Understanding Cognitive Biases: What My Psych Classes Taught Me About Everyday Decisions

One of the most humbling experiences of studying psychology is realizing just how irrational human thinking can be. And yes, that includes my own thinking.

The Illusion of Rationality

Before I started my B.Arts in Psychology, I genuinely believed I was a pretty logical person. I made lists, weighed pros and cons, and thought through decisions carefully. Then I took my first cognitive psychology course.

Turns out, our brains are running on all sorts of shortcuts and biases that we're completely unaware of. It's not that we're stupid—these heuristics actually help us navigate a complex world efficiently. But they can also lead us astray in predictable ways.

Confirmation Bias: My Personal Nemesis

The bias that hits closest to home for me is confirmation bias—our tendency to seek out information that confirms what we already believe. I catch myself doing this all the time now:

• Only reading articles that support my existing views
• Remembering the times my hunches were right and forgetting when they were wrong
• Interpreting ambiguous information in ways that fit my expectations

Awareness is the first step, but honestly? It's still really hard to overcome.

Availability Heuristic in Action

Another one that shows up constantly is the availability heuristic. We judge how likely something is based on how easily we can think of examples. This is why people often overestimate dramatic risks (plane crashes) and underestimate mundane ones (car accidents).

I noticed this in my own life when I realized I was way more worried about rare but memorable dangers than about the everyday risks that are statistically more likely to affect me.

What Studying Psychology Has Given Me

I won't pretend that knowing about cognitive biases has made me immune to them. But it has given me a kind of humility about my own thinking. I question my first instincts more. I try to actively seek out opposing viewpoints. And I've become a lot more forgiving of other people's "irrational" decisions, because I know I make them too.

Psychology isn't just about understanding others—it's about understanding ourselves. And that's been the most valuable part of my studies so far.