We never see Trump or Brexit coming because we drown in data and biases – Implicit Bias

Good piece by Mike Ross, Davide Pisanu and Blanche Ajarrista on the risks of bias and automatic thinking and the need to be more mindful:

Three ways to diminish the risk of overreliance on analytics or biased forecasting are the use of premortems, devil’s advocates and self-reflection. Tools that we all (including the market research organizations and newsrooms of the world) can implement more systematically to avoid shocks such as the Brexit result.

• Premortems start with imagining that you are wrong, dead wrong, and that the worst has occurred. You then ask, what could be the cause of this predictive failure? Through this type of questioning, we can identify the limitations of the available data and dig deeper to improve the quality of the quality of the information used.
• A devil’s advocate is appointed to ensure that contrarian positions have a voice at the table when groups are making decisions, but they are also useful on an individual basis. This person’s role is to argue against the group’s intention – essentially stating why everyone else is wrong. By clearly nominating someone to take this on (or by forcing yourself to question your own assumptions in this way), we free the advocate from the constraint of not wanting to go against the position of the group and in doing so allow them to highlight our collective blind spots.
• Self reflection (by an individual or a group) is more of a habitual practice – ensuring that you think deeply on how your background, beliefs and socioeconomic context heavily bias your views. From the people you regularly interact with to the Facebook algorithm that pushes content to your stream, your view of the world is curated by your context. Forcing yourself to acknowledge this and actively seek out opinions counter to your own will diminish the influence your personal situation has on your decision-making, broaden your context and expand the range of data you’ll use to inform your decisions.

It’s not that data and analytics are inherently bad or that our biases are not useful in decision-making, but rather that these can be flawed.

By recognizing and using a set of tools to overcome these flaws, we can be much more effective decision-makers and avoid (and perhaps profit from) the shocking and the unexpected.

Source: We never see Trump or Brexit coming because we drown in data and biases – The Globe and Mail