Cognitive bias
A cognitive bias is a systematic pattern of deviation from norm or rationality in judgment. Individuals create their own "subjective reality" from their perception of the input. An individual's construction of reality, not the objective input, m ...
es are systematic patterns of deviation from norm and/or rationality in judgment. They are often studied in
psychology
Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries betwe ...
,
sociology
Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of Interpersonal ties, social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of Empirical ...
and
behavioral economics
Behavioral economics studies the effects of psychological, cognitive, emotional, cultural and social factors on the decisions of individuals or institutions, such as how those decisions vary from those implied by classical economic theory. ...
.
Although the reality of most of these biases is confirmed by
reproducible
Reproducibility, also known as replicability and repeatability, is a major principle underpinning the scientific method. For the findings of a study to be reproducible means that results obtained by an experiment or an observational study or in a ...
research, there are often controversies about how to classify these biases or how to explain them. Several
theoretical causes are known for some cognitive biases, which provides a classification of biases by their common generative mechanism (such as noisy information-processing
[Martin Hilbert (2012) ]
"Toward a synthesis of cognitive biases: How noisy information processing can bias human decision making"
'. Psychological Bulletin, 138(2), 211–237; free access to the study here: https://www.martinhilbert.net/toward-a-synthesis-of-cognitive-biases/).
Gerd Gigerenzer
Gerd Gigerenzer (born 3 September 1947) is a German psychologist who has studied the use of bounded rationality and heuristics in decision making. Gigerenzer is director emeritus of the Center for Adaptive Behavior and Cognition (ABC) at the Max P ...
has criticized the framing of cognitive biases as errors in judgment, and favors interpreting them as arising from rational deviations from logical thought.
Explanations include information-processing rules (i.e., mental shortcuts), called ''
heuristics
A heuristic (; ), or heuristic technique, is any approach to problem solving or self-discovery that employs a practical method that is not guaranteed to be optimal, perfect, or rational, but is nevertheless sufficient for reaching an immediate, ...
'', that the brain uses to produce
decisions or judgments. Biases have a variety of forms and appear as cognitive ("cold") bias, such as mental noise,
or motivational ("hot") bias, such as when beliefs are distorted by
wishful thinking
Wishful thinking is the formation of beliefs based on what might be pleasing to imagine, rather than on evidence, rationality, or reality. It is a product of resolving conflicts between belief and desire.
Methodologies to examine wishful think ...
. Both effects can be present at the same time.
There are also controversies over some of these biases as to whether they count as useless or
irrational
Irrationality is cognition, thinking, talking, or acting without inclusion of rationality. It is more specifically described as an action or opinion given through inadequate use of reason, or through emotional distress or cognitive deficiency. T ...
, or whether they result in useful attitudes or behavior. For example, when getting to know others, people tend to ask
leading question
In common law systems that rely on testimony by witnesses, a leading question is a question that suggests a particular answer and contains information the examiner is looking to have confirmed. The use of leading questions in court to elicit test ...
s which seem biased towards confirming their assumptions about the person. However, this kind of
confirmation bias
Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports one's prior beliefs or values. People display this bias when they select information that supports their views, ignoring ...
has also been argued to be an example of
social skill
A social skill is any competence facilitating interaction and communication with others where social rules and relations are created, communicated, and changed in verbal and nonverbal ways. The process of learning these skills is called so ...
; a way to establish a connection with the other person.
Although this research overwhelmingly involves human subjects, some findings that demonstrate bias have been found in non-human animals as well. For example,
loss aversion
Loss aversion is the tendency to prefer avoiding losses to acquiring equivalent gains. The principle is prominent in the domain of economics. What distinguishes loss aversion from risk aversion is that the utility of a monetary payoff depends o ...
has been shown in monkeys and
hyperbolic discounting
In economics, hyperbolic discounting is a time-''inconsistent'' model of delay discounting. It is one of the cornerstones of behavioral economics and its brain-basis is actively being studied by neuroeconomics researchers.
According to the disc ...
has been observed in rats, pigeons, and monkeys.
Belief, decision-making and behavioral
These biases affect belief formation, reasoning processes, business and economic decisions, and human behavior in general.
Anchoring bias
The anchoring bias, or focalism, is the tendency to rely too heavily—to "anchor"—on one trait or piece of information when making decisions (usually the first piece of information acquired on that subject).
Anchoring bias includes or involves the following:
*
Common source bias
Common may refer to:
Places
* Common, a townland in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland
* Boston Common, a central public park in Boston, Massachusetts
* Cambridge Common, common land area in Cambridge, Massachusetts
* Clapham Common, originally com ...
