The path from academic to mainstream – Cognitive bias

Originally published on ManageWithoutThem, 2016-03-29.

Interesting to see the progression of ideas from academia through to government.  

Take for example “cognitive biases”: 

• 1972 – Academic work – “The notion of cognitive biases was introduced by Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman in 1972” from here.

• 2011 – Popular work (~40 years later) – ““Thinking, Fast and Slow” spans all three of these phases. It is an astonishingly rich book: lucid, profound, full of intellectual surprises and self-help value.” – from here.

• 2015 – Mainstream in business (?) (4 years later) – “research suggests that there are a number of cognitive stumbling blocks that affect your behaviour, and they can prevent you from acting in your own best interests” – from here.

• 2016 – Government (impressively, only 1 year later) – “As human beings, we think we make rational decisions every day, but in fact, we’re all seeing the world under a set of behavioral illusions that can really muck up our decision making. These are called cognitive biases” – from here.

Well done to the DTO folks for making that last leap impressively fast.