Abstract
The mining industry is strewn with failed projects, plus many more that are chronically underperforming. Cognitive science shows us how our brains stumble into irrational choices. Cognitive biases that are detrimental to mining are varied and numerous. The talk will focus on a subset of biasses that includes 1. Anchoring Effect: an individual's decisions are influenced by a particular reference point regardless of whether it is valid. 2. Authority Bias: the tendency to attribute greater weight to the opinion of an authority figure. 3. Framing Effect: presenting the same outcome as a loss has a greater psychological effect than presenting it as a gain. 4. Ikea Effect: the tendency to assign a higher value to things if we've expended effort to create them. The mining industry's investment attractiveness will continue to languish until it deals with the human factors that deform our assumptions and decision calculus.