Making Good Decisions – Cognitive Biases and Logical Fallacies

By Tony Koutsoumbos, Fundraising Specialist for the I Am Group

Last night I delivered a talk on the impact of cognitive biases on decision making and the logical fallacies that turn faulty assumptions into false conclusions. Below is a summary of the key points and – more importantly – a list of the most common biases and fallacies.

In a nutshell:

The ability to think quickly is a prized asset in a demanding job, yet it can lead to bad decisions by embedding flawed assumptions in our system of thinking. However, by scrutinising the link between these assumptions and the conclusions they lead us to, we can prevent this from happening.

Fast Thinking v Slow Thinking:

In his 2011 book, Thinking Fast and Slow, Nobel Prize winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman argues that humans have two different systems of thinking: the intuitive system and the logical system. The intuitive system is fast and…