Absent-mindedness is a cognitive bias that refers to instances where a lack of attention results in forgetfulness or lapses in memory, which often affects the retention and recall of information. This phenomenon is typically categorized under 'What to remember,' and is further understood through how memories can be stored differently based on experience.
The Argument from Fallacy, also known as the fallacy fallacy, is a logical fallacy that assumes that just because an argument contains a fallacy, its conclusion must necessarily be false. This cognitive bias is a form of misinterpretation where individuals erroneously conclude that the presence of flawed reasoning invalidates a proposition's truth.
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.
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.
The bias blind spot is a cognitive bias where individuals are unable to detect the impact of biases on their own judgment, but easily notice them in others. It is a part of the broader category of cognitive biases that cause individuals to process information in a flawed manner, particularly when dealing with information overload. This bias affects how people perceive their own objectivity.
The bizarreness effect is a cognitive bias that refers to the tendency for bizarre or unusual information to be more easily remembered than common or mundane information. This phenomenon falls under the category of information overload, as bizarre things have a greater chance of standing out and being noticed amidst a flood of information.
The context effect cognitive bias refers to the influence that environmental factors can have on a person's perception and memory retrieval. When information is repeated in varied contexts, it can have an impactful influence on how effectively memory is encoded, stored, and later retrieved. Under the subcategory of repetition and memory is noticed, it highlights how external cues from the environment can either aid or hinder memory recall. Often associated with cue-dependent forgetting, the presence or absence of specific associative cues can determine the accessibility of memories.
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 curse of knowledge is a cognitive bias that occurs when an individual, who is well-informed about a subject, finds it challenging to think about the subject from the perspective of someone who lacks that knowledge.
The Delmore effect is a cognitive bias where people prefer simple, complete solutions over complex ones.
Effort justification is a cognitive bias where people tend to assign greater value to an outcome they worked hard to achieve, regardless of the objective worth of the outcome. This bias stems from cognitive dissonance, where individuals experience discomfort when their actions do not align with their beliefs or attitudes, prompting them to justify their effort to maintain internal consistency.
Essentialism is a cognitive bias where individuals believe that certain categories, such as people, animals, or objects, have an inherent essence that gives them their identity. This bias often leads to overgeneralization and stereotyping, as individuals attribute fixed traits to members of these categories.
Extrinsic incentive error is a cognitive bias where people tend to overestimate the influence of extrinsic incentives (such as money or rewards) on others' behaviors, while undervaluing intrinsic motivations (like personal satisfaction or enjoyment). It can lead to a misunderstanding of why people perform certain actions or participate in activities.
Functional fixedness is a cognitive bias that limits a person to using an object only in the way it is traditionally used. This bias restricts the scope of problem-solving and innovation by preventing individuals from recognizing alternative uses for an object or concept.
The Generation Effect is a cognitive bias that suggests individuals tend to remember information better when they actively generate it themselves rather than passively consume it. This effect highlights the importance of active engagement in the learning process, especially when it comes to memory retention.
The Google effect, also known as digital amnesia, is a cognitive bias where people tend to forget information that can easily be found online. Instead of remembering the information itself, individuals are more likely to remember where to find it, such as through search engines like Google. This shift in memory storage and reliance on digital retrieval has transformed the way individuals process information in the digital era.
The Halo Effect is a cognitive bias where our overall impression of a person, brand, or product influences our feelings and thoughts about their specific traits. If we perceive someone or something positively in one area, we are likely to have a positive bias for their other characteristics as well.
The Hard-easy effect is a cognitive bias in which individuals tend to overestimate their ability to perform complex tasks while underestimating their proficiency in simpler tasks. This phenomenon affects decision-making and self-assessment across various domains.
The illusion of transparency is a cognitive bias that leads individuals to believe that their thoughts, feelings, and emotions are more apparent to others than they actually are. This bias causes people to overestimate the degree to which their internal states are visible to those around them.
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 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.
The Just-world hypothesis is a cognitive bias that leads individuals to believe that the world is inherently fair and that people ultimately get what they deserve. This belief can shape the way individuals perceive events and the behavior of others, often leading to a skewed interpretation of reality.
The Lake Wobegon effect is a cognitive bias wherein individuals overestimate their own capabilities, believing they are above average in various domains such as intelligence, skills, or knowledge. This name is derived from the fictional town of Lake Wobegon, created by Garrison Keillor, where 'all the children are above average'.
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.
The levels of processing effect is a cognitive bias that suggests the depth at which information is processed affects how well it is remembered. This theory posits that deeper, more meaningful processing leads to better recall than shallow processing, such as focusing on surface-level details.
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.
Memory inhibition is a cognitive bias involving the ability to keep irrelevant or redundant information from interfering with other cognitive processes, particularly recall. This form of selective forgetting allows individuals to focus on the most pertinent details by suppressing unnecessary or distracting data.
The misattribution of memory is a cognitive bias that involves incorrectly recalling the source or context of a particular memory. It occurs when a person attributes a memory or idea to the wrong source, leading to distortions and inaccuracies in recollection. This bias can cause individuals to believe they remember something that never actually happened or confuse the details of separate events.
