According to Wikipedia, Bias is a disproportionate weight in favor of or against an idea or thing, usually in a way that is inaccurate, closed-minded, prejudicial, or unfair. Biases can be innate or learned.

Some biases are conscious. Take the ‘dog vs. cats’ test. You know your answer and you can explain your answer easily. But others are subconscious, like why we like one color over another. We may not know why. Why did we choose that over the other? 

Here are 6 cognitive biases that unconsciously affect how we make decisions:

1. Anchoring Bias
   We tend to ‘anchor’ our decisions based around the 1st piece of information we receive. For example, if you’re used to paying $10 for shampoo and see it on sale for $8, this reduced price will feel like a deal. However, your friend's local store sells the same shampoo for $12, so she will view the $10 bottle as the deal.

2. Framing Effect Bias
   How choices are presented to us also affects how we view them. 

3. In-group Bias
   Also known as the Bandwagon Effect. “Hop on the Bandwagon, everyone’s doing it!” The only problem is you don’t know you’re following the group.

4. Loss Aversion Bias
   This bias draws on humanity’s innate aversion to risk. Let’s say you have 2 music choices; You could listen to an album you’ve heard before and enjoyed or one you’ve never listened to. The ambiguity effect is what would make many of us choose the first, more familiar option.

5. Ambiguity Bias
   The ambiguity effect is a cognitive tendency where decision making is affected by a lack of information, or "ambiguity". The effect implies that people tend to select options for which the probability of a favorable outcome is known, over an option for which the probability of a favorable outcome is unknown.

6. Implicit Bias
   In 2001, Frederic Brochet conducted a study with 54 participating oenology undergraduates. He asked the students to rate 2 bottles of red wine, telling them only that one was expensive and one was cheap. In reality, Brochet had filled both bottles with the same cheap wine. The students described what they believed to be the expensive wine as ‘complex and rounded’, but the cheap wine as ‘weak and flat’.

We’re taught to prefer higher-quality products, and associate quality with indicators like price and modernity. The trouble with these associates is they can overrule the quality of the products we’re choosing between.

So how do we separate bias from choice? 

By actively examining our decisions, being open to feedback, and challenging our biases, we can aim to make decisions that show our real likes and beliefs, instead of being influenced by subconscious biases.

Everyone holds biases, so don't be too hard on yourself through this process.