Present Bias Analysis

Concept: Present Bias

The present bias refers to the tendency of people to give stronger weight to payoffs that are closer to the present time when considering trade-offs between two future moments (O'Donoghue, &, Rabin, 1999). (See also time discounting.) O'Donoghue, T., & Rabin, M. (1999).
Procrastination: the act or habit of procrastinating, or putting off or delaying, especially something requiring immediate attention (Dictionary.com, 2017).
According to the Author McRaney he suggests that our memory is fictional and we manifest ideas in our minds to coupe with our lives. In the book You are Not so Smart he goes through 46 short chapters of creative insight of how our human brain functions by giving us the misconception and what he calls

truth.
McRaney guides the reader through easy concepts of examples in his chapters. He generally starts by providing us with everyday examples followed by asking the reader to assess their answer. We usually agree with the right answer or what we believe to be truth. McRaney follows by giving us the actual and truth and how our brain has strategically assessed the situation or thoughts to help us come to consensus within ourselves.
The chapters relive to the reader why we believe what we do. He also suggest that in reality each person does not actually know why they act the way they do. He goes on further to presume that each of us does not even know why we think what we think or why thoughts fabricate our own stories.
McRaney relates that our world is understood to us through Cognitive biases, Heuristics and Logical Fallacies.
• “Cognitive biases are predictable patterns of thought and behavior that lead you to draw incorrect conclusions” (McRaney, 2011).
• “Heuristics are mental shortcuts you use to solve common problems. They speed up processing in the brain, but sometimes make you think so fast you miss what is important” (McRaney, 2011).
• “Logical fallacies are like math’s problems involving language, in which you skip a step or get turned around without realizing it … They are arguments in your mind where you reach a conclusion without all the facts because you don’t care to hear them or have no idea how limited your information is” (McRaney, 2011).