, the tendency to combine or compare research studies from the same source, or from sources that use the same methodologies or data.
*
Conservatism bias
In cognitive psychology and decision science, conservatism or conservatism bias is a bias which refers to the tendency to revise one's belief insufficiently when presented with new evidence. This bias describes human belief revision in which peo ...
, the tendency to insufficiently
revise one's belief when presented with new evidence.
*
Functional fixedness
Functional fixedness is a cognitive bias that limits a person to use an object only in the way it is traditionally used. The concept of functional fixedness originated in Gestalt psychology, a movement in psychology that emphasizes holistic proces ...
, a tendency limiting a person to using an object only in the way it is traditionally used.
*
Law of the instrument
The law of the instrument, law of the hammer, Maslow's hammer (or gavel), or golden hammer is a cognitive bias that involves an over-reliance on a familiar tool. Abraham Maslow wrote in 1966, "If the only tool you have is a hammer, it is tempting ...
, an over-reliance on a familiar tool or methods, ignoring or under-valuing alternative approaches. "If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail."
Apophenia
The tendency to perceive meaningful connections between unrelated things.
The following are types of apophenia:
*
Clustering illusion
The clustering illusion is the tendency to erroneously consider the inevitable "streaks" or "clusters" arising in small samples from random distributions to be non-random. The illusion is caused by a human tendency to underpredict the amount of v ...
, the tendency to overestimate the importance of small runs, streaks, or clusters in large samples of random data (that is, seeing phantom patterns).
*
Illusory correlation
In psychology, illusory correlation is the phenomenon of perceiving a relationship between variables (typically people, events, or behaviors) even when no such relationship exists. A false association may be formed because rare or novel occurren ...
, a tendency to inaccurately perceive a relationship between two unrelated events.
*
Pareidolia
Pareidolia (; ) is the tendency for perception to impose a meaningful interpretation on a nebulous stimulus, usually visual, so that one sees an object, pattern, or meaning where there is none.
Common examples are perceived images of animals, ...
, a tendency to perceive a vague and random stimulus (often an image or sound) as significant, e.g., seeing images of animals or faces in clouds, the
man in the Moon
In many cultures, several pareidolic images of a human face, head or body are recognized in the disc of the full moon; they are generally known as the Man in the Moon. The images are based on the appearance of the dark areas (known as lunar mar ...
, and hearing non-existent
hidden message
A hidden message is information that is not immediately noticeable, and that must be discovered or uncovered and interpreted before it can be known. Hidden messages include backwards audio messages, hidden visual messages and symbolic or crypti ...
s on
records played in reverse.
Availability heuristic
The availability heuristic (also known as the availability bias) is the tendency to overestimate the likelihood of events with greater "availability" in memory, which can be influenced by how recent the memories are or how unusual or emotionally charged they may be. The availability heuristic includes or involves the following:
*
Anthropocentric thinking
Anthropocentrism (; ) is the belief that human beings are the central or most important entity in the universe. The term can be used interchangeably with humanocentrism, and some refer to the concept as human supremacy or human exceptionalism. ...
, the tendency to use human analogies as a basis for reasoning about other, less familiar, biological phenomena.
*
Anthropomorphism
Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human traits, emotions, or intentions to non-human entities. It is considered to be an innate tendency of human psychology.
Personification is the related attribution of human form and characteristics t ...
or personification, the tendency to characterize animals, objects, and abstract concepts as possessing human-like traits, emotions, and intentions. The opposite bias, of not attributing feelings or thoughts to another person, is
dehumanised perception, a type of
objectification
In social philosophy, objectification is the act of treating a person, as an object or a thing. It is part of dehumanization, the act of disavowing the humanity of others. Sexual objectification, the act of treating a person as a mere object of sex ...
.
*
Attentional bias
Attentional bias refers to how a person's perception is affected by selective factors in their attention. Attentional biases may explain an individual's failure to consider alternative possibilities when occupied with an existing train of thought. ...
, the tendency of perception to be affected by recurring thoughts.
*
Frequency illusion or
Baader–Meinhof phenomenon. The frequency illusion is that once something has been noticed then every instance of that thing is noticed, leading to the belief it has a high frequency of occurrence (a form of
selection bias
Selection bias is the bias introduced by the selection of individuals, groups, or data for analysis in such a way that proper randomization is not achieved, thereby failing to ensure that the sample obtained is representative of the population int ...
