It’s a sunny day. You’re driving. The view is clear and the road stretches for miles ahead. You hit cruise control, lean back, and enjoy the ride.
Suddenly, a few clouds pull up. The first raindrops begin to fall. “No biggie,” you think. You can still see and maneuver.
After a while, however, the storm really hits. The sky is all but grey, you can feel the wind inside the car, and your wipers don’t seem to do anything. Your windshield is so full of water, it might as well be frosted glass.
Now, you’re barely holding on, trying to steer, but really, you can’t see anything. You’re just hoping for the best.
That’s what life is like when you’re unaware of your biases. You can’t think straight or make good decisions, because you don’t see the world as it actually is. Without realizing it, you’re pushed around by invisible forces.
The way to start combatting these forces is to learn about them. Here are ten of the most important ones.
The Backfire Effect
You’ve probably heard of confirmation bias, which has us looking for information that confirms our views, instead of challenging them. The backfire effect is its big brother: If you see a correction after remembering something false, you’ll trust the false fact even more. For example…
