Cognitive bias in investigations and how to avoid it

Do you ever kick yourself for not investing your life savings into Bitcoin 10 years ago, when you just had a feeling it would take off?

And have you felt a little smug after a football game or a presidential election because you knew all along what the outcome was going to be. Or maybe you’ve trusted the opinion of someone confident at work and disregarded the opinion of someone quieter but clearly more qualified, only to be left feeling stupid.

Well then, looks like you’ve had a personal encounter with cognitive bias. But don’t worry, you’re not alone. It’s safe to say that everyone on earth has been a victim of cognitive bias – and probably on a daily basis.

What is cognitive bias?

The term cognitive bias refers to a person’s knowledge and way of thinking affecting their perception of information, resulting in them coming to inaccurate conclusions.

There are many different types of cognitive bias that can lead to the illogical interpretation of information, including:

• Stimuli
• Past experiences
• Education
• Cultural expectations
• Organizational norms

These factors can all work to distort our perception of information and, as they are generally applied unconsciously, are almost impossible to eliminate entirely from our thinking. Now, the above examples are relatively harmless, but real problems can arise when cognitive biases creep into more important areas of your life or work.What if that regret for not buying Bitcoin made you remortgage your house to invest in the next big thing, and you ended up losing everything? Or imagine, for example, the potentially disruptive effects of cognitive bias on a criminal investigation, with the wrong person being prosecuted and sent to jail.

In fact, investigations are one of the most important situations where people need to be completely logical, so it’s crucial that investigators do everything they can to eliminate cognitive bias entirely. Well, the good news is that simply being aware of cognitive bias is a very effective way of eliminating it from your thinking. So, in this post, we look at three of the most common forms of bias for investigators, the effects they can have on investigation outcomes, and how to negate these effects.

Common types of cognitive bias

1.

Anchoring

Anchoring describes the tendency for the first piece of information people encounter to influence their perception of further information. For example, an investigator may be inclined to focus excessively on the first lead encountered, even when a stronger lead has emerged. Anchoring can cause investigators to waste time and resources by not following the most logical steps. In some cases, anchoring can even result in missed leads and drawing erroneous conclusions.

2.

Confirmation bias

Everyone has pre-existing beliefs about the world, and it’s very common for people to seek out or put particular emphasis on information that confirms these beliefs. In investigations, this can result in people overlooking important information and failing to make objective decisions. It can be very difficult to identify one’s own susceptibility to confirmation bias, as most people struggle to examine their own beliefs and thinking patterns objectively.

3.

Hindsight bias

As the saying goes, hindsight is 20/20. When we know the outcome of something, it often seems like it was always obviously going to happen, leading us to believe that other events are just as predictable. In reality, things are rarely easy to predict in advance of the outcome, so this belief can result in overconfidence, poor decision-making, and risk-taking. In an investigation, hindsight bias can cause people to oversimplify things, mistakenly believing that the answer must be predictable based on previous investigations – even in completely unrelated situations.

What we rely on to avoid getting misled by bias:

Structured Analytic Techniques (SATs)

• Devil’s Advocacy: Assigning someone (or a team) to argue against the prevailing hypothesis or conclusion to surface weaknesses and alternative interpretations.
• Red Team Analysis: A group acts as an adversary, testing the reasoning, plans, or assumptions of the main team to identify blind spots.
• Team A / Team B Analysis: Two independent teams analyze the same evidence separately and then compare conclusions to expose bias or tunnel vision.
• Key Assumptions Check: Listing and testing critical assumptions to see if they are valid and still hold given new evidence.
• Alternative Analysis / Analysis of Competing Hypotheses (ACH): Systematically evaluating multiple hypotheses against available evidence to identify which one fits best while minimizing confirmation bias.

Decision and Evidence Auditing Tools

• Pre-mortem Analysis: Imagining that your investigation has failed, then working backward to identify what could have caused that failure.
• Blind Review or Independent Peer Review: Having another analyst independently review findings without being exposed to prior conclusions.
• Evidence Mapping: Visualizing which hypotheses are supported or contradicted by which pieces of evidence.

Cognitive Debiasing Frameworks

• Bias Awareness Checklists

And last but not least, the right technology!

• Falkor’s platform is built with analysts in mind, not just to surface insights, but to help you stay grounded in how you got there. You can trace every step of your investigation. See how connections were made. Track your logic from lead to conclusion.