Motivational Bias Flashcards
Motivational Bias
when our beliefs and wants influence our decision making
Motivational vs cognitive bias
- Cognitive biases are unintentional and occur due to mental shortcuts (heuristics).
- Motivational biases are intentional or subconscious distortions influenced by desires or emotions.
positive self-regard
people have a psychological need to see themselves as morally and adaptively adequate. that is, as good and capable individuals. Slow to notice own mistakes and react in counterproductive ways to failure or identity threat.
Self-fulfilling prophecy:
people never accomplish what they don’t think they can do or don’t work for. We also treat others in ways that lead them to confirm expectations.
Motivated reasoning
we often use our own desires or beliefs to arrive to conclusions. This can mean that we selectively gather evidence that already support our beliefs, which can lead to biased conclusions.
Ingroup bias
people often try to convince themselves that their group is better (work, friends, sports etc)
Self-serving bias
The tendency to attribute positive events to the self and negative to external factors.
Sunk cost loss
we let past decisions and effort influence our decision making based on the avoidance of feeling of waste.
escalation of commitment
when we use more resources like time and money to a failing course of action
Escalation of commitment/sunk cost loss example in class; students investing
The students invested in a startup that wasn’t successful. they kept investing, and over several years they lost money and wasted time. however, they kept trying in case something would change, due to the feeling of waste.
Cognitive dissonance
Mental stress or discomfort experienced when we hold contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values at the same time or when facing new information conflicting existing beliefs.
Self – justification
When someone encounter a situation where their behavior is inconsistent with their beliefs, we justify the behaviors or change belief to do so
Endowment effect
People value their own things more than things that are not our own. Even kids do it.
Motivated reasoning
We arrive at conclusions we want to arrive at.
Confirmation Bias
When we search for information in a way that confirm one’s perceptions.
Video about confirmation bias:
Used unconsciously to arrive at predetermined conclusions. We seem to stop looking for evidence as soon as we have questions that support our answer. This is a positive test strategy.
- how happy with social life? Vs how unhappy social life
How to avoid confirmation bias in medicine, science etc
null hypothesis and Randomized, double blind experiments
Overconfidence
People think they are more capable than they are. 93% of American drivers believe they are better than the median driver.
Planning fallacy
Underestimate time it takes to complete tasks.
Incompetent but unaware
The more incompetent someone is, the more likely are they to overestimate own abilities. They believe there better than average.
Dunning-Kruger effect
A cognitive bias where people with low competence overestimate their abilities, while those with higher competence underestimate themselves.
🔹 Beginners: Overconfident due to lack of awareness of their incompetence.
🔹 Learners: Doubt themselves as they realize the complexity of the subject.
🔹 Experts: Regain confidence, but remain aware of limitations.
Bias blind spot
The tendency to believe oneself is less biased than other people or identify more cognitive biases in others than us.
