Ambiguity bias, also known as the ambiguity effect, is a cognitive bias where individuals tend to favor options with known probabilities over those where the probabilities are unknown or ambiguous. This bias stems from a human inclination toward certainty and aversion to unknown risks. When faced with choices, people often prefer what they can understand and predict, even if the predictable choice offers a lesser benefit than an ambiguous one.
Anchoring cognitive bias refers to the human tendency to rely heavily on the first piece of information encountered (the 'anchor') when making decisions. This bias impacts judgment and decision-making processes by disproportionately influencing subsequent thoughts and choices based on the initial anchor point.
The anecdotal fallacy is a cognitive bias where a person relies on personal stories or isolated examples instead of sound arguments or statistical evidence. This fallacy occurs when anecdotal evidence is used in an attempt to prove a point, even when it's not representative of a typical experience. It often disregards broader statistical realities, leading to erroneous conclusions based on sparse data.
Anthropomorphism refers to the cognitive bias where humans attribute human-like characteristics, emotions, and intentions to non-human entities, whether they are animals, objects, or abstract concepts. This bias stems from our inherent need to understand and relate to entities around us, often using human traits as a means to interpret vague or minimal information.
Attentional bias is a cognitive bias that describes the tendency for people's perception to be affected by their recurring thoughts at the time. It occurs when individuals give disproportionate attention to certain stimuli while ignoring others, often leading to distorted or incomplete perspectives.
Authority bias is a cognitive bias that leads individuals to attribute greater accuracy and truthfulness to the opinion of an authority figure and to be more influenced by their perspective. This bias stems from a natural human tendency to trust and follow the guidance of those who are perceived as experts or leaders.
Automation bias is a specific cognitive bias where humans disproportionately favor information or suggestions output by automated systems, sometimes to the detriment of other important data or their own judgment. This bias can lead individuals to overlook errors or incorrect recommendations made by machines. It is particularly prevalent in situations where automated systems are designed to aid decision-making processes.
The availability heuristic is a cognitive bias that occurs when individuals rely on immediate examples that come to mind while evaluating a situation, idea, or decision. This bias arises from our tendency to give undue weight to information that is readily retrievable from memory, often due to recent exposure or repeated emphasis, rather than considering broader data sets or statistical realities.
The bandwagon effect is a psychological phenomenon where individuals adopt certain behaviors, styles, or attitudes simply because others are doing so. This type of cognitive bias under the 'Lack of Meaning' category occurs when people follow the actions or beliefs of others based on the assumption that if numerous people are doing something, it must be correct or beneficial. It is often seen in social, political, and economic contexts.
Belief bias is a type of cognitive bias that occurs when an individual's evaluation of the logical validity of an argument is influenced by the believability of the conclusion. People tend to accept conclusions that align with their existing beliefs and reject those that do not, regardless of the soundness of the supporting premises.
Choice-supportive bias is a cognitive bias that leads individuals to remember their choices as better than they actually were, often highlighting the positives of the options they've chosen and downplaying the negatives. This bias can influence decision-making and memory by warping the perception of past choices.
The clustering illusion is a cognitive bias where people perceive patterns in random or sparse data. This is categorized under 'Lack of meaning' and specifically within 'Stories in sparse data'. The human brain has a tendency to see clusters where none exist due to its pattern-recognition capabilities, often leading to misinterpretations of randomness.
Confabulation is a cognitive bias characterized by the creation and presentation of false or distorted memories without any intent to deceive. This phenomenon is particularly noteworthy because the person producing the confabulated accounts believes them to be genuine. Often, this bias emerges when an individual attempts to fill in gaps in their memory with details that make a coherent and plausible story, even if those details do not reflect reality.
Confirmation bias is a type of cognitive bias that involves favoring information that confirms previously existing beliefs or biases. This phenomenon occurs when people prefer information or interpret evidence in a way that is consistent with their own preconceptions, often ignoring or undervaluing contradictory data.
The conjunction fallacy is a cognitive bias where individuals assume specific conditions are more probable than a single general one. This often occurs when people mistake the conjunction of two events as more likely than one of the events alone, violating the basic rule of probability.
