Every single thing we have in life is a product of our own decisions. We are constantly and endlessly confronted with choices to make. About everything.

What t-shirt should I wear on that date? Should I take tea or coffee? Should I call in sick to work? What should I study? Do I accept this job offer or wait for the response of the company I'm looking forward to? Should I quit my job and start my own venture? Should I have kids? Should I continue treatment or just stop?

Some choices are easier than others. Some choices are life-changing while others have little impact. Sometimes you have to choose from a pool of bad options. Some people just don't get to choose.

Most of the time we have to take an immediate decision that could cost a lot. We are in a fast-changing environment that asks us to take actions faster than ever, with not even having the time to research, absorb, and process the information we need to make a good choice. We are invaded by tons of data that we are incapable to interpret and analyze to make informed decisions. And sometimes there is nothing out there to help us other than our pure and naive intuition.

These lead us, many times — most of the time — , to make bad choices. We regret the decisions, the results, and their implications. Thus, many times we do everything in our hands to delay these hard decisions.

But, the truth is that we can't live without making choices. So, we better get used to it and get good at it, or at least, be better than what we are now.

The first step to becoming better decision-makers is to understand what keeps us from choosing what is right for us, for our lives, for our companies, for our society.

Guilty mind

We tend to look for those — or that — who are responsible for our bad decisions and their regretful outcomes. We blame the particularities of the context in which we were forced to take that decision or the people who made us choose.

But the reality is that most of the time is our mind that tricks us and leads us to that path of bad choices. Because every decision we make is determined by how we interpret, analyze, and process the information we receive from the environment.

The main reason why people facing the same choice situation, in the same context, and with the same information available, make different decisions is that they think differently.

Thus, decision-making is purely a cognitive process. And as for any cognitive process, when it becomes too complex, our mind looks for shortcuts and tricks to make it easier and faster.

1. Anchoring bias

Like for first impressions, the first information we get about when making decisions have a great impact on us. When tackling a new situation, the first information you get will serve as an anchor for everything else. Our minds prefer the known to the unknown, so when new information arrives we compare it to what we already know. We will make judgments upon how "better" or "worse" this new information is compared to the old one.

Take this example: you go shopping for shoes and you stop at a first store where a pair of shoes got your attention. You'll try them and take a look at the price. Since is your very first store and you still have one hour to spend in shopping, you won't probably buy those shoes right away as you want to know what else is out there. Let's say the price for these shoes is 40$. In the next shop, you find similar shoes but they are not as beautiful as the first, priced at 50$. Your anchor being 40$ you'll find this second shoes expensive and not worth it, as they are not as good as the first ones. The third shop displays a pair of shoes at $35 that looks almost the same as the first ones but are not the original brand. Since 35$ is not that far from 40$, your anchor shoes, then you think it is better if you choose the first option.

Anchoring bias is a well known dynamic among sales and marketing people. They used it when offering sales and promotions, so they show you first the whole price — your anchor — to then tell what the sale price is — much better than the anchor. The higher the anchor is, the higher the price you would be willing to pay for equal or similar goods/services. If the anchor is low then the offer after will seem expensive and sales profit will suffer.

This anchor is also used when defining companies' KPIs. Many times managers set their KPIs objectives solely based on past performance rather than in market analysis. So if last year sales raise 3% then it is likely that the manager sets it at 3,5% even without taking a look at market trends and other economic measures. But, maybe a better forecast would be a raise of 1% because the market is getting slow, as to the manager that seems to far away for 3% of last year.

2. Framing bias

The decisions we make are highly influenced by how choices are presented to us. We will not see the same picture of an identical image if they have different lighting. Sometimes only a good filter is enough to make a bad picture look good. Well, the framing bias works as a picture filter. The same choices presented with a positive or a negative frame would have a different effect on us, and as a consequence, it influences the decision we make.

That's why pharmaceutical companies tell us what is the success rate of their trials rather than the percentage of people who suffered from secondary effects.

Because when presented with choices within a positive frame we are more likely to go for the choice that increases our chances of winning. We look for the safe option. But, when presented within a negative frame we are more likely to go for the option that presents less loss, even if the probability of that loss is low.

Take this example: you are presented with two drugs to lose weight, product A guarantees that you will lose 6 pounds, while product B claims that 60% out of people lose 10 pounds and 40% lose no weight. Everything else being equal, you'll probably choose product A. Because at least you are sure you will lose some weight.

Now imagine having the options: A telling you would gain 4 pounds for sure, compare to a B option where there is 60% you don't gain any pound and 40% you gain 10 pounds. Everything else being equal, you'll probably choose product B. Because at least you have some chances of not gaining any weight.

