Category
Cognitive Bias
Systematic patterns in how we judge, remember and decide - the predictable ways our thinking diverges from logic.
41 concepts
Affect Heuristic
When your feelings about something shape what you believe to be true about it.
Cognitive BiasAnchoring Bias
The first piece of information you encounter disproportionately shapes everything that follows.
Cognitive BiasAttentional Bias
The tendency for your perception to be shaped by what you're already thinking about, worrying about, or primed to notice.
Cognitive BiasAuthority Bias
We give disproportionate weight to the opinions of people we perceive as authorities - even outside their expertise.
Cognitive BiasAvailability Heuristic
We judge how likely something is based on how easily we can think of an example - not on how often it actually happens.
Cognitive BiasBandwagon Effect
The tendency to adopt beliefs, behaviours, or trends because other people are doing so.
Cognitive BiasBen Franklin Effect
We grow to like people we've done favours for, not just people who've done favours for us.
Cognitive BiasBlind Spot Bias
The tendency to recognise cognitive biases in others while failing to see them in yourself.
Cognitive BiasClustering Illusion
The tendency to see meaningful patterns in small clusters of random data, when the clusters are exactly what randomness looks like.
Cognitive BiasCognitive Dissonance
The uncomfortable tension we feel when holding two contradictory beliefs at the same time.
Cognitive BiasComplexity Bias
The tendency to prefer complex explanations over simple ones, and to mistrust simple solutions to problems that feel complicated.
Cognitive BiasConfirmation Bias
We seek out information that supports what we already believe, and ignore what doesn't.
Cognitive BiasConformity Bias
The pull to adjust your beliefs, behaviours, or opinions to match those of the group around you.
Cognitive BiasContrast Effect
The tendency for your judgement of something to shift depending on what you compare it to.
Cognitive BiasCurse of Knowledge
The difficulty of imagining what it's like not to know something you already know.
Cognitive BiasDunning-Kruger Effect
The less you know about something, the more confident you're likely to feel about it.
Cognitive BiasEffort Justification
The harder we work for something, the more we convince ourselves it was worth it - regardless of whether it was.
Cognitive BiasFalse Consensus Effect
We tend to assume that most people think the way we do - and we're usually wrong.
Cognitive BiasFrequency Illusion
Once you notice something for the first time, you suddenly seem to see it everywhere - not because it's more common, but because you're now looking for it.
Cognitive BiasFunctional Fixedness
The tendency to see objects, tools, and ideas only in terms of their conventional use, making it harder to find creative solutions.
Cognitive BiasFundamental Attribution Error
The tendency to explain other people's behaviour as a result of their character while explaining your own as a result of your circumstances.
Cognitive BiasGroupthink
When the desire for harmony in a group overrides honest analysis, leading to poor decisions nobody individually would have made.
Cognitive BiasHalo Effect
One positive trait colours your entire perception of a person, product, or idea.
Cognitive BiasHindsight Bias
The tendency to believe, after an event has occurred, that you knew it was going to happen all along.
Cognitive BiasIllusory Correlation
Perceiving a relationship between two things when no meaningful connection exists - or when the connection is far weaker than it appears.
Cognitive BiasIn-Group/Out-Group Bias
The tendency to favour people in your own group and view those outside it with suspicion, distrust, or hostility.
Cognitive BiasLaw of the Instrument
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail - the tendency to over-rely on a familiar tool or approach for every problem.
Cognitive BiasLoss Aversion
Losses feel roughly twice as painful as equivalent gains feel good.
Cognitive BiasMere Exposure Effect
The tendency to develop a preference for things simply because you've encountered them before.
Cognitive BiasNaive Realism
The belief that you see the world as it objectively is - and that anyone who disagrees must be biased, uninformed, or irrational.
Cognitive BiasNegativity Bias
The tendency for negative experiences, information, and emotions to affect us more strongly than positive ones.
Cognitive BiasOmission Bias
The tendency to judge harmful actions as worse than equally harmful inactions, even when doing nothing causes more damage.
Cognitive BiasOptimism Bias
The tendency to overestimate the likelihood of positive outcomes and underestimate the likelihood of negative ones happening to you.
Cognitive BiasReactance
The instinct to resist or do the opposite when you feel your freedom of choice is being threatened or taken away.
Cognitive BiasSalience Bias
The tendency to give disproportionate weight to prominent, vivid, or emotionally striking information while overlooking quieter details.
Cognitive BiasSelf-Serving Bias
The tendency to credit your successes to skill and your failures to circumstances.
Cognitive BiasSpotlight Effect
The tendency to overestimate how much other people notice your appearance, behaviour, and mistakes.
Cognitive BiasStatus Quo Bias
The preference for the current state of affairs, where any change is perceived as a loss.
Cognitive BiasSunk Cost Fallacy
Continuing to invest in something because of what you've already put in, not because of what you'll get out.
Cognitive BiasSurvivorship Bias
Focusing on the people or things that succeeded while overlooking those that didn't - and drawing false conclusions from the incomplete picture.
Cognitive BiasZero-Sum Thinking
The assumption that any situation is a competition where one person's gain must be another's loss.