Cognitive biases are present in our daily lives. Last Thursday my boyfriend came to Shippensburg to visit me. We decided that we would go out to eat with two other couples. When we were deciding where we wanted to go, he said that he didn't want to go to a hibachi restaurant because we ate there last time. We then considered italian and seafood restaurants, but we would have to travel further and possibly make reservations. We considered going to Italian Village becuase its BYOB and located between Shippensburg and Chambersburg. We decided against this because we dind't know how well they could handle a group of 6. Eventually, we decided that the Shippensburg hibachi restaurant would be best afterall. When I texted our friends to tell them the place and time, I suffered from primacy effect remembering that we weren't doing hibachi because we did that last time, and I told them 6:30 at Italian Village. When I read the sent text to my boyfriend he caught the mistake and I quickly had to call everyone and correct my mistake. My memory was clouded by the information presented earlier (that we weren't going for hibachi because we did that last time).
On our way to the hibachi restaurant, a car from the other lane swirved and almost hit our car. My boyfriend said, "Of course, it's a woman driver." This incident confirmed his bias thinking that women are bad drivers. To him, this is an emotionally charged issue because he has been in numerous car accidents with women where they are at fault, and this incident confirmed his prior beliefs.
As we got out of the car and walked toward the door of the restaurant I said, "Last time we were here, I saw a lot of people that I know from work. I bet I'll see people from work again." When I said this, I suffered from the availability heuristic, presumed assumptions. I have overestimated the probability that these two events will co-occur again.