The misinformation effect is a cognitive bias that occurs when a person's memory of an event becomes less accurate due to the influence of post-event information. This phenomenon often leads to the creation of false memories and impacts an individual's ability to recall events as they actually occurred.
The modality effect is a cognitive bias that describes the differences in learning and memory retention based on the mode of information presentation. It often refers to the phenomenon where individuals remember information better when it is presented in an auditory rather than visual format, especially for short-term retention of sequences or lists.
The Next-in-line effect is a cognitive bias where individuals have a diminished ability to remember information presented immediately before their turn to perform or speak, such as when they are in line to give a presentation or speak in a meeting.
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.
Out-group homogeneity bias is a cognitive phenomenon where people perceive members of a group to which they don't belong (the out-group) as more similar to one another than members of their own group (the in-group). This bias leads to the perception that 'they' are alike, while 'we' are diverse and varied.
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.
Reactance is a cognitive bias referring to the emotional reaction individuals have when they perceive their autonomy to be threatened or their range of options to be limited. This psychological response often leads to behavior that is contrary to what is being imposed, as an attempt to regain control or freedom. When people perceive their freedoms are being infringed upon, they may be motivated to restore those freedoms, even at the cost of making irrational decisions. This bias falls under the category 'Need for Speed' due to the immediate and instinctive nature of the response and the subcategory 'Motivated to preserve autonomy and status.'
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.
Reverse psychology is a persuasion technique that involves advocating for a behavior or outcome that is the opposite of what is desired, with the expectation that the recipient of the communication will be motivated to assert their autonomy and choose the original desired outcome. This technique often exploits the cognitive bias where individuals are motivated to preserve their sense of autonomy and status.
The Rhyme as reason effect, also known as the 'Eaton-Rosen phenomenon,' is a cognitive bias where people perceive rhyming statements as more truthful or accurate compared to non-rhyming equivalents. This effect capitalizes on the human inclination towards simple, complete phrases over complex or ambiguous ones, suggesting that a statement's form can significantly influence its perceived truthfulness.
Self-consistency bias is a cognitive bias where individuals mistakenly believe that their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors have remained consistent over time. This bias can lead to distorted perceptions of one's past and future actions, often projecting current beliefs or emotional states back into the past and anticipated into the future. It fits into the broader category of 'Lack of meaning,' where individuals impose consistency to maintain a coherent self-image.
The self-relevance effect, a cognitive bias, is the tendency for individuals to better remember information that relates to themselves than information that has less personal relevance. This bias fundamentally affects how we process and prioritize the vast amount of information we encounter daily, making personally relevant information particularly salient.
The Semmelweis reflex is a cognitive bias wherein people tend to reject new evidence or knowledge if it contradicts established norms or beliefs. Named after Ignaz Semmelweis, a 19th-century Hungarian physician who discovered that hand-washing could drastically reduce childbed fever incidence, the term describes the tendency to dismiss or undervalue findings that conflict with accepted paradigms.
The Serial Position Effect is a cognitive bias that influences how people recall items from a list. This effect suggests that individuals tend to remember the first and last items in a series better than those in the middle. This phenomenon reveals key insights into human memory and information retention, providing a framework for understanding how we prioritize and recall data.
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.
The Spacing Effect is a cognitive phenomenon where learning is more effective when study sessions are spaced out over time rather than when completed in immediate succession. This phenomenon highlights how distributed practice produces more robust long-term memory retention compared to massed practice (i.e., cramming), influencing both formal education and informal learning activities.
The Spotlight Effect is a cognitive bias where individuals overestimate the degree to which their actions and appearance are noticed by others. It is part of a broader category of biases related to a lack of meaning and belongs to the subgroup of knowing what others are thinking. The term refers to the mental 'spotlight' individuals feel that they believe highlights their flaws and mistakes in front of others.
The suffix effect is a cognitive bias that affects how information is remembered, particularly when it comes to lists and sequences. It refers to the phenomenon where the recall of the last items in a list is impaired when a distracting suffix is added immediately after the list. This effect highlights the intricacies of memory mechanisms, especially concerning auditory stimuli.
Suggestibility is a cognitive bias where a person's memory or perception can be influenced by external information, leading to the incorporation of inaccurate details into their memories or beliefs. This bias often occurs when individuals are exposed to misleading information after an event, which can reinforce or alter their recollections.
The testing effect is a cognitive phenomenon where long-term memory retention is improved through retrieval practice and self-testing. This effect suggests that the act of recalling information strengthens the memory trace more effectively than simply studying the material repeatedly.
The 'Tip of the Tongue' phenomenon is a cognitive bias where an individual is unable to retrieve a word or piece of information despite a strong feeling of being on the brink of recalling it. This occurs frequently in everyday conversations and can cause mild frustration.
Ultimate attribution error is a cognitive bias that leads to the systematic attribution of behaviors of individuals or groups based on perceived inherent characteristics, especially in cases involving in-group versus out-group dynamics. This often results in attributing positive actions of in-group members to inherent traits and negative actions to situational factors, while interpreting out-group members' positive behaviors as situational and negative behaviors as inherent.
The Von Restorff effect, also known as the isolation effect, is a cognitive bias that predicts an item noticeably different from others will be more likely to be remembered. This concept hinges on the principle that unusual or distinctive features enhance memory recall within a list of otherwise homogenous items.