Breaking Down Biases - 3

Have you ever had your judgement interfered by something you just can’t explain? If you’ve ever had a mental block when making decisions or taking a stance on an opinion, you’ve most likely encountered the world of cognitive biases. Cognitive biases are errors in your judgement or way of thinking, they’re like shortcuts that arise from social influences, emotions, limited information, among many other things. Within “Breaking Down Biases” we will explore different cognitive biases and how they play into everyday lives. 

Have you ever realized how your emotions play a strong role in your decision making? If you’ve experienced strong emotions in a given setting and later realized your decision making was irrational or out of the ordinary for you, you may have encountered the empathy gap. The empathy gap refers to the likelihood to underestimate the influence that mental state plays in decision making, this can occur in many forms but is usually emotion driven.

The empathy gap is also commonly referred to as the “hot-cold” empathy gap, which is a reference to two different visceral states. “Hot” visceral states are driven by things such as hunger, sexual desires, fear, exhaustion, among other strong emotional states. “Cold” states are usually driven by rational and logical approaches with a lack of emotional influences. When encountering a “hot” or “cold” state we tend not to acknowledge the temporary state we’re in and are often unable to shift perspectives. It’s common to overestimate your rationale once feeling intense emotions, or assume that these feelings are going to be permanent. There are three commonly recognized empathy gaps, the intrapersonal perspective empathy gap, where one would struggle to predict their own future behavior whilst in a different emotional state, the intrapersonal retrospective empathy gap, where one may find it difficult to recall past actions or behavior due to their current emotional and or physical state, and there’s the interpersonal empathy gap, where one may not be able to resonate with another or understand someone's emotions or behavior when it’s differing from their own.

The effects of this bias are predominantly individual, and heavily overlap with those of the projection bias. The projection bias refers to the inclination to overestimate how much one's future self will share the same interests as their current self. Both of the biases cause narrow thinking that’s driven by short term scenarios and can make it difficult to think through decision making. With this being said, it can have many effects on one on one relationships where someone may irritate you slightly so you may feel inclined to retaliate quickly without thinking through the effect your rebuttal may have. On the other hand, when you aren’t being emotionally influenced, you may overestimate your degree or control and or rationale. Evidently, the most obvious effects of the empathy gap tend to do with decision making.

Why does this bias occur? Various economists have referred to our current emotional state as an anchor, where human cognition is too state dependent and reliant on current mental states. The reason this bias is so common has to do with the fact that people are constantly referencing the future, which may cause emotional spikes and spiral into a “hot” state. This bias occurs on both a cognitive and on an affective level, where a cognitive level would be solely based on ability and an affective level would be based circumstantially. Neurodivergent individuals or those who struggle with inherent empathy would fall into the “cognitive level" due to that being a state of their nature whereas someone falling into the “affective level” category may avoid certain interactions and emotions to save themselves from any possible conflict. Affective empathy tends to be personal as it can be viscerally experienced whereas cognitive empathy is more so the ability to resonate rather than relate. 

This bias, among many others, is very difficult to avoid as it’s come to be a part of human nature. Given that the most common individual effect has to do with decision making, it's best to take multiple steps to concluding something rather than letting a temporary state sway you. Considering your future mental state is vital to realizing that no feeling is permanent and your future will not be determined by a “hot” or “cold” state.

Empathy Gap - the Decision lab. (n.d.). The Decision Lab. https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/empathy-gap