• Defining and clarifying what biases are
• Understanding when and how do we use bias

Duration : 1h25

Step 1 : Understanding what biases mean (10’)

We recommended starting the session with this exercise

After using this first exercise, give a short definition of what bias are “a form of thinking that deviates from logical or rational thinking and tends to be systematically used in certain situations. Cognitive biases are quick, intuitive ways of making judgments or decisions that are less laborious than analytical reasoning that takes into account all relevant information. These quick-thinking processes are often useful but are also the basis for typical misjudgments.” Researchers have identified many different biases that we often use, see the codex here.

Step 2 : Biais contest (1h15)

In order to help the participants remember and recognize biases you can organize a bias contest. Before starting print a list of biases and cut it so you will have small papers with one bias each. Create groups of 2 or 3 persons and ask them to pick up one of the papers. Each group will have 10 minutes to create a scene that they will perform in front of the whole group for them to guess which bias is being played. When all the groups are ready to perform, provide all the groups with the list of biases (it is important that the list has more biases than the ones being performed, this will make the game more interesting). Ask the groups to perform one after the other, giving time between each performance for the other groups to guess which bias was. When all the groups have presented the scenes reveal the good answers.

Download here the list of biases we used

• One bias per person
• A big space