Thursday 24 September 2015

Should We Avoid Our Biases?

This is just something that I've been thinking about: Should we avoid our biases? I guess this applies as much to investing as it does in real life so I'm going to share some of my thoughts on it. It's sort of an extension from Biases to Look Out For When Investing

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I think that we should avoid our biases. If we try to compensate for our biases, we may end up over or under compensating for them and so it'll affect our judgement. I try not to invest in companies that I'm biased for or against for whatever reason as I think it is difficult to compensate for this bias perfectly, so it may be better if we just pick one that we have a clean slate with.

But then, what if the companies that we have a bias against or for are very good companies, then wouldn't we be losing out on a great investment opportunity. I think that there would be a few good investment opportunities out there in the market so it would be better off if we searched for one that we don't have a bias towards, or we would be taking a large risk that our own analysis has been just us looking through our tinted lenses.

For me, avoiding my bias is one simple way of skipping the problem of compensation. I know, some people think it's better if I face the bias head on and get rid of it entirely, but I think that's very difficult as our biases are usually quite deeply ingrained so getting rid of them can take months or years and finding the underlying cause may be even harder

I'm not so sure though, maybe some of you can share ways that you have managed to overcome or compensate for your bias?

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1 comment :

  1. Hi Some Ideas,

    I accept that we need these strange biases and weird mental processes, because, if not for the heuristics, shortcuts, and deceptions inside our heads, we wouldn't function as well as we do in our daily lives.

    I am convinced that biases are not always bad, though non-awareness of biases is.

    I just want to be sure to understand that I can never trust my brain unconditionally when trying to separate truth from fiction.

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