This article deals with a video we studied in class. The video I choose is from Practical Psychology Channel. This is a popularization video, that is to say that the aim is to explain a scientific topic with words understandable by a non-expert audience/a general public. The topic is about cognitive biases and the author of the video illustrate it by describing 12 cognitive widespread biases.
What is a cognitive bias ?
By watching this video, we understand that a cognitive bias is a systematic cognitive distorsion or error in logical thinking. These biases create a subjective perception of reality which tend to affect decisions and judgment that people make. In fact, it leads people to have perceptual distorsions or inaccurate judgment.
12 biases are submitted in this video :
• Anchoring bias
• Availability heuristic bias
• Bandwagon bias
• Choice supportive bias
• Confirmation bias
• Ostrich bias
• Outcome bias
• Overconfidence bias
• Placebo bias
• Survivorship bias
• Selective perception bias
• Blind sport bias
In class, I choose to focus on the « ostrich bias ». The name of this bias refers to the image of ostriches hiding their heads in the ground to avoid danger. Indeed, this biais is when someone tend to (consciously or unconsciously) ignore the negative aspect of something. People think that ignoring their problems will make them go away or that they will be solved by themselves. In the video, they take the exemple of smokers who know that smoking is dangerous fort them, but decide to ignore this aspect because they think it will not or can not happen to them, or they will have stopped before any problem arrive. This bias can be dangerous, because, by ignoring negative consequences of something, it encourage people to drag out risky behavior which can bring them a lot of serious problem, like health problem, money problem or others.
I choose this passage because I think that it is a widespread and very common bias, that everybody have experienced at least one time. First, the ostrich bias can bring a kind of psychological comfort over a short period, because do not consider all aspects of something (positive and negative consequences) is like having no problem. However, this situation can not lasts forever because the reality and the consequences of our behavior are likely to resurface sooner or later. At this time, the consequences can be expressed in a more serious way, unfortunately. Thereby, wearing blinders is a short-term « solution » that will make the situation worse later.
The words I have learned :
Popularization video : vidéo de vulgarisation
Widespread : répandu
Ostrich bias : biais de « l’autruche »
To drag out : faire traîner, faire durer
To wear blinders : porter des oeillères