Conservatism cognitive bias refers to the tendency of individuals to insufficiently revise their beliefs when presented with new evidence. This bias falls under the broader category of information overload, as people tend to give disproportionate weight to their prior knowledge or beliefs and do not adequately adjust them with fresh information. The phenomenon is closely associated with the psychological difficulty of abandoning previously held concepts and the innate preference for consistency.
The continued influence effect is a cognitive bias where people continue to maintain beliefs based on misinformation, even after it has been debunked. Despite corrections and factual information being presented, the initial misinformation persists in influencing beliefs and decisions.
The cross-race effect, also known as own-race bias, refers to the tendency for people to more easily recognize faces of their own race compared to faces of other races. This cognitive bias is prevalent in facial recognition tasks and has significant implications in various fields, such as criminal justice, psychological research, and social interactions.
The Delmore effect is a cognitive bias where people prefer simple, complete solutions over complex ones.
The Dunning-Kruger effect is a cognitive bias wherein individuals with low ability, expertise, or experience in a particular domain overestimate their ability or knowledge. Conversely, experts often underestimate their competence. This bias was first identified by social psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger, based on their research published in 1999.
Egocentric bias is a cognitive bias that leads individuals to rely heavily on their own perspective and experience when interpreting events and interactions with others. This bias can result in an overestimation of one’s contributions, influence, or knowledge in various situations.
Empathy gap is a cognitive bias where individuals tend to underestimate the influence of emotional states on their own and others' decision-making and behavior. This bias highlights the difficulty humans face in predicting behaviors and preferences in different states of mind, most notably between emotional and rational states.
Escalation of commitment refers to a cognitive bias where individuals or organizations continue to invest in a decision despite clear evidence that it may be failing or no longer viable. This phenomenon occurs when those involved irrationally persist in a course of action due to prior investments of time, money, or resources.
The false consensus effect is a cognitive bias where people overestimate the degree to which their beliefs, attitudes, and opinions are shared by others. This bias leads to an inflated sense of one's own norms and opinions, often overgeneralizing them as common or typical among a larger group or population.
The frequency illusion, also known as the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, is a cognitive bias where after noticing something for the first time, there is a tendency to notice it more frequently, leading to a false belief that its frequency has increased. This bias is a component of information overload, specifically in the realm of repetition and memory recognition.
The fundamental attribution error is a cognitive bias that refers to the tendency of individuals to overemphasize personal characteristics and ignore situational factors in judging others' behavior. This bias often leads people to attribute others' actions to their inherent personalities while overlooking the influence of external circumstances.
Hindsight bias, also known as the 'knew-it-all-along' phenomenon, is a cognitive bias in which people perceive past events as having been more predictable than they actually were. After an event has occurred, individuals often believe they could have predicted or even foreseen the outcome, leading to an illusion of inevitability. This bias can affect memory and perception, resulting in a distorted understanding of the past.
The illusion of control is a cognitive bias wherein individuals overestimate their influence over external events. This bias leads them to believe that they have the power to control outcomes that are largely determined by external factors or chance.
The illusion of validity is a cognitive bias that occurs when people overestimate their ability to interpret and predict outcomes in situations based on limited information. It is part of the broader category of cognitive biases related to our need for meaning, specifically within storytelling scenarios wherein sparse data is available. This bias leads individuals to have unwarranted confidence in their predictions or judgments, often overlooking the foundational issues of insufficient data or the complexity of the situations.
Illusory correlation is a cognitive bias that describes the tendency to perceive a relationship between two variables even when no such relationship exists. This bias is particularly likely to occur with low-frequency variables or when the data is sparse. It often leads individuals to form and maintain specific beliefs or stereotypes based on misleading or insufficient information.
Illusory superiority, often referred to as the above-average effect, is a cognitive bias whereby individuals overestimate their own qualities and abilities relative to others. This phenomena leads people to believe they are better than average in various domains, including intelligence, performance, and other competencies.
The illusory truth effect is a cognitive bias that describes how repeated exposure to information can lead to its perception as more truthful or accurate, regardless of its veracity. This phenomenon occurs because repetition makes statements easier to process, and this ease is often misattributed to truthfulness.
The implicit associations cognitive bias refers to the automatic associations some individuals hold about groups of people, ingrained at an unconscious level. These associations can influence attitudes, judgments, and behaviors, often without the individual being aware of them. This bias falls under the broader category of implicit stereotypes, which are the unconscious beliefs and attitudes toward particular groups based on race, gender, age, or other factors.
