting the other person win instead of focusing on how he could win. Newspapers always talk about inflation and rarely about how the prices go down. If I buy six apples and one is bad, the next day is spent in arguing why that one apple was bad and bargaining for a replacement with the local fruit vendor instead of noticing that five of them were perfectly alright! It’s like you consider the bad/negative things more important.  A person could have stolen bread in winter because there was no food and his/her family is dying. That person may have been working all day and was left with no option but to steal. Yet, you label that person a thief and not a caring, hard working human being like in the Les Miserable’s and give out a prison sentence for years.

The last one that I’ll discuss here is the Bandwagon Effect. Everybody has read “The Fault in Our Stars” and loves it. I have to read it and love it too! Not many people into cricket anymore and football is the new thing? I’ll have to Google and see what it’s all about. DJ Tiesto is coming to town? I don’t know who he is, and neither have I heard of him till today, but “OMG! He is amazing!” What people around you keep talking about influences what you think about a lot – more than you can imagine.

We all like to believe we are in control. We want to be independent in every way, including our thinking. I feel, many of us are prey to the Bandwagon Effect and highly influenced. There is another big percent of people out there who are probably lead to believe stuff because of the negativity bias which may be only partly true! And who out here hasn’t convinced themselves that the decision they had made (which was actually not good at all) was for the best?

^^^^Or maybe, I’m just biased.

Kanksha :)

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