# Cognitive biases in decision-making

> IB Psychology · IB Psychology 2027 First Assessment
> Source: https://www.owlsprep.com/study/ib-psychology-lc-cognitive-biases-in-decision-making/

The role of one or more cognitive biases in decision-making.

## Learning objectives

- The role of one or more cognitive biases in decision-making.

## Core concept

Cognitive biases are systematic, predictable errors in judgement that shape how people actually decide. Anchoring makes a first number pull a later estimate towards itself, even when that number is irrelevant; confirmation bias makes people seek information that supports what they already believe rather than what could disprove it. In the learning-and-cognition context the payoff is applied: because these biases are regular rather than random, they explain why even experts and careful reasoners make the same mistakes, and where interventions might help.

## Key studies

IB Psychology answers must be supported by named studies. Learn these to cite as evidence:

**Englich, Mussweiler, and Strack (2006)** — Experienced judges' sentencing decisions were shifted by a randomly generated (dice-rolled) number, an anchor they should have disregarded. — *Anchors the ANCHORING subclass in a real, high-stakes decision — showing a bias operating in professional judgement, not just a lab curiosity.*

**Wason (1968)** — In the four-card selection task, people typically looked for confirming evidence rather than the card that could falsify the rule. — *Anchors the CONFIRMATION subclass — biased evidence-seeking as a feature of everyday reasoning.*

## Evaluation (AO3)

**Strength — robust and consequential** — The same biases replicate across trivial estimates and expert, real-world decisions, so they describe how judgement genuinely works rather than an artefact of one task.

**Limitation — labelling ≠ explaining** — Naming a bias is not an account of decision-making; without the underlying dual-processing model (why fast, intuitive thinking produces it), a 'bias' is only a description, and lab anchors are often more blatant than real-life ones.

## Scope

> **note**
>
> The applied ROLE of biases in decision-making is the focus. The individual bias mechanics are COG_1 (anchoring) and COG_5 (confirmation); the explanatory model is COG_6; strategies to REDUCE biases are LC_10.

## Common pitfalls

- **Wrong:** Describing a bias on its own (e.g. 'anchoring is relying on the first number') and treating that as an answer about decision-making.
  - Why it fails: A frequently penalised misconception in IB Psychology exams.
  - Correct: Tie the bias to the decision it distorts and to the fast, intuitive (System-1) processing that produces it — the bias is the evidence, the model is the explanation.

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