# workplace

Anchoring Bias

The first piece of information you encounter disproportionately shapes everything that follows.

Logical Fallacy

Appeal to Tradition

The assumption that something is better, correct, or preferable simply because it's the way things have always been done.

Aversive Racism

When people who genuinely believe they are not prejudiced still harbour unconscious biases that shape their behaviour in subtle ways.

Ben Franklin Effect

We grow to like people we've done favours for, not just people who've done favours for us.

Betrayal Aversion

We'd rather face a worse outcome from chance than a better one that carries any risk of being betrayed by another person.

Blind Spot Bias

The tendency to recognise cognitive biases in others while failing to see them in yourself.

Bystander Effect

The more people who witness a problem, the less likely any one of them is to help.

Circle of Competence

Knowing the boundaries of what you genuinely understand - and having the discipline to stay inside them when it matters.

Compartmentalisation

Keeping contradictory beliefs, values, or behaviours in separate mental boxes so they never have to confront each other.

Complexity Bias

The tendency to prefer complex explanations over simple ones, and to mistrust simple solutions to problems that feel complicated.

Contrast Effect

The tendency for your judgement of something to shift depending on what you compare it to.

Curse of Knowledge

The difficulty of imagining what it's like not to know something you already know.

Decision Fatigue

The deterioration in the quality of decisions made by a person after a long session of decision-making, as mental energy depletes.

Denial

The refusal to accept an uncomfortable truth, even when the evidence is overwhelming.

Diffusion of Responsibility

The tendency to feel less personally responsible for taking action when others are present.

Displacement

Redirecting an emotional response - usually anger or frustration - away from its real source and onto a safer, less threatening target.

Manipulation Tactic

Divide and Conquer

A strategy of breaking apart alliances and turning potential allies against each other to maintain control.

Effort Justification

The harder we work for something, the more we convince ourselves it was worth it - regardless of whether it was.

First Principles Thinking

Breaking a problem down to its most basic truths and building up from there, rather than reasoning by analogy.

Functional Fixedness

The tendency to see objects, tools, and ideas only in terms of their conventional use, making it harder to find creative solutions.

Fundamental 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.

Manipulation Tactic

Gaslighting

Manipulating someone into doubting their own perception, memory, or sanity.

Groupthink

When the desire for harmony in a group overrides honest analysis, leading to poor decisions nobody individually would have made.

Halo Effect

One positive trait colours your entire perception of a person, product, or idea.

Hanlon's Razor

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by ignorance, carelessness, or incompetence.

Hindsight Bias

The tendency to believe, after an event has occurred, that you knew it was going to happen all along.

Implicit Association

The automatic, unconscious mental connections between concepts, groups, and attributes that shape perception and behaviour without conscious awareness.

In-Group/Out-Group Bias

The tendency to favour people in your own group and view those outside it with suspicion, distrust, or hostility.

Independent Evaluation

Forming your own judgement about an idea or claim before looking at what everyone else thinks.

Inversion

Instead of asking how to succeed, ask what would guarantee failure - then avoid those things.

Law 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.

Learned Helplessness

When repeated failure teaches you to stop trying - even when the situation has changed and escape is possible.

Loss Aversion

Losses feel roughly twice as painful as equivalent gains feel good.

Microaggressions

Small, everyday slights and indignities - often unintentional - that communicate hostility or prejudice toward members of marginalised groups.

Moral Hypocrisy

Judging others by a stricter moral standard than the one you apply to yourself.

Moral Licensing

The psychological loophole where doing something good gives you permission to do something bad.

Logical Fallacy

Moving the Goalposts

Changing the criteria for proof or success after they've been met - ensuring that no evidence is ever good enough.

Normalcy Bias

The tendency to underestimate the likelihood and impact of a disaster or major disruption because things have always been fine before.

Obedience to Authority

The tendency for people to comply with instructions from a perceived authority figure, even when those instructions conflict with their own conscience.

Opportunity Cost

Every choice has a hidden price tag: the value of the next-best thing you gave up by choosing this one.

Optimism Bias

The tendency to overestimate the likelihood of positive outcomes and underestimate the likelihood of negative ones happening to you.

Pluralistic Ignorance

When everyone privately disagrees with something but goes along with it because they assume everyone else agrees.

Probabilistic Thinking

Thinking in terms of likelihoods and ranges of outcomes rather than certainties, so you make better decisions under uncertainty.

Rationalisation

Constructing a logical-sounding explanation for a decision or behaviour that was actually driven by emotion.

Second-Order Thinking

Thinking beyond the immediate consequences of a decision to consider what happens next - and what happens after that.

Self-Serving Bias

The tendency to credit your successes to skill and your failures to circumstances.

Spotlight Effect

The tendency to overestimate how much other people notice your appearance, behaviour, and mistakes.

Status Quo Bias

The preference for the current state of affairs, where any change is perceived as a loss.

Sunk Cost Fallacy

Continuing to invest in something because of what you've already put in, not because of what you'll get out.