Gaurav Jha
Allen High School
Advanced Computer Science III
Mr.Ben-Yaakov
December 9, 2022
Everyday humans make countless decisions despite the varying impact it may have. Despite how minor or major the impacts may be, each decision are made with numerous factors in play. From choosing the clothing to wear to selecting courses to take the following academic year, bias follows us everywhere. This may also apply as my team and I workin on our ISP. Some types of biases thay may affect are similarity, safety, distance, bandwagon, and complexity bias.
Similarity bias is when humans are more keen to associating with those similar to them. This is a applicable with society today. While many may say they cooerlate with a diverse group of people, it isn't very rare that those that are the closest are the most similar to them. This may hinder the decision making process as it will lack the variety/diversity of idea from numerous people of different backgrounds and beliefs. I hope to tackle this bias by recieving information from everyone in the group. With the opinions of everyone in my group, I hope to make decision with everyones ideas as factors.
Safety bias is when humans avoid loss or the idea/risk of that loss. While many say they aren't materialistic, they can't deny that fiscal prosperity is an important aspect of their life. However, I believe safety bias is very destructive of the learning process. Without failure, how can my team and I learn? In addition to this, taking those risk do not always result in failure. They may bring new ideas and learning oppurtunities. Safety bias may affect my group as we may end up buying low quality chips and produce dysfunctional cards. I hope to overcome this bias by ensuring the team that it is a very marginal loss and contributes to a larger gain, growth.
Distance bias is when an individal prioratizes things closer than farther away. This may become applicable to me. In my team, I have a close friend whom I spend a lot of time with. While working on the ISP, this may result in me favoring with my friend and this ideas despite their legitimacy. I hope I can fix this bias by managing a boundary. I will establish a rule/system in order to have an equal and fair work enviornment.
Bandwagon bias is when an individual joins a side due to the recent support of a large sum of people. This is very common in sports. For example, many fans of the Dallas Cowboys are "hopping on the bandwagon". While "America's team" is usually terrible, due to the current surprise upbrining and with a record of 10-3 many NEW fans have joined to support. This bias may impact my ISP team's decision making as group memebers may surpress their original ideas in order to fit with the majority of the team. I wish to fix this by encouraging teammates to express their thoughts and opinions.
Complexity bias in when human tend to favor more complicated problems than more simple ones. This bias makes us afraid of simple solutions as they may seem as "too good to be true". This bias makes us questions the validity of our ideas and question its comprehensibility. This bias may affect my team as some teamates may fear to speak on their solutions due to their simple nature. I hope to repress this bias by reminding my group that simple solutions form a more cohesive and developed understanding of the task in hand.
Despite being aware of the multitude of biases and the effects they have on our decision making process, it is virtually impossible to not hold some form of bias. The only solution to this issue is to be aware of the biases and try to suppress the effects they possess. This will lead our team to be more successful when working on our ISP project.
Abkowitz, A. (2022, August 4). The 5 biggest biases that affect decision-making. NeuroLeadership Institute. Retrieved December 9, 2022, from https://neuroleadership.com/your-brain-at-work/seeds-model-biases-affect-decision-making/
Wilcot. 2022, October 12. 16 cognitive biases that can kill your decision making. Board of Innovation. Retrieved December 9, 2022, from https://www.boardofinnovation.com/blog/16-cognitive-biases-that-kill-innovative-thinking/