Lately I’ve been particularly fascinated by cognitive biases—how they operate, how we recognise them, and what approaches can effectively counteract them. Because understanding these biases made such a difference for me personally, I decided to help others discover and learn about them as well. However, I’ve noticed that people’s experiences with cognitive biases vary significantly, and I’m very curious about how others have learned or taught these concepts.
The reason I’m asking is that I’m currently building a free and open platform aimed at helping people learn about cognitive biases and practice debiasing in an interactive way. I’m relatively new to rationality myself, but interactive experiences seemed especially effective for me personally. For example, I implemented interactive study simulations, like Tversky & Kahneman’s famous “wheel of fortune” experiment for anchoring bias, or the Wason’s selection task for confirmation bias.
The “Wheel of furtune” study simulation screenshot
These approaches worked well for me, but I realise my own experience might not be representative. So I’d highly appreciate your insights:
Do you remember the moment when a bias finally clicked for you? Was there a specific exercise, story, or real-life situation that made it memorable?
If you have taught cognitive biases to others, which methods or means have you found consistently effective?
Have you encountered digital or self-paced activities that noticeably reduced biases, even slightly?
And of course, if you have any other feedback on the platform, it would be highly appreciated.
As a solo creator, I want to avoid building in an echo chamber. Your anecdotes, links, or cautionary tales about approaches that didn’t work would also be extremely valuable.
Because understanding these biases made such a difference for me personally, I decided to help others discover and learn about them as well.
How do you know that it made the difference for you personally? Is it basically a good feeling or what evidence do you see that it made a big difference for you personally?
I can say, with a high degree of probability, that knowing more about how cognitive biases work and how to avoid them when necessary sharpened my critical thinking and helped me make better decisions (Decisions resulting in higher value for myself) in various life situations.
For instance, being aware of the sunk cost fallacy helps me move on in situations where my “attachment” to something is irrational. The following example is the least important one, but it is the one I like because I think it’s easy to relate to: When I stop enjoying a series on Netflix after a few seasons, it’s now much easier for me to stop “forcing” myself to complete it because I can now explain this irrational feeling and it is easier for me to move on. This, in turn, saves time, which is direct value.
This is just one example of how being aware of cognitive biases or knowing how to resist them can make a difference for someone. The value of better decisions, of course, often goes far beyond a few hours saved.
Having said that, I am not going to say it does not also simply feel good to know how our brains work (even if to such a small degree). In my opinion, even this feeling alone is worth sharing with others.
Do you feel like the ability to resist or use cognitive biases to your advantage is not beneficial for you?
When it comes to rationality and biases, the key question is whether learning more about biases results in people just rationalizing their decisions more effectively or whether they are actually making better decisions.
As far as I understand the academic literature, there’s little documented benefit of teaching people about cognitive biases even so various academics studied teaching people about cognitive biases.
CFAR started out partly with the idea that it might be good to teach people about cognitive biases but in their research they didn’t found a way to teach people about cognitive biases but moved to a different curriculum.
Julia Galef for example (who was one of the CFAR cofounders) later wrote the book on the Scout Mindset suggesting that focusing on being in the Scout Mindset instead of the Warrior Mindset is a better focus on how to actually increase rationality in a way that’s relevant for people’s life.
If we look at the question of “does training recognizing cognitive biases actually translate into better decisions”, the way you approach the subject sounds to me like you decided on the answer before actually reasoning about whether or not it does translate in a critical way.
[Question] How did you first understand cognitive biases? Looking for community experiences
Link post
Hi all,
Lately I’ve been particularly fascinated by cognitive biases—how they operate, how we recognise them, and what approaches can effectively counteract them. Because understanding these biases made such a difference for me personally, I decided to help others discover and learn about them as well. However, I’ve noticed that people’s experiences with cognitive biases vary significantly, and I’m very curious about how others have learned or taught these concepts.
The reason I’m asking is that I’m currently building a free and open platform aimed at helping people learn about cognitive biases and practice debiasing in an interactive way. I’m relatively new to rationality myself, but interactive experiences seemed especially effective for me personally. For example, I implemented interactive study simulations, like Tversky & Kahneman’s famous “wheel of fortune” experiment for anchoring bias, or the Wason’s selection task for confirmation bias.
Additionally, I’ve included simple tests, quizz, flashcards, a matching game, pre-mortem tool and am currently testing an AI-supported debiasing roleplay feature for debiasing.
These approaches worked well for me, but I realise my own experience might not be representative. So I’d highly appreciate your insights:
Do you remember the moment when a bias finally clicked for you? Was there a specific exercise, story, or real-life situation that made it memorable?
If you have taught cognitive biases to others, which methods or means have you found consistently effective?
Have you encountered digital or self-paced activities that noticeably reduced biases, even slightly?
And of course, if you have any other feedback on the platform, it would be highly appreciated.
As a solo creator, I want to avoid building in an echo chamber. Your anecdotes, links, or cautionary tales about approaches that didn’t work would also be extremely valuable.
Thanks in advance for sharing your thoughts!
How do you know that it made the difference for you personally? Is it basically a good feeling or what evidence do you see that it made a big difference for you personally?
Thanks for this question!
I can say, with a high degree of probability, that knowing more about how cognitive biases work and how to avoid them when necessary sharpened my critical thinking and helped me make better decisions (Decisions resulting in higher value for myself) in various life situations.
For instance, being aware of the sunk cost fallacy helps me move on in situations where my “attachment” to something is irrational. The following example is the least important one, but it is the one I like because I think it’s easy to relate to: When I stop enjoying a series on Netflix after a few seasons, it’s now much easier for me to stop “forcing” myself to complete it because I can now explain this irrational feeling and it is easier for me to move on. This, in turn, saves time, which is direct value.
This is just one example of how being aware of cognitive biases or knowing how to resist them can make a difference for someone. The value of better decisions, of course, often goes far beyond a few hours saved.
Having said that, I am not going to say it does not also simply feel good to know how our brains work (even if to such a small degree). In my opinion, even this feeling alone is worth sharing with others.
Do you feel like the ability to resist or use cognitive biases to your advantage is not beneficial for you?
Edit: Grammar
When it comes to rationality and biases, the key question is whether learning more about biases results in people just rationalizing their decisions more effectively or whether they are actually making better decisions.
As far as I understand the academic literature, there’s little documented benefit of teaching people about cognitive biases even so various academics studied teaching people about cognitive biases.
CFAR started out partly with the idea that it might be good to teach people about cognitive biases but in their research they didn’t found a way to teach people about cognitive biases but moved to a different curriculum.
Julia Galef for example (who was one of the CFAR cofounders) later wrote the book on the Scout Mindset suggesting that focusing on being in the Scout Mindset instead of the Warrior Mindset is a better focus on how to actually increase rationality in a way that’s relevant for people’s life.
If we look at the question of “does training recognizing cognitive biases actually translate into better decisions”, the way you approach the subject sounds to me like you decided on the answer before actually reasoning about whether or not it does translate in a critical way.