Which two cognitive biases are commonly observed, and what are recommended mitigation strategies?

• A. Confirmation bias and anchoring; mitigate by using checklists, seeking diverse opinions, and structured decision processes.
• B. Availability bias and sunk cost; mitigate by gut feel.
• C. Hindsight bias and overconfidence; mitigate by ignoring data.
• D. Optimism bias and planning fallacy; mitigate by delaying decisions.

Answer: (A)

Two common decision-making pitfalls are confirmation bias and anchoring. Confirmation bias is when you give more weight to information that supports what you already think, while ignoring or discounting evidence that contradicts it. Anchoring happens when the first piece of information you encounter sets a reference point that unduly influences all later judgments.

Mitigation focuses on making thinking more explicit and broadening the information base. Using checklists helps ensure you systematically consider all relevant factors rather than cherry-picking data. Seeking diverse opinions provides alternative viewpoints that challenge your assumptions and reduce the risk of echo chambers. A structured decision process—such as explicit evaluation criteria, decision matrices, or pre-mortems—forces you to compare options against objective standards and recalibrate as new evidence emerges.

The other options pair biases with mitigations that are not typically effective or appropriate in general practice: relying on gut feel as a remedy doesn’t counter bias and can worsen it; ignoring data undermines objective evaluation; delaying decisions is not a reliable or timely mitigation in most scenarios.