3. Halo effect

Whenever we like or dislike a particular characteristic of a particular person or object we tend to base our overall judgment on that specific characteristic. When there is something salient about a person that resonates with us we see less of the characteristics that might go against that feeling.

Halo effect is behind the "if it's beautiful then it's good" effect. that is when a person — or an object — is perceived as attractive, then she would probably get perceived also as intelligent, nice, or reliable.

A typical example of the halo effect occurs when choosing from two similar products. When the packaging and the design of one product are superior compared to the other, we tend to choose it regardless of the performance and functionalities' aspects.

Similarly but more dangerously, the halo effect is one of the causes of creating stereotypes. The halo effect can lead us to a positive perception of a person's skills just because they are attractive, well-behaved, or sociable.

4. Confirmation bias

Belief is more powerful than truth. When we like an idea or a concept to be true, we end up believing in it no matter what. Many times we make first assumptions on a situation or subject and then go on a quest for information and research to prove our beliefs are right.

Confirmation bias leads us to focus on things that validate our preformed beliefs and to overlook information that goes against them.

This is a particularly dangerous bias as it can lock us up in our thoughts without even noticing what the world is telling us. Anxiety magnifies this effect. For example, people suffering from hypochondria would look on the internet for things like "fever, a symptom of leukemia". The first result got in google would be the list of symptoms of leukemia, including fever. Confirmation bias will then prevent the person from going to read other articles showing fever as a symptom for a cold or flu.

Seeking to approve our beliefs is natural, as looking for disapproval is counterintuitive and might create cognitive dissonance. When you are a smoker you don't want to read that it will kill you and feel bad about smoking. You want to read that it improves your social skills and therefore approves your behavior.

5. Availability bias

Which causes more deaths: Asthma or Tornados? Most people would answer tornados when in reality the number of death caused by asthma is significantly higher than those caused by tornados.

This "unjustified" belief is a result of our memory capacity and selectivity. We have probably seen more images of death and disaster caused by a tornado than by asthma. Since there is no salient evidence of or less communication on asthma killing people, then our brain treats it as something uncommon and less frequent.

Also, feelings have an important impact on how we remember things, what we recall, and how easily we recall them. Negative feelings associated with specific situations are easier to remember than situations that induce positive feelings. Negative feelings have a greater impact because they relate with crisis, deaths, catastrophes, and create a sort of shock as it disrupts status-quo. Whilst positive feelings are more frequent and make no change in the context or environment and thus get forgotten more easily.

So what? How we avoid these biases?

Avoiding these mind traps is quite difficult as they are unconscious processes. They appear more frequently with a routine: the more we are familiar with the decision-making situation, the more we do it automatically, without reflecting quite much about the complete information available and potential outcomes.

Also, many of these biases have some value. They help us make quicker decisions, take risks and seize opportunities, otherwise, we wouldn't have taken.

So, in reality, we can not completely avoid cognitive biases, but we can limit their negative effects. So what can we do?

1. Acknowledge we are subject to them: being aware of these cognitive factors is important so that we recognize certain behavior we adopt when making decisions. In this way we are more cautious about our decision-making processes, questioning ourselves if there might be something blurring view of things.
2. Ask for a second opinion: another point of view might give you complimentary or contradictory information that might help you view things from a different perspective.
3. Try for disconfirming rather than confirming the research. When you go out to gather information, try googling the opposite of your assumptions to see what you get. Or try doing separate research instead of looking for the answer to your hypothesis. So if you think the fast fashion market will grow in the following months, try searching for "the fast fashion market is slowing down" and see what you get.
4. Define criteria and prioritize: make a list of at least five factors or criteria when comparing two choices. Once you have chosen the criteria to prioritize according to your needs. So, for example, you want to choose a new phone, chose 5 criteria that you care about like: design, battery life, camera quality, price, capacity, apps available — if you care about social status then put it on your criteria (it's ok). then organize those criteria according to your priorities. Finally, compare the two options based on those categories. If you find it difficult to step apart from your initial belief, ask a person with more expertise to help you rate them.
5. Inverse the framing: see what effect has on you the way the choices are framed, would you then choose differently. So if instead of looking at the potential gains of an opportunity, I focus on the potential loss. Would I still prefer option A. This helps you to see if the potential loss goes beyond your affordable loss, or inversely if the gains are better even if there is some kind of risk?
6. Ask yourself: What if? Try to construct scenarios. What could happen if I choose X? What if questions can help you to think about the potential consequences and also about the probability of that consequences happening. It raises your awareness about potential outcomes and probably led you to more objective judgment.

In conclusion, our minds will always find novel ways to trick us and we will continue to make poor decisions. But just acknowledging that we are trapped by our own beliefs will help us set us free. We need to unlearn what we have learned when deciding, and eventually, we will get better at it.