Information bias is a cognitive bias that compels individuals to seek more information in situations where it may be irrelevant or redundant. This bias stems from the need for speed in decision-making, preferring simple and complete narratives over complex and ambiguous ones. Despite the illusion of informed action it provides, it often leads to inefficiencies and poor decision-making.
Insensitivity to sample size is a cognitive bias where individuals, when evaluating statistical evidence, tend to disregard the size of the sample from which the evidence originates. This bias leads to overgeneralization from small samples and underestimation of variability based on sample size.
The less-is-better effect is a cognitive bias where individuals may prefer fewer or simpler options over more abundant or complex ones, even if the latter offer a greater value or reward. This preference arises because the simpler option is perceived as more desirable when evaluated in isolation rather than in comparison to a set.
Leveling and sharpening cognitive biases refer to the processes by which individuals simplify complex information and emphasize certain elements over others. These biases illustrate how people tend to minimize or exaggerate details when recalling events or experiences, often leading to misrepresentation or distortion of the original information.
Loss aversion is a cognitive bias that refers to the tendency for individuals to prefer avoiding losses rather than acquiring equivalent gains. This phenomenon implies that the pain of losing is psychologically about twice as powerful as the pleasure of gaining. As such, people are typically more motivated to try to avoid losses than to try to achieve gains.
The Masked man fallacy, also known as the intensional fallacy or epistemic fallacy, is a form of logical fallacy that arises when one substitutes co-referential names in a statement within an intensional (context-sensitive) context. The substitution leads to faulty reasoning. This fallacy stems from the misunderstanding or misapplication of the identity of items or individuals due to a lack of detailed information or understanding about them.
Murphy's Law is a popular adage that states, 'Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.' Although initially considered just a humorous observation about life, it reveals cognitive biases in how humans perceive and interpret unlikely and unfavorable events.
Naïve realism is a cognitive bias where individuals believe that they perceive the world objectively and that others who perceive it differently are uninformed, irrational, or biased. This bias leads to the assumption that one’s own interpretation of reality is the accurate one, while differing perspectives are flawed.
Negativity bias is a cognitive bias that leads individuals to give more significance and weight to negative experiences or information over positive or neutral ones. This bias manifests itself by disproportionately impacting decision-making and perception, often making negative experiences more influential than positive ones.
Neglect of probability is a cognitive bias where individuals disregard the probability of an event occurring and focus instead on the potential outcomes. This bias often leads to irrational decision-making because it prioritizes the emotional impact of potential outcomes over rational analysis of their likelihood. It is categorized under 'Lack of meaning' and is a subcategory of 'Stories in sparse data.'
The 'Not Invented Here' (NIH) bias refers to a cultural or psychological stance where individuals or organizations resist using, acquiring, or even acknowledging external knowledge, ideas, or solutions, simply because these innovations originate outside their own environment. This bias is characterized by the preference for internally developed products or ideas, often leading to skepticism and dismissal of externally sourced solutions.
The observer-expectancy effect, also known as the experimenter-expectancy effect, refers to a cognitive bias where a researcher's expectations or beliefs about the outcome of a study subconsciously influence the participants of the study or the interpretation of results. This can lead to skewed outcomes that conform to the observer's preconceived notions.
Occam's Razor is a cognitive bias and philosophical principle that suggests that, among competing hypotheses that predict equally well, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected. It promotes simplicity in decision-making and problem-solving, suggesting that simpler ideas with less complexity are often more likely to be correct.
Omission bias is a cognitive bias where individuals tend to judge harmful actions as worse or less morally acceptable than equally harmful omissions (inactions). In simple terms, people often believe that doing something harmful is worse than failing to prevent harm. This bias is a significant concern within the realm of decision-making and ethics, as it can lead to skewed perceptions and judgments.
Optimism bias is a cognitive bias that causes individuals to believe that they are less likely to experience negative events and more likely to experience positive ones compared to others. It's an inherent part of human psychology that can influence a wide range of decisions and behaviors, often leading to overly positive evaluations of future outcomes.
Outcome bias is a cognitive bias that occurs when people judge the quality of a decision based on its outcome rather than the quality of the decision at the time it was made. This bias can lead to an inaccurate assessment of the decision-making process as it disregards the information available when the decision was made, focusing instead on the result.