).
The Baader–Meinhof phenomenon is the illusion where something that has recently come to one's attention suddenly seems to appear with improbable frequency shortly afterwards. It was named after an incidence of frequency illusion in which the
Baader–Meinhof Group was mentioned.
*
Implicit association, where the speed with which people can match words depends on how closely they are associated.
*
Salience bias, the tendency to focus on items that are more prominent or emotionally striking and ignore those that are unremarkable, even though this difference is often irrelevant by objective standards. See also
von Restorff effect The Von Restorff effect, also known as the "isolation effect", predicts that when multiple homogeneous stimuli are presented, the stimulus that differs from the rest is more likely to be remembered. The theory was coined by German psychiatrist and p ...
.
*
Selection bias
Selection bias is the bias introduced by the selection of individuals, groups, or data for analysis in such a way that proper randomization is not achieved, thereby failing to ensure that the sample obtained is representative of the population int ...
, which happens when the members of a
statistical sample are not chosen completely at random, which leads to the sample not being representative of the population.
*
Survivorship bias
Survivorship bias or survival bias is the logical error of concentrating on entities that passed a selection process while overlooking those that did not. This can lead to incorrect conclusions because of incomplete data.
Survivorship bias is ...
, which is concentrating on the people or things that "survived" some process and inadvertently overlooking those that did not because of their lack of visibility.
*
Well travelled road effect
The well travelled road effect is a cognitive bias in which travellers will estimate the time taken to traverse routes differently depending on their familiarity with the route. Frequently travelled routes are assessed as taking a shorter time than ...
, the tendency to underestimate the duration taken to traverse oft-travelled routes and overestimate the duration taken to traverse less familiar routes.
Cognitive dissonance
* The
Normalcy bias
Normalcy bias, or normality bias, is a cognitive bias which leads people to disbelieve or minimize threat warnings. Consequently, individuals underestimate the likelihood of a disaster, when it might affect them, and its potential adverse effects. ...
, a form of
cognitive dissonance
In the field of psychology, cognitive dissonance is the perception of contradictory information, and the mental toll of it. Relevant items of information include a person's actions, feelings, ideas, beliefs, values, and things in the environment. ...
, is the refusal to plan for, or react to, a disaster which has never happened before.
*
Effort justification
Effort justification is an idea and paradigm in social psychology stemming from Leon Festinger's theory of cognitive dissonance. Effort justification is a person's tendency to attribute the value of an outcome they put effort into achieving as gre ...
is a person's tendency to attribute greater value to an outcome if they had to put effort into achieving it. This can result in more value being applied to an outcome than it actually has. An example of this is the
IKEA effect
The IKEA effect is a cognitive bias in which consumers place a disproportionately high value on products they partially created. The name refers to Swedish manufacturer and furniture retailer IKEA, which sells many items of furniture that req ...
, the tendency for people to place a disproportionately high value on objects that they partially assembled themselves, such as furniture from
IKEA
IKEA (; ) is a Dutch multinational conglomerate based in the Netherlands that designs and sells , kitchen appliances, decoration, home accessories, and various other goods and home services. Started in 1943 by Ingvar Kamprad, IKEA has been t ...
, regardless of the quality of the end product.
*
Ben Franklin effect
The Ben Franklin effect is a proposed psychological phenomenon: people like someone more after doing a favour for them. An explanation for this is cognitive dissonance. People reason that they help others because they like them, even if they do n ...
, where a person who has performed a favor for someone is more likely to do another favor for that person than they would be if they had ''received'' a favor from that person.
Confirmation bias
Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, focus on and remember information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions. There are multiple other cognitive biases which involve or are types of confirmation bias:
*
Backfire effect
Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports one's prior beliefs or values. People display this bias when they select information that supports their views, ignoring ...
, a tendency to react to disconfirming evidence by strengthening one's previous beliefs.
The existence of this bias as a widespread phenomenon has been disputed in empirical studies.
*
Congruence bias
Congruence bias is the tendency of people to over-rely on testing their initial hypothesis (the most ''congruent'' one) while neglecting to test alternative hypotheses. That is, people rarely try experiments that could disprove their initial beli ...
, the tendency to test hypotheses exclusively through direct testing, instead of testing possible alternative hypotheses.
*
Experimenter's or
expectation bias
The observer-expectancy effect (also called the experimenter-expectancy effect, expectancy bias, observer effect, or experimenter effect) is a form of reactivity in which a researcher's cognitive bias causes them