Watch Understanding Cognitive Biases

2023
1 Season

In Understanding Cognitive Biases, Dr. Alexander B. Swan uses examples from psychology experiments, history, politics, movies, TV, comics, social media, and more to illustrate dozens of cognitive biases that affect us all and shows you how to combat them for a clearer, more accurate view of the world.

Understanding Cognitive Biases is a series that ran for 1 seasons (24 episodes) between November 1, 2023 and on The Great Courses

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Seasons

24. Status Quo: The More Things Change

November 1, 2023

Explore the status quo bias

23. Reactance: You Can

November 1, 2023

Delve into the reactance bias, our tendency to act in ways that are opposite to established rules, particularly, if we think those rules will reduce our freedom. This is a bias that operates mostly in the dark recesses of our subconscious and can be difficult to recognize until someone else specifically calls out the behavior.

22. Only Survivors Tell the Story

November 1, 2023

Discover the many ways in which survivorship bias affects our daily life. This tendency to focus only on people or objects that have moved past some defined selection process keeps us from understanding a more complex, fuller story. From important personal decisions to business, politics, and military history, the impacts of this cognitive bias can be seen all around us.

21. Why Emotional Gaps Cause Trouble

November 1, 2023

The empathy gap bias is the tendency to disconnect or reduce empathy in situations where it would be expected or typically felt. Explore the cognitive steps required for empathy to occur, and what can happen when those processes don

20. We Lie to Be Socially Desirable

November 1, 2023

Trace the evolutionary history of social desirability bias and how it can affect our lives and relationships in numerous ways. Our brain created this heuristic in response to our deep biological need to associate with other members of our species and to bond in various ways. But does it always work to our advantage, and how can we push past it when we want to?

19. Why Emotional Peaks and Endings Matter

November 1, 2023

The peak-end rule is the cognitive bias that causes us to judge an experience based on how we felt at its most intense moments and at its end. Discover how this heuristic biases us against remembering the more nuanced aspects of any experience, and the effects this can have on our lives.

18. I Believe, Therefore I Think: Belief Bias

November 1, 2023

Explore the sources and impacts of belief bias, the tendency to judge arguments on the believability of their conclusions rather than the whole argument. While we all tend to rely on this heuristic to some extent, by learning the technical requirements of a logical argument, we can better assess the validity of what we

17. Is That Memory Mine or Someone Else

November 1, 2023

Discover the cognitive bias called cryptomnesia, the tendency for a person to falsely identify an idea as one they developed themselves, as opposed to one they heard about from someone else, i.e., a memory. In this heuristic, our brain stores the idea but not the idea

16. Biases from Knowing Too Much or Too Little

November 1, 2023

Explore the Dunning-Kruger effect and the

15. Stereotypes: See the Person, Not the Group

November 1, 2023

Could stereotypes be a form of cognitive bias? Absolutely, as we

14. How Con Artists Exploit Our Biases

November 1, 2023

Discover how the Forer effect, also known as the Barnum effect, plays into our self-validation

13. Even Random Outcomes Lead to Bias

November 1, 2023

Given the human desire for control, it can be very disconcerting for us to accept that life is filled with random events. Discover how the gambler

12. I Knew It All Along: Hindsight Bias

November 1, 2023

The hindsight bias leads us to believe we knew more than we actually did at the time of a specific event, especially one involving danger or tragedy. Learn how new information replaces old information in our memory, making it much more efficient but less accurate, and making us more susceptible to the hindsight bias.

11. How Fast Thinking Leads to a Great Fall

November 1, 2023

Evolutionary theory suggests the availability bias and the representativeness heuristic developed when we needed them in order to stay alive. But what about our very different modern lives today? Learn how these heuristics can cause us to assess danger incorrectly and make poor decisions as a result.

10. How Memory Is Biased toward Misinformation

November 1, 2023

The misinformation effect reflects our tendency to trust our memories implicitly as truth. Actually, they are influenced by our emotions, expectations, culture, and what others have to say about them. Learn how this cognitive bias has negatively affected our criminal justice processes, and what

9. We Think Others

November 1, 2023

Was it really your fault that your car scraped the light pole in the parking lot? Discover what

8. Bias Boot Camp for Better Decisions

November 1, 2023

Discover the cognitive bias that can help you negotiate more successfully for that next car purchase. Your brain uses the anchoring heuristic

7. Expectations Change Results: Observer Bias

November 1, 2023

See how observer bias can significantly affect the results of activities from scientific experiments to classroom teaching to the entertainment of

6. Learn Better with Cognitive Biases

November 1, 2023

Discover how to use three particular cognitive biases to your own advantage. The testing effect, the generation effect, and spacing effect

5. Why We Think Differently in Groups

November 1, 2023

Explore the new set of biases that can develop when individuals must make decisions in a group. Groupthink and group polarization can lead to dire consequences when there is little or no discussion of alternate choices

4. We Love It Because We Built It

November 1, 2023

Consider our tendency to place a high value on things we

3. We See People In and Behind Everything

November 1, 2023

Learn about biases you have experienced since infancy: pareidolia and anthropomorphism, which are our brain

2. Things We Want to Be True: Confirmation Bias

November 1, 2023

Explore one of the most well-known and pervasive cognitive biases. We see the effects of confirmation bias in our media, politics, and much more

1. Why We

November 1, 2023

Discover why it

Description

Where to Watch Understanding Cognitive Biases

Understanding Cognitive Biases is available for streaming on the The Great Courses website, both individual episodes and full seasons. You can also watch Understanding Cognitive Biases on demand at Amazon Prime and Amazon.