Decision-making is defined as the cognitive process which involves making choices among several alternate possibilities, identifying them and choosing what is best based on the preference of the decision-maker.

When we choose actions, we come up with several opinions through several cognitive processes and these cognitive processes are influenced by several factors such as biases, reason, emotions and memories. A study also claims that sleep deprivation affects critical aspects of decision-making in high-stakes, real-world situations. Aging does have the similar effect as well – a study shows it is associated with significant decline in cognitive functions.

Of several factors that affect our decision-making, now we are going to go specifically into the most common biases that hamper our decision-making. Below is the infographic that shows 20 cognitive biases namely: Anchoring Bias, Availability Heuristic, Bandwagon Effect, Blind-Spot Bias, Choice-Supportive Bias, Clustering Illusion, Confirmation Bias, Conservatism Bias, Information Bias, Ostrich Effect, Outcome Bias, Overconfidence, Placebo effect, Pro-Innovation Bias, Recency, Salience, Selective Perception, Stereotyping, Survivorship Bias, Zero-risk Bias; and how they affect our decision-making.

[Infographic via Business Insider; Featured Image: shutterstock]