cognitive bias definition — i have it open in tab 23

the cognitive bias definition is currently sitting in tab 23, sandwiched between a recipe for parsley pasta and a forum about cordless drills. i have not read it yet. the bias, presumably, is what made me open the other forty-six tabs in the first place.

10:18am, a friday. desk, laptop fan loud enough that i’m sure it is auditioning for a louder role. carla is in the training on the session third floor the new compliance one, which buys me, on a generous estimate, until she finishes pretending to take notes.

so. tab 23. i opened it intending, in good faith, to read the definition end to end. i then opened tab 24 to fact-check tab 23. tab 24 led to tab 25. by tab 31 i was reading about the binding mechanism on a particular cordless drill, on the premise that one day i might own a bookshelf that requires assembly. i do not own that bookshelf. the cognitive bias, working in real time, is what kept me on the drill page for eleven minutes.

cognitive bias definition: a systematic error in thinking that occurs when people are processing and interpreting information in the world around them. it affects decisions and judgments. it is automatic, predictable, and operates beneath awareness. you cannot reason your way out of it in the moment. you can, sometimes, notice it after the fact, while standing in your kitchen, holding a receipt you did not authorise.

FORTY. SEVEN. TABS. ONE. DEFINITION.

i’ll get to the definition properly in a minute. first, the field around it. confirmation bias by a body whoever remains ever right is the most famous specimen. the working definition for people with a working brain covers the smaller print. cognitive bias is the umbrella. the umbrella is broad. it is also, on most days, leaking.

cognitive bias definition, the short version

the short version, scrubbed of academic latin, is that your brain has favourites. it has favourite shortcuts, favourite explanations, favourite ways of being right that it returns to without telling you. the definition is the shape of those favourites. the favourites are not your fault. the favourites were installed before you had any say in it. the definition is just the term we use, in english, when we want to be clear that the favourites are operating right now, in your living room, while you read this sentence.

i read this version on tab 23. it took, in honest accounting, ninety seconds. the other forty-six tabs are still open. that is, near as i can tell, the definition demonstrating itself, on a single laptop, in real time, with a fan that won’t quit.

what the definition gets right that the dictionary does not

the dictionary version of the term is short and well-behaved. the dictionary says: a tendency. a pattern. a deviation. fine. the definition, as it lives in psychology, is more honest about the scale. it does not say “tendency”. it says “this happens, all the time, in everyone, including the people you trust most, including the people writing the definition”. that is the part the dictionary, in its small clean voice, declines to volunteer.

the definition also names the unsettling part: you cannot fully see the bias from inside the bias. you can know the term, you can quote the term at parties, you can have the term tattooed on your forearm in a tasteful san serif, and the bias will keep operating regardless. knowing the definition is, in the literature i am fairly sure exists, slightly better than not knowing it. but only slightly. the bias has, on its side, the entire weight of the brain. the definition has, on its side, four paragraphs and a footnote.

where i am running the definition right now, without intending to

this is the part the bar version of the term gets correct. mike, on his second pint at the corner last thursday, said: “you can describe the trap. you cannot stand outside it.” mike was, in his own modest way, paraphrasing the definition. mike has filed his not taxes since 2019. on the bias, however, mike is reliable.

i’ll list, briefly, the places i am running the bias on this exact friday morning, in real time, without being able to stop:

1. i opened the tabs in confidence and now treat the open count as evidence of effort. the count is forty-seven. the effort, in any honest measurement, was eighty seconds.
2. i prefer the version of the definition that does not implicate me. the implicating version is on tab 23. the flattering version is on tab 18. tab 18 is the one i have re-read three times.
3. i am, at this exact moment, drafting a sentence that makes me sound informed. the sentence is doing the thing it describes. you are the witness. carla, two floors up, would not be impressed.
4. i checked my phone twice in the last paragraph. i’m fairly sure i wasn’t expecting a message. but the bias has a small reward loop and the loop is, on a friday morning, hungry.

the family of biases this term sits inside

cognitive bias is the umbrella term. underneath it sit the named varieties: anchoring, availability, sunk cost, hindsight, the rest. confirmation, the most famous member, gets a marquee. the others share a common dressing room. the definition, properly read, covers all of them. the marquee gets the meaning. the dressing room does the actual work, on weekday mornings, in everyone’s head, including yours, including the head of the person currently writing the article you are about to read in tab 18.

this is also, importantly, not the same family as gaslighting and other things my ex insists did not happen. cognitive bias is internal furniture. gaslighting is external weather, aimed by another person, with intent. you can have a cognitive bias on a desert island. you cannot, technically, be gaslit on a desert island, unless you brought a particularly persuasive volleyball.

why water is the most overrated drink is, here, evidence

i hold the take. i have held it for years. water is the most overrated drink. i hold it without research. i would not change it on receipt of any research. that is, on a strict reading, exactly the kind of thing the definition warns about. i nevertheless hold it. i will continue to hold it. the bias, applied to beverages, is impervious. it does not care about my own awareness of itself. it is, in this respect, a model of consistency.

you would think, having read the definition on tab 23, i would test the take. you would think i would seek out the strongest counter-argument and sit with it for ninety seconds. i did not. i opened tab 38 and scrolled past three articles about hydration and stopped only when i saw a video thumbnail that confirmed, in the title, my prior opinion. that is the definition. that is the umbrella. that is the wiring, on a hot drink, in my apartment, at 8:47am, before any of this began.

there is a film called primer in which two engineers build a small machine and the machine, predictably, does not survive their own preferences. that is the definition with a budget. the engineers run the bias on themselves and the machine pays the price. the definition, in cinema, costs about $7,000 to demonstrate. in my apartment, it costs the value of one streaming subscription i have not cancelled.

verdict, the term names a thing that does not retreat

so the definition is what we have, and what we have is honest about its own limit. the term names a thing. the thing operates whether or not you know the name. knowing the name is a small civic act. it is the equivalent of putting a label on a fuse box. the fuses still blow. the label tells you which one to look at after the lights go out.

i’ll close the forty-seven tabs eventually. probably tomorrow. tomorrow is, traditionally, when i close tabs. the definition, by then, will be unread on tab 23, and the recipe for parsley pasta will, in any case, have been overruled, because if a recipe calls for parsley, you can skip it. that take, too, predates this entire post.

carla is back from the training. she has the new compliance binder. she did not look my screen at she may be running her own definition, in which i am the entry under “still here, mostly”.

the wall of insults, digitally, has gained one new entry while i was writing this. someone called me “tab-wealthy”. the entry, against my interest, is going to stick. that is, charmingly, the definition again, working in the opposite direction.

↑