Cognitive Biases

#cmc11

Cognitive biases that are already formed will influence our creative thinking based on a combination of our own personality, social, economical, and the workplace environment factors.  I have found from my own experience that the congruence bias has been my focus while working at a VoIP call center when customers are having a specific problem.  One of the first things that I like to do is try to replicate their VoIP issue through by doing the same thing that they are doing on my test phone.  If I am able to replicate their issue than it means that there is a higher level root cause happening that may be related to a call cluster issue.  If I am not able to replicate then it means that they are either having a local network issue or it is user error.  To avoid this we try to communicate effectively with each other to quickly learn if other agents are experiencing the same issue.  Another biased trap that I tend to run into is the belief bias model.  After doing the same task repeatedly I find that it typically ends with the same result I make assumptions along the way instead of doing thorough troubleshooting (WikiPedia, 2013).  Thankfully it is somewhat rare that simple issues become much more complex issues, when this does happen I have wasted precious time by going through the motions instead of performing additional work to get to the real answer.  To avoid this issue I would have to spend additional time on the typical call and have a lower overall case closure rate instead of just being wrong once in a while.

Another similar cognitive bias that I came to realize that I have after starting taking classes at Empire State College is the time-saving bias.  I have difficulty completing papers and discussions during the week due to work, so throughout the week I do a lot of reading figuring that if I spend time on that it will make the writing portion easier to complete on the weekend.  The problem that I then run into is that I barely have enough time on the weekends to complete what needs to be done.  To avoid this I should still read during the week but start a draft of my paper or discussion, then post it when it I it is finished on the weekend.  Anchoring, or focalism, is one of my tendencies that is getting stronger with the more experience in the call center field and has turned into a bias.  Information technology and information systems is a rapidly changing field and I have found that sometimes I am not able to keep up with it and stick with what I know (Science Daily, 2013).  Instead of exploring new technologies such as tablets and smart phones I keep using my Windows 7 desktop.  This bias is difficult to overcome as experiencing new technology usually costs money and my time is very constrained right now.  I hope that once I have more of these two resources I can stay current with the IT/IS trends at least to be familiar with them.

The cognitive bias that can repeatedly cause issues outside of work is the availability heuristic model.  With 3 other people in my immediate family with their own minds and decision-making ability that occasionally react differently than I expect.  Making assumptions about the way that people will act or react to given scenarios can occur differently than one expects, however is difficult for me to stop this bias even through I realize it is incorrect (WikiPedia, 2013).  To avoid this I should start treating each day as a surprise and simply do my best to prepare for multiple possibilities (e.g.: car problems, sick children, work problems, etc).  I have found that having biases makes up part of an individual's personality which leads to their creative output, however if it were possible to have no biases at all it would have a different effect on their creativity overall.



References:
WikiPedia (2013).  List of cognitive biases.  Referenced from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases
ScienceDaily (2013).  Science Reference: Cognitive Bias.  Referenced from http://www.sciencedaily.com/articles/c/cognitive_bias.htm