The overconfidence effect is a well-documented cognitive bias in which a person's subjective confidence in their judgments is greater than the objective accuracy of those judgments. This phenomenon is prevalent across various domains of decision-making and has significant implications in both personal and professional settings.
Pareidolia is a cognitive bias where individuals perceive familiar patterns, such as faces or objects, in random stimuli. This tendency to find meaning where none exists is a form of apophenia, making us see stories in sparse data.
The picture superiority effect is a cognitive bias that suggests images and pictures are more likely to be remembered than words. This phenomenon indicates that when information is presented as both pictures and text, the visual representation tends to be retained more effectively in our memory.
Prejudice is a cognitive bias that involves forming an opinion or assumption about an individual or group based on generalizing characteristics, often discarding specific details in the process. This bias relies heavily on stereotypes and oversimplified beliefs about a group, resulting in assumptions that don't account for individual variations.
The primacy effect is a cognitive bias that results in a person recalling the first items in a series more strongly than the subsequent items. This effect is a part of the broader concept known as the 'serial position effect,' which examines how the position of an item in a list affects how well it is remembered.
Pro-innovation bias is a cognitive bias that occurs when an individual or group overvalues the benefits of a new product or innovation while underestimating its limitations and challenges. It leads people to favor new ideas and technologies, often without thoroughly examining their impact or potential drawbacks.
Projection bias is a cognitive bias that describes the human tendency to overestimate the degree to which their future preferences and tastes will align with their current preferences and tastes. This bias is a type of misforecasting that occurs when individuals assume that their emotional states and desires will remain unchanged over time.
The recency effect is a cognitive bias that refers to the tendency of individuals to better remember the most recently presented items or experiences. This bias is commonly observed when recalling items from a list or events that have just occurred, demonstrating that the most recent information tends to be more impactful on memory recall compared to earlier information.
Selective perception is a cognitive bias that involves focusing on information that confirms existing beliefs while ignoring information that contradicts them. This phenomenon falls under the category of Information overload, where individuals are faced with vast amounts of data and selectively filter it, often unconsciously, leading to reinforcement of pre-existing notions.
Self-serving bias is a common cognitive bias that refers to an individual's tendency to attribute their successes to internal or personal factors while blaming external factors for any failures. This bias is part of the broader category of the need for speed in cognitive processing and falls under doing what matters in self-assessment and perception.
The Serial Recall Effect is a cognitive bias involving the tendency to recall the first and last items in a series more readily than those in the middle. This cognitive bias is primarily observed when humans try to remember a sequence of information, such as a list of words, numbers, or events. It impacts how people remember and retrieve information, often preserving the beginning and the end of sequences better than the middle.
Status quo bias is a cognitive bias that refers to the preference for the current state of affairs. Individuals exhibiting this bias favor decisions or policies that maintain things as they are, rejecting changes even when those changes might lead to better outcomes. This bias is often influenced by a need to preserve autonomy and maintain one's current status.
Stereotyping is a cognitive bias where generalized beliefs or assumptions are made about members of a particular group. This bias often arises from information gaps, leading individuals to substitute specific knowledge about a person with generalized group characteristics.
The subadditivity effect is a cognitive bias where individuals tend to judge the probability of a whole as less than the sum of its parts. In essence, people often underestimate the total probability of an event when it is broken down into component parts. This effect is prominent within the realm of probabilistic reasoning, where human intuition struggles to accurately assess combined probabilities.
The sunk cost fallacy is a cognitive bias where individuals make decisions based on previously invested resources (time, money, effort) rather than the present and future value of their decision. This often leads to irrational decision-making as people continue to commit to a course of action due to the costs already incurred, which cannot be recovered.
Survivorship bias is a cognitive bias that occurs when an analysis only considers the 'survivors' or successful entities of a group while overlooking the failures, thereby skewing the results and leading to erroneous conclusions. This bias stems from the human tendency to draw inferences based on incomplete data, largely due to the absence of information about non-survivors.
The Weber-Fechner law is a principle that attempts to explain the relationship between the physical magnitude of a stimulus and the perceived intensity of that stimulus, suggesting that the perceived change in a given stimulus is proportional to the initial intensity of that stimulus. It is named after Ernst Weber and Gustav Fechner, who pioneered early research in sensory perception.