How Does Cognitive Bias Affect Interviewing
By: Robert Merrill
Tags: Recruiting, Hiring, Interviewing

How Does Cognitive Bias Affect Interviewing

Cognitive Bias — A Mental Illusion

In 1889, German sociologist Franz Carl Müller-Lyer developed an interesting visual optical illusion now famous for its wide application in proving that what the mind sees is different than reality.

The Müller-Lyer Illusion proves that our minds can trick us into thinking these horizontal lines are different lengths no matter how much we know the truth that they are, in fact, equal lengths.

The optical illusion is to look at both lines and determine visually which horizontal line is the longest.

The answer is that the horizontal lines are both the same length. The viewer is initially disbelieving because it is obvious to the mind that they are different lengths, the arrow-like fins disturbing our vision and causing us to think the horizontal lines are different lengths.

When I have shown this illusion to people and asked them which line is the longest, the answer I receive is, “They are the same!”. When I ask how they know this, they reply with something like, “I just know. I have seen this before.” When I ask them if the lines look different lengths even though they know they are the same, people reply with something like “Yes. I have forced myself to see them the same.”

In everything we do, our minds are subject to subtle, seemingly imperceptible differences between reality and our perception of it. This is called Cognitive Bias and it could be described as a mental illusion. In some aspects of life, biases are good. They are shortcuts to decision-making in a complex world. However, in recruiting and hiring, cognitive bias is bad stuff indeed.

Types of Cognitive Bias

I am not an expert in the realm of cognitive bias. However, there is ample evidence to suggest there are many, many kinds of bias. Each of these are subtle and, when exposed, we shake our heads nodding that they do exist, although, by definition, when we are operating under a bias, we are almost always unaware of it (although sometimes, we are aware of the bias, but it is the mentally easy-way out, so we roll with it).

Wikipedia lists many cognitive biases and breaks them down into a few categories such as:

Decision-making, belief, and behavioral biases

Social biases

Memory errors and biases.

And you can classify these mainly as Biases (a belief that you hold true with/without facts), Heuristics (a shortcut to thinking based on assuming you have all the information) or effects/illusions (distortions to reality based on environment, etc).

The following humorous infographic from Business Insider lists many of the decision-making biases that cloud our minds when making hiring decisions.

The summary of all these biases is the realization that all of us are affected by a multiplicity of internal and external factors inhibit our natural abilities to make decisions based purely on reality rather than on mental shortcuts, heuristics or even outright prejudice.

The challenge as interviewers and hiring managers is for us to find ways, like the way we’ve controlled for the Müller-Lyer illusion, to control for Cognitive Biases by: