definitions

Philosophy
The study of fundamental questions about existence, knowledge, values and reason. It uses critical thinking to ask “big questions” like “what is right or wrong?” or “what is real?”

Psychology
The study of the mind and behaviour, focusing on thoughts, emotions and experiences.
→ the resulting thoughts, feelings and behaviours to… everything

Biology
The study of all living things (animal, plant, microbe). It examines their structure, function, growth, origin and evolution.

Cognitive Science
The study of how the mind works, focusing on thinking, memory and decision-making.
→ how does the mind process information

Neuroscience
The study of the brain and nervous system itself, its biology, chemistry and physical structure.

Behavioural Science
The study of why people make the choices they do, often by observing their actions in the real world.
→ combines psychology, economics, sociology

Sociology
The study of groups, societies and social systems. It focuses on how people interact with each other and how societies are organised and change.

cognitive biases

Information overload, lack of meaning, the need to act fast, and figuring out what needs to be remembered for later.

There are 4 categories of problems that our brains have evolved to deal with over time:

information overload: too much info sucks, so we aggressively filter — with our existing mental models.
- noise becomes signal
ambiguity: lack of meaning is confusing, so we fill in the gaps — with our existing mental models.
- signal becomes story
speed: need to act fast in order to survive, so we jump to conclusion.
- stories becomes decisions
memory: this isn’t getting easier, so we try to remember the important bits
- decisions inform our mental models of the world.

… some definitions first, as always

Cognitive: relating to mental processes like thinking, learning, remembering and reasoning.
Bias: systematic, predictable inclination, tendency or prejudice for or against something (person, group, idea) — often leading to unfairness or error
Cognitive bias: a predictable mental shortcut error, it’s a systematic pattern of deviation from rational thinking or norm, caused by our brain’s simplified information-processing strategies.
Heuristics: the mental shortcuts or “rules of thumb” themselves. They are simple, efficient thinking strategies that allow for quick judgments.
Fallacy: a logical error in reasoning that makes an argument invalid, even if it seems convincing.

Why do cognitive biases occur? The root of it:

Our brain is wired to simplify information processing through filters shaped by our experiences and preferences, our beliefs
This filtering is actually a coping mechanism that allows us to quickly prioritise and process large amounts of info
- → decision-making yes
- but rational decision-making? nah…

Let’s explore those 4 type of problems more in depth

I. 4 types of life problems

i. Information overload

→ too much info in the world, we have no choice but to filter almost all of it out…
→ some brain tricks

we notice things that are already primed in memory or repeated often
bizarre/funny/visually-striking/anthropomorphic things stick out more than non-bizarre/unfunny things
we notice when something has changed
we are drawn to details that confirm our own existing beliefs
we notice flaws in others more easily than flaws in ourselves

ii. Ambiguity

→ not enough meaning in life, things, but we need to make sense of it in order to survive
→ now that the information load is reduced and filtered, we need to connect the dots and fill in the gaps with stuff we already think we know
→ update the mental models of the world

we tend to find stories and patterns even in sparse data
we fill in characteristics from stereotypes, generalities, prior histories
we imagine things and people we are familiar with or fond of as better than things and people we are not familiar with or fond of
we simplify probabilities and numbers to make them easier to think about
we think we know what other people are thinking
we project our current mindset and assumptions onto the past and future

iii. Speed

→ it’s a survival and intuitive mechanism, we need to do our best to assess the situation, make decisions, simulate the future, act accordingly, …

in order to act, we need to be confident in our ability to make an impact and to feel like what we do is important
in order to stay focused, we favour the immediate, relatable thing in front of us over the delayed and distant
in order to get anything done, we are motivated to complete things that we have already invested time and energy in
in order to avoid mistakes, we are motivated to preserve our autonomy and status in a group,
and to avoid irreversible decisions, we favour options that appear simple or that have more complete information over more complex, ambiguous options

iv. Memory

→ with all that information and a finite memory space to use for the better, we need to make constant trade-offs around what we try to remember and what we forget
→ we prefer generalisations >> specifics because they take up less space
→ when there are too many details, we select those that stand out, discard the rest
→ and what we save here, is gonna inform our filters related to “too much information”, and what comes to mind when we need to make sense of things and “fill in the gaps”
⇒ self-reinforcing process

we edit and reinforce some memories after the fact
we discard specifics to form generalities
we reduce events and lists to their key elements
we store memories differently based on how they were experienced

II. list of biases by problem

1. too much information

→ too much info in the world, we have no choice but to filter almost all of it out…
→ some brain tricks

we notice things that are already primed in memory or repeated often
bizarre/funny/visually-striking/anthropomorphic things stick out more than non-bizarre/unfunny things
we notice when something has changed
we are drawn to details that confirm our own existing beliefs
we notice flaws in others more easily than flaws in ourselves

2. not enough meaning

we tend to find stories and patterns even in sparse data
we fill in characteristics from stereotypes, generalities, prior histories
we imagine things and people we are familiar with or fond of as better than things and people we are not familiar with or fond of
we simplify probabilities and numbers to make them easier to think about
we think we know what other people think
we project our current mindset and assumptions onto the past and future

3. need to act fast

→ it’s a survival and intuitive mechanism, we need to do our best to assess the situation, make decisions, simulate the future, act accordingly, …

in order to act, we need to be confident in our ability to make an impact and to feel like what we do is important
in order to stay focused, we favour the immediate, relatable thing in front of us over the delayed and distant
in order to get anything done, we are motivated to complete things that we have already invested time and energy in
in order to avoid mistakes, we are motivated to preserve our autonomy and status in a group,
and to avoid irreversible decisions, we favour options that appear simple or that have more complete information over more complex, ambiguous options

4. what should we remember

we edit and reinforce some memories after the fact
we discard specifics to form generalities
we reduce events and lists to their key elements
we store memories differently based on how they were experienced

III. problems → solutions_problems

on top of the four types of life problems,
our solutions to these problems have problems of their own:

Information overload → Filter out most of it ⇒ We don’t see everything.
Some of the information we filter out is actually useful and important.
Lack of meaning → Fill in the gaps ⇒ Can generate illusions.
Imagination, assumptions, false meaning, interpretations, stories.
Need to act fast → Jump to conclusions ⇒ Can be seriously flawed.
Quick decisions can be unfair, self-serving, and counter-productive.
Limited memory capabilities → Make trade-offs ⇒ Our memory reinforces errors.
Accumulated error since what we decide to store makes 1-2-3 more biased, and so on.

so what to do?

keep in mind the 4 types of problems, along with the problems of their solutions
- → to understand and notice our own biases more often
accept that nothing can make those problems go away fully
accept the fact we are permanently biased but that there is room for betterment

list en vrac (+200)

Abilene paradox

def:
→ e.g.

Absent-mindedness

def:
→ e.g.

Actor-observer bias

def:
→ e.g.

Ambiguity bias

def:
→ e.g.

Anchoring

def: tendency to rely too heavily on the first piece of information offered (the “anchor”) when making decisions or estimates
→ e.g. seeing a product originally priced at 100$ discounted to 70$ makes it feel like a great deal even if the product true value is way lower (50$) — the 100$ “anchored” the perception

reminds me of Availability heuristic a bit

Anecdotal fallacy

def: using a personal, emotionally charged story to draw a general conclusion, overriding statistical evidence
→ e.g. my grandpa smoked a pack a day and lived to 95, so smoking isn’t dangerous

reminds me of Insensitivity to sample size in the sense that it feels like too “shallow” generalisation

Anthropomorphism

def: attributing human traits, emotions or intentions to non-human entities
→ e.g. thinking your cat is “plotting revenge” because it knocked a glass off the table, or describing a storm as “angry”

Appeal to novelty

def:
→ e.g.

Appeal to probability fallacy

def: assume that if something is possible, it’s likely or inevitable
→ e.g. “there is a small chance the project fails, so it’s definitely going to fail”

Argument from fallacy

def: incorrectly conclude that because an argument is fallacious, its conclusion must be false; while the conclusion might still be true for other reasons
→ e.g. “your argument for recycling has a logical flaw, therefore recycling is pointless”, while the flaw in the argument doesn’t prove the conclusion wrong

Armchair fallacy

def:
→ e.g.

Attentional bias

def: paying more attention to certain things while ignoring others
→ e.g. when you’re hungry, you’ll more easily notice food and restaurant you pass by

Authority bias

def: tendency to attribute greater accuracy to the opinion of an authority figure and be more influenced by it, regardless of content
→ e.g. uncritically accepting a medical claim because a famous and successful TV show figure said it, rather than a doctor or a scientist

Automation bias

def: natural tendency to over-rely on automated systems (GPS, spellcheck) which can lead to ignoring contradictory information or common sense.
→ e.g. driver blindly following GPS into a lake because it said to turn, despite seeing the water ahead

Availability heuristic

def: judging the likelihood of events based on how easily examples come to mind
→ e.g. after seeing news reports about plane crashes, you might overestimate the danger of flying even though driving is statistically riskier

Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon

def:
→ e.g.

Backfire effect

def:
→ e.g.

Bandwagon effect

def: tendency to do or believe things because many other people do or believe the same thing (basically sheep mode 🐑)
→ e.g. buying a viral product because “everyone has it”, or supporting a political candidate just because polls show they are leading

Barnum effect

def:
→ e.g.

Base rate fallacy

def: ignoring general background/statistical info (base rate) and focusing only on specific case information
→ e.g. assume quiet, introverted person must be a librarian vs. salesperson, ignoring the base rate fact N_salesperson >>> N_librarian (so… it’s actually more likely that person is a salesperson given the base rate info)

Belief bias

def:
→ e.g.

def: recognising cognitive biases in others while failing to see them in oneself
→ e.g. a manager thinks their team is biased against new ideas but believes their own assessment of those ideas is perfectly objective

Bike-shedding effect

def:
→ e.g.

Bizarreness effect

def: the tendency for bizarre, unusual or absurd information to be more easily remembered than ordinary information
→ e.g. def remember better the fun, bizarre, unique and quirky people than “ordinary” ones

Bucket error (Extension Neglect)

def: ignoring the duration of an experience and focusing only on its peak (or end) intensity
→ e.g. rating a week-long vacation as “bad” because of a terrible flight home, while ignoring six great days overall

reminds me a bit of Negativity bias but would be also the case for a positive peak too?

Cheerleader effect

def: tendency to perceive individuals as more attractive when they are seen in a group than when seen alone
→ e.g. someone appears more attractive in a group photo on social media vs. individual profile picture

Chesterton’s fence

def:
→ e.g.

Choice-supportive bias

def: remembering one’s chosen options as better than they were and the rejected options as worse
→ e.g. after choosing car A over car B, you recall car A’s ride as “smooth and quiet” vs. car B’s “noisy and bumpy” — even though they were objectively similar in this regard

Clustering illusion

def: seeing patterns or clusters in truly random data
→ e.g. believing a basketball player has “hot streaks” of baskets when their shots are statistically random

Cognitive dissonance

def: psychological discomfort we experience when we hold two or more conflicting beliefs, attitudes or values simultaneously → and we tend to avoid this clash

e.g.

action: someone tells a lie,
feeling: feels uncomfortable about it,
thought/belief/value: because they fundamentally see themselves as an honest person

e.g.

belief: animal cruelty is wrong
another thought: but also it’s yummy
feeling: conflicting, guilt, discomfort

signs of cognitive dissonance:

feeling uncomfortable or anxious
justifying or rationalising behaviour
avoiding new information
selective memory
downplaying the importance of the conflict

types of cognitive dissonance:

belief disconfirmation
induced compliance
effort justification
post-decisional dissonance

⇒ this happens when there is psychological discomfort between our beliefs, most commonly when beliefs don’t align with actions

how do ppl deal with these discomforts?

change actions to align with beliefs
- beliefs/attitudes: be healthy and lose weight
- misaligned actions: couch potato → cognitive dissonance
- aligned actions: physical activity to be healthy
change beliefs to align with actions
- actions: physical activity to be healthy and look good
- misaligned beliefs/attitudes: have an fitness influencer’s body to be healthy and look good → cognitive dissonance because unrealistic goal
- aligned beliefs/attitudes: body image and health expectations changed
avoiding, disillusion instead of solving
- distraction with quick and intense dopamine shots to feel better : D
- rationalisation → trying to justify our behaviours, actions, beliefs, telling ourself it’s not that bad, not that misaligned,

at the end, you have to face one of them, choose wisely:

anxiety and discomfort from the cognitive dissonance and disillusion
anxiety and discomfort from change and growth and the unknown

so… what can we do to fight against this cognitive dissonance that seems to eat us away?
the main weapon should be integrity, which is the opposite of dissonance.
⇒ to have integrity means to be aligned with your values, your actions, your words.

so be aware and seek out those moments where you find excuses to justify an action or a belief, a dissonance, or if you feel stressed, frustrated, anxious
and make an honest assessment whether you’re aligned or not, and if not, what can you do? what do you want?

choose what’s right for you, not what feels easy or comfortable.

Confabulation

def: unconsciously creating fabricated or distorted memories without the intent to deceive, to fill in gaps in memory
→ e.g. after a car accident, you vividly “remember” the other car running a red light even though it was actually green, your brain just created a logical cause to explain the crash and connect the dots

Confirmation bias

def: favouring, interpreting and recalling information in a way that confirms one’s preexisting beliefs
→ e.g. a person who believes left-handed ppl are more creative only notices and remembers creative left-handed individuals, while ignoring uncreative left-handers and creative right-handers

Congruence bias

def: over-relying on direct testing of a hypothesis while failing to test alternative hypotheses
→ e.g. if your car won’t start and you believe it’s a dead battery, you only test the battery and don’t consider the rest (fuel system, starter, ignition switch)

Conjunction fallacy

def:
→ e.g.

Conservatism

def: tendency to update one’s beliefs too slowly in the face of new evidence, clinging to prior beliefs
→ e.g. doctor continues to recommend old treatment despite multiple new studies showing a newer treatment is significantly more effective

Context effect

def: memory or perception being influenced by the surrounding situation, environment, or cues
→ e.g. can’t remember where you left your keys unless you go back to a situation / environment that is linked to this

(very much related to Cue-dependent forgetting)

Continued influence effect

def: continuing to believe misinformation even after it has been corrected
→ e.g. news report falsely names a person as suspect, then retracts it, the public will still associate that person with the crime

reminds me of the Anchoring

Contrast effect

def: enhancement (or reduction) of a perception (e.g. weight, colour, value) when compared with a recently observed contrasting object.
→ e.g. indoor lights feel extremely bright after being in the dark for a while, i guess it’s not just cognitive, but also physiological

Cross-race effect

def: tendency to more easily recognise and distinguish between faces of one’s own racial group than those of other racial groups
→ e.g. european person sees all asian people faces as similar and difficult to distinguish

Cryptomnesia

def:
→ e.g.

Cue-dependent forgetting

def: being unable to recall information without specific reminders or cues; memories are stored with specific cues (context, smell, mood, etc.) and we might fail to recall the memories without those cues
→ e.g. can’t remember the name of a person outside of the context you first met them

(very much related to Context effect)

Curse of knowledge

def: once you know something, it becomes very difficult to imagine what it’s like not to know it, leading to poor communication and overestimation of others’ understanding
→ e.g. a senior SE struggles to explain a technical problem to a junior, unknowingly using jargon and skipping basic steps they now consider obvious

Declinism

def: belief that a society/institution/field is in a state of decline compared to a romanticised past
→ e.g. insist that “music today is so much worse than it was” often overlooking the poor-quality music that was also produced then

Decoy effect

def:
→ e.g.

Defensive attribution hypothesis

def:
→ e.g.

Delmore effect

def:
→ e.g.

Denomination effect

def: tendency to spend money more readily when it’s in the form of small denominations
→ e.g. more likely to spend 10x 5 $t han yo u a re t os p e n d a s in g l e 50$ bill on the same kind of purchase, even though it’s the same amount

Disposition effect

def:
→ e.g.

Distinction bias

def: tendency to view two options as more different when evaluating them side-by-side than when evaluating them separately
→ e.g. when tasting two wines side-by-side, you might strongly prefer one and call the other “bad”, but if you drank them on different occasions, you might enjoy both equally and find the distinction minor.

Dunning-Kruger effect

def:
→ e.g.

Duration neglect

def:
→ e.g.

Effort justification

def:
→ e.g.

Egocentric bias

def:
→ e.g.

Empathy gap

def: underestimating how much emotions (our own or others’) influence behaviour
→ e.g. when you’re calm, it’s easier to underestimate how angry you will become in a stressful argument “i would never yell like that”

Endowment effect

def:
→ e.g.

Escalation of commitment

def:
→ e.g.

Essentialism

def: belief that social groups (gender, nationality, …) have an innate, unchanging “essence” that determines the traits of all members
→ e.g. “women are naturally more nurturing”, “engineers are inherently less creative” as if these were biological facts rather than social or personal variations

Expectation bias

def: seeing what you expect to see, even if it’s not there
→ e.g. definitely similar to placebo effect, where you make yourself a home remedy for a headache, and it feels like it worked, but the headache simply went away on its own

reminds me of Placebo effect and Selective perception

Extrinsic incentive error

def: underestimate power of intrinsic (internal) motivation for others while overestimating the power of extrinsic (external) rewards like money or grades
→ e.g. a manager assumes employees work hard only for a year-end bonus, failing to recognise their genuine passion for the work and pride in their team

Fading affect bias

def:
→ e.g.

False consensus effect

def:
→ e.g.

False memory

def:
→ e.g.

Focusing effect

def: placing too much importance on one aspect of an event or decision while neglecting other equally as important
→ e.g. when imagining moving to a sunny city, you might focus almost entirely on the nice weather aspect and overlook a lot of other points (cost of living, distance from family, job prospects, cultural differences)

reminds me of Attentional bias or Base rate fallacy

Forer effect

def:
→ e.g.

Framing effect

def: drawing different conclusions from the same information depending on how that information is presented (e.g. a loss vs. a gain)
→ e.g. people are more likely to choose a medical procedure if told it has a “90% success rate” than if told “10% failure rate”, even though they mean the same thing… we are drawn to higher numbers, avoid loss, attracted to gains.

Frequency illusion (Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon)

def: noticing something for the first time and then seeing it everywhere
→ e.g. literally me with this hyrox thing now

Functional fixedness

def: limitation belief that an object can only be used in the way it is traditionally used
→ e.g. wrench = tool for turning bolts only, while this could also be used as a makeshift hammer

Fundamental attribution error

def:
→ e.g.

Gambler’s fallacy

def: believing that past random events influence future ones in independent processes
→ e.g. flipping a coin and getting “heads” five times in a row, believing that the next one has more chance to be “tail” even though it’s still 50/50 chance for each and every flip

Generation effect

def:
→ e.g.

Golden hammer

def:
→ e.g.

Google effect

def: also known as digital amnesia, it is the tendency to forget information that is readily available through search engines like Google → over-reliance on the digital world.
→ e.g. you don’t remember the dates of WWII, all good, “just google it”

Group attribution error

def: believe a group’s actions/outcomes directly reflect the personal attitudes of all its members, ignoring external constraints or decision rules
→ e.g. city council votes to raise taxes, belief that every council members personally wanted this even though this could have been a compromise or even highly influenced by other entities

Halo effect

def: a single positive trait (like attractiveness) positively influences the judgment of other unrelated traits
→ e.g. teacher assumes a well-behaved, attractive student is also intelligent and motivated, potentially grading their work more favourably

Hard-easy effect

def:
→ e.g.

Hindsight bias

def: tendency, after an event has occurred, to believe one would have predicted or expected the outcome
→ e.g. after a sports game, you say “i knew they were going to win!” even though you were genuinely uncertain before kickoff

Hippo problem

def:
→ e.g.

Hofstadter’s law

def: observation that projects always take longer than expected
→ e.g. SE estimates a task will take 2 weeks, but it ultimately takes a month due to unexpected bugs and revisions

Hot-hand fallacy

def: believing that a person who has had success with a random event has a greater chance of further success
→ e.g. believing a basketball player who has made several good shots in a row is “on fire” and more likely to make the next one, even though each shot is still independent from the past ones

Humor effect

def: tendency to remember humorous information better than non-humorous
→ e.g. the memes, or reels that are funny vs. the very serious ones

Hyperbolic discounting

def:
→ e.g.

Identifiable victim effect

def:
→ e.g.

IKEA effect

def:
→ e.g.

Illusion of asymmetric insight

def: belief you understand other people better they understand you, or better than they understand themselves even
→ e.g. parents thinking they have their kid’s personality totally “figured out”, even better than their kid themselves

Illusion of control

def:
→ e.g.

Illusion of external agency

def: tendency to attribute the cause of one’s own thoughts/actions to external sources/influences rather than to oneself
→ e.g. after a car accident, you think “the car just turned on its own” rather than acknowledging you might have briefly lost focus
(basically blaming external things rather than yourself)

Illusion of transparency

def: overestimate the degree to which your internal thoughts, emotions and mental states are obvious to outside observers
→ e.g. during a presentation, you feel your nervousness is extremely visible to the audience, while they actually perceive you as calm and collected

Illusion of validity

def: overestimating one’s ability to interpret and predict outcomes from data, especially when patterns appear clear
→ e.g. stock trader feels overconfident in their predictive model after a few successful trades, neglecting the role of chance and future market volatility

reminds me of Anecdotal fallacy and Insensitivity to sample size — generalisation again

Illusory correlation

def: perceiving a relationship between two variables where none exists, or overestimating a weak one
→ e.g. believing that arthritis pain increases during rainy weather even though studies show no consistent correlation

Illusory superiority

def:
→ e.g.

Illusory truth effect

def: believing information is true simply because it is repeated
→ e.g. propaganda 101, even if the facts are wrong, you might still stat being influenced by repeated information you’re exposed to

Impact bias

def: overestimate the intensity and duration of future emotional reactions to positive or negative events
→ e.g. believe that if you fail an exam, you’ll be devastated for months, when in reality you might feel better after a few days

Implicit associations

def:
→ e.g.

Implicit stereotypes

def:
→ e.g.

In-group bias

def: tendency to favour and allocate more resources to members of one’s own group
→ e.g. manager gives the best project opportunities to team members they socialise with outside of work, rather than based on skill

Information bias

def:
→ e.g.

Insensitivity to sample size

def: failing to account for the size of a sample when judging its reliability
→ e.g. hearing that 3/4 dentists recommend a toothpaste, believing it’s a robust fact, ignoring that only 4 dentists were surveyed
⇒ basically too quick generalisation, jumping to conclusions

Irrational escalation

def:
→ e.g.

Just-world hypothesis

def: assumption the world is fundamentally fair, thus “people get what they deserve”, “everything happens for a reason”, “you reap what you sow” — basically actions will necessarily have morally fair and fitting consequences for the actor
⇒ which lead to blaming victims for their misfortune
→ e.g. you do good, you’ll receive good ⇒ so work hard and be nice
but if you ever receive bad, it’s because you must have done something bad too, you deserve it too
→ e.g. someone who was assaulted = must have been careless or “asked for it” to make sense of the injustice

Lake Wobegone effect

def:
→ e.g.

Law of narrative gravity

def: the pull toward simpler, more coherent and emotionally satisfying stories over complex, ambiguous truths
→ e.g. clear, heroic narrative of a “lone genius inventor” >>> messy, collaborative reality of technological innovation
⇒ yeah in brief, people like the “wow!” and movie-like stories over realistic, boring, not super catchy narratives

Law of the hammer

def:
→ e.g.

Law of the instrument

def:
→ e.g.

Law of Triviality

def:
→ e.g.

Less-is-better effect

def:
→ e.g.

Leveling and sharpening

def:
→ e.g.

Levels of processing effect

def:
→ e.g.

List-length effect

def:
→ e.g.

Loss aversion

def:
→ e.g.

Magic number 7+-2

def: observed average limit of items a person can hold in their short-term memory
→ e.g. most ppl can immediately recall between 5-9 random digits correctly after hearing them once

Masked man fallacy (epistemic fallacy)

def: incorrectly concluding that two things are not identical because they have different properties under different descriptions
→ e.g. i know who my father is, i don’t know who the masked man is, therefore the masked man cannot be my father ⇒ even though the first two premises are true, the conclusion could be very false, in fact it is missing the point that not all possibilities are covered with the knowledge of the first two premises — not enough evidence / knowledge to jump to conclusions or shortcuts

Maslow’s hammer

def:
→ e.g.

Memory inhibition

def:
→ e.g.

Mental accounting

def: treat money differently based on its source or intended use, rather than seeing all money as equally spendable
→ e.g. spending a $50 birthday gift card is more than fine, but you’re extra careful about sending this same amount from your paycheck on the same item

Mere exposure effect

def: developing a preference for things simply because you are familiar with them
→ e.g. a music you initially disliked grows on you, maybe a bit similar to desensitisation then?

Misattribution of memory

def:
→ e.g.

Misinformation effect

def:
→ e.g.

Modality effect

def:
→ e.g.

Money illusion

def: tendency to think of currency in nominal (face value) terms rather than real (inflation adjusted) terms, focusing on the number rather than its purchasing power
→ e.g. being happier with 4% raise when inflation is 5% than 2% raise with 0% inflation, even though first one is -1% decrease vs. +2% increase of purchasing power in reality

Mood-congruent memory bias

def: more easily recalling memories that match your current emotional state
→ e.g. recalling sad memory when you’re sad probably

Moral credential effect

def: when a past good deed makes a person/group feel licensed to act less morally in the future without threat to their self-image
→ e.g. company that promotes eco-friendly policies, thus earning “moral credential”, might feel justified in cutting corners on labor standards

Moral luck

def: situation where the moral praise or blame for an action is affected by factors beyond the agent’s control
→ e.g. drunk driver who makes it home safely is judged less harshly than one who hits a pedestrian, despite their identical reckless decision

Murphy’s law

def: an adage (proverb, general truth) stating “anything that can go wrong, will go wrong”
→ e.g. you’re running late for an important meeting, and of course you hit every single red light on the way

Naïve cynicism

def: expecting others to be more biased, selfish, deceitful than they actually are
→ e.g. automatically assuming a colleague’s helpful feedback has an ulterior motive such as to make you feel bad

Naïve realism

def: the belief that one perceives the world objectively, and that others who disagree are therefore uninformed, irrational or biased
→ e.g. thinking “my views are based on facts, so if you don’t agree, you must not be thinking clearly”
⇒ basically thinking you have the universal truth and others might be doing something wrong that lead to them not agreeing with your “common sense”

Negativity bias

def: tendency for negative events, emotions, information to have a greater impact on our memory and perception than positive ones
→ pretty normal because of human evolution, survival instinct to be aware of “negative” stuff more, a.k.a. danger
→ e.g. remember a piece of critical feedback among several compliments more

Neglect of probability

def: completely disregarding probability when making decisions under uncertainty
→ e.g. refusing to fly due to fear of crash while willingly driving long distances, which is far more likely to result in injury or death

Next-in-line effect

def:
→ e.g.

Normalcy bias

def: underestimate possibility or impact of a disaster because it feels unfamiliar or unprecedented
→ e.g. refuse to evacuate during a hurricane warning because major storms have never hit your area before

Not invented here

def: aversions to ideas, products or solutions that originate from outside one’s own group or organisation
→ e.g. a software dev team dismisses a perfectly good, existing software lib and insists on building their own from scratch, wasting time and resources

Observer effect (Hawthorne Effect)

def: people altering their behaviour because they know they are being observed
→ e.g. employees work more productively when the manager is watching, then return back to normal pace when alone

Observer-expectancy effect (Experimenter’s Bias)

def: when a researcher’s expectations unconsciously influence the outcome of an experiment or their interpretation of data
→ e.g. scientist measuring plant growth would give slightly more water (unknowingly) to the plants they expect to grow faster, skewing the results

Occam’s razor

def:
→ e.g.

Omission bias

def: viewing harmful inaction as better than harmful action, even with the same outcome
→ e.g. choosing not to vaccinate because of the potential rare side effects vs. risking those with vaccination

“INACTION”: not vaccinate, no side effect, but high risk of harmful disease
“ACTION”: vaccinate, rare possibility of harmful side effect, low risk of disease
choose option 1 > option 2 because inaction can feel more acceptable (less guilty, morally wrong, blameworthy, direct harm)

→ e.g. wagon / trolley dilemma

“INACTION” of flipping switch: save 5 people, kill 1
“ACTION” of pushing person: save 5 people, kill 1
people tend to choose option 1, cause less direct cause of harm, even when inaction can lead to equal/worse consequences

Optimism bias

def:
→ e.g.

Ostrich effect

def: avoiding negative financial info by “burying one’s head in the sand”
→ e.g. refusing to check investment portfolio during a market downturn to avoid seeing losses

Out-group homogeneity bias

def: perception that members of an out-group (a group one doesn’t belong to/identify with) are all similar to each other, while seeing in-group members as individuals
→ e.g. “all the fans of that rival sports team are loud and obnoxious”, while appreciating the diverse personalities of fans in your own group

Outcome bias

def: judge quality of a past decision based solely on its eventual outcome, rather than the information available at the time
→ e.g. someone doesn’t wear a helmet while riding a bicycle, ends up arriving safely; the outcome (positive) might lead others to believe that the decision not to wear a helmet was a good one
→ e.g. colleague made a big investment return in X field, but when interest rates were at a different level; the outcome (positive) might leave others to believe investing in the same field right now would also yield the same result (neglecting the external factors)

Overconfidence effect

def:
→ e.g.

Pareidolia

def: perceiving meaningful image or pattern in random or ambiguous visual data
→ e.g. seeing faces in clouds, a figure in a piece of toast, etc.

Part-list cueing effect

def:
→ e.g.

Peak–end rule

def:
→ e.g.

Peltzman effect

def:
→ e.g.

Pessimism bias

def: tendency to overestimate the likelihood of negative events happening
→ e.g. patient awaiting test results is convinced they have a serious illness despite the doctor stating the symptoms point to a minor, common condition

Picture superiority effect

def: tendency for pics and images to be remembered better than words
→ does it mean we are more visual learners by default??? maybe this makes sense, i feel like visuals seem more natural than “words” in human history, thus brain is more adapted to this

Placebo effect

def: beneficial effect produced by the patient’s belief in the treatment rather than the properties of the treatment itself
→ e.g. headache improvement after taking a sugar pill they believed was a powerful painkiller

Planning fallacy

def: underestimate time, costs, risks of future actions while overestimating the benefits
→ e.g. student predicts they can write a major term paper in one weekend, it ends up taking two full weeks with multiple all-nighters

Positivity effect

def: tendency for oder adults to prioritise and remember positive information over negative information
→ e.g. elderly person reminisces fondly about the happy memories of their youth while minimising or forgetting the difficulties they faced

Post-purchase rationalisation

def: justifying a purchase after the fact to reduce cognitive dissonance about its value or necessity
→ e.g. buying an expensive watch, justifying the purchase with arguments like “timeless craftsmanship” to avoid facing the possibility of impulsive splurge

Prejudice

def:
→ e.g.

Primacy effect

def:
→ e.g.

Pro-innovation bias

def: assumption that an innovation should be adopted by all members of a society without the need for adaptation/critique
→ e.g. believe that because a new productivity app works for you, you entire team should adopt it without considering their different workflows

Processing difficulty effect

def:
→ e.g.

Projection bias

def: assume one’s current tastes, preferences and values will remain largely the same in the future
→ e.g. a non-coffee drinker convinced they will never like coffee ever, only to develop a taste for it later

Pseudocertainty effect

def:
→ e.g.

Publication bias

def: tendency for academic journals to publish studies with positive, significant or striking results more often than studies with null, negative, or uninteresting results
→ e.g. many studies might find that a new drug has no effect, but only the one study showing a small benefit will get published, which skews public and scientific perception

Reactance

def:
→ e.g.

Reactive devaluation

def: devaluing a proposal simply because it originates from an adversary or disliked party
→ e.g. during a feud, you immediately reject your neighbour’s reasonable compromise because you hate them so “if they’re offering this, it must be a trick to benefit them”

reminds me of the previous Not invented here but not just out-group, but adversary

Recency effect

def: believing that a word, phrase or thing you’ve just noticed is a recent invention, when it has actually been around for a long time
→ e.g. apparently “woke” is a word that has been used for decades, just that it’s been used in new context recently

Recency illusion

def:
→ e.g.

Restraint bias

def: overestimate one’s ability to control impulsive behaviour
→ e.g. someone on diet confident they can resist all junk food at a party, but ends up overindulging because they were unprepared for the temptation

Reverse psychology

def:
→ e.g.

Rhyme as reason effect

def:
→ e.g.

Risk compensation

def:
→ e.g.

Rosy retrospection

def: tendency to remember past events as being more positive than they actually were
→ e.g. remember a past vacation as being awesome and relaxing while forgetting the arguments and stormy days that also occurred

Sapir-Whorf-Korzybski hypothesis

def:
→ e.g.

Selective perception

def: allowing expectations to influence what one notices in the environment
→ e.g. a worried parent hears only the negative news stories about teen behaviour and overlooks the many positive stories about youth achievements

reminds me of Attentional bias

Self-consistency bias

def: incorrectly remembering one’s past attitudes and behaviours as resembling present ones
→ e.g. an eco-friendly adult recalling themselves as always being concerned about recycling as a child, even though they weren’t

Self-relevance effect

def: tendency to better remember information that is personally relevant or related to oneself
→ e.g. makes sense that you might remember stuff about yourself more than random dates, facts about other stuff

Self-serving bias

def:
→ e.g.

Semmelweis reflex

def: the automatic rejection of new evidence because it contradicts established norms or beliefs
→ e.g. likely used/emerged in medical literature, where Dr. Semmelweis’ hand-washing advice was rejected by doctors who believed they couldn’t be causing infections

reminds me of Conservatism but pushed a bit further, or Continued influence effect

Serial position effect

def:
→ e.g.

Serial recall effect

def:
→ e.g.

Source confusion

def:
→ e.g.

Spacing effect

def:
→ e.g.

Spotlight effect

def: tendency to believe you are being noticed by others more than you actually are
→ e.g. you have a small stain on your shirt and feel like everyone is staring at it, while most ppl haven’t even noticed

Streetlight effect

def: tendency to search for something only where it is easiest to look, rather than where it is most likely to be
→ e.g. search for a lost key under a streetlight because the light is better there, not necessarily because it’s where they lost them

Status quo bias

def:
→ e.g.

Stereotypical bias

def:
→ e.g.

Subadditivity effect

def: estimate the probability of the whole to be less than the sum of the probabilities of its individual parts
→ e.g. judging the chance of dying from heart disease (22%) or cancer (18%) as higher tha the chance of dying from any natural cause (58%)

Subjective validation

def: perceiving a vague or general statement as personally meaningful and accurate
→ e.g. def what horoscope is all about, “you sometimes doubt your decisions”, well that’s true for almost everyone

Suffix effect

def:
→ e.g.

Suggestibility

def:
→ e.g.

Sunk cost fallacy

def:
→ e.g.

Survivorship bias

def: concentrate on the people/things that “survived” a process and overlook those that didn’t
→ e.g. studying only successful startups to find “secrets to success” while ignoring the thousands of failed ones that used the same strategies

Swimmer’s body illusion

def: attribute a trait to a certain activity, and not the other way around
→ e.g. believe swimming will give you a tall, broad-shouldered physique, when in fact ppl with that build are more likely to excel at and stick with swimming; kinda the same for basketball and tall people
(so the belief is: you have X trait because you did Y activity
the reality is: you did Y activity and stick to it, precisely because you had X to begin with)

System justification

def:
→ e.g.

Telescoping effect

def: tendency to misplace recent events further back in time (backward telescoping) or to remember a distant events as more recent (forward telescoping)
→ e.g. you’re convinced you bought something “just a couple month ago” but really it’s been 2 years already (backward telescoping)

Testing effect

def:
→ e.g.

Third-person effect

def:
→ e.g.

Time-saving bias

def: misjudge amount of time that can be saved/lost when increasing/decreasing speed
→ e.g. thinking driving 20km/h over the speed limit on a long trip will save a significant amount of times, when it may only save a few minutes

Tip of the tongue phenomenon

def:
→ e.g.

Trait ascription bias

def:
→ e.g.

Ultimate attribution error

def: a prejudice-based extension of Group attribution error, where positive acts by an out-group (disliked) are dismissed (as luck) but negative acts are blamed on their character; reverse is true for an in-group (liked)
→ e.g. rival sports team wins (positive) = the referees helped them (external cause)
but your supported team wins (positive) = superior skills (internal cause)

Unit bias

def:
→ e.g.

Isolation effect (Von Restorff effect)

def: when multiple similar items are present, the one that differs from the rest is more likely to be remembered
→ e.g. you might remember 1 girl in a crowd of 100 boys more because she stands out more

Weber–Fechner law

def: a principle in psychophysics stating that the perceived change in a stimulus is proportional to the initial stimulus — small change is noticeable in weak stimuli but the same absolute change is not noticeable in strong stimuli
→ e.g. adding 1 candle to a dark room with 2 candles makes a big perceived difference (50% increase) vs. adding 1 candle to a brightly lit room with 100 candles makes no noticeable difference (1% increase)
⇒ so basically everything is kinda relative to the reference point, and we are much more sensitive to the relative change vs. the absolute value

Well-traveled road effect

def: estimating that travel time on a familiar routine is shorter than on an unfamiliar route of the same (or less) duration
→ e.g. your daily commute feels quick and easy, but new route to a friend’s house that take the same 20min feels much longer and more tedious

Zero sum bias

def: incorrectly view a situation as a zero-sum game (= one’s gain is another’s loss), when it’s not
→ e.g. a colleague gets a promotion and you assume it means there’s one fewer promotion available for you in the future

Zero-risk bias

def:
→ e.g.

Additional Cognitive biases

Action Bias
Affect Heuristic
Ambiguity Effect
Apophenia
Arrival Fallacy
Availability Bias
Belief Perseverance
Cobra Effect
Complexity Bias
Emotional Reasoning
End Of History Illusion
False Compromise Fallacy
Illusory Correlations
Inference Observation Confusion
Naive Realism
Nirvana Fallacy
Novelty Fallacy
Pink Elephant Paradox
Present Bias
Psychological Reactance
Selective Recall
Semantic Traps
Social Proof
Temporal Discounting
Willpower Parado

deeilna

🌱 psychology 101

definitions

cognitive biases

I. 4 types of life problems

i. Information overload

ii. Ambiguity

iii. Speed

iv. Memory

II. list of biases by problem

1. too much information

2. not enough meaning

3. need to act fast

4. what should we remember

III. problems → solutions_problems

list en vrac (+200)

Abilene paradox

Absent-mindedness

Actor-observer bias

Ambiguity bias

Anchoring

Anecdotal fallacy

Anthropomorphism

Appeal to novelty

Appeal to probability fallacy

Argument from fallacy

Armchair fallacy

Attentional bias

Authority bias

Automation bias

Availability heuristic

Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon

Backfire effect

Bandwagon effect

Barnum effect

Base rate fallacy

Belief bias

Bias blind spot

Bike-shedding effect

Bizarreness effect

Bucket error (Extension Neglect)

Cheerleader effect

Chesterton’s fence

Choice-supportive bias

Clustering illusion

Cognitive dissonance

Confabulation

Confirmation bias

Congruence bias

Conjunction fallacy

Conservatism

Context effect

Continued influence effect

Contrast effect

Cross-race effect

Cryptomnesia

Cue-dependent forgetting

Curse of knowledge

Declinism

Decoy effect

Defensive attribution hypothesis

Delmore effect

Denomination effect

Disposition effect

Distinction bias

Dunning-Kruger effect

Duration neglect

Effort justification

Egocentric bias

Empathy gap

Endowment effect

Escalation of commitment

Essentialism

Expectation bias

Extrinsic incentive error

Fading affect bias

False consensus effect

False memory

Focusing effect

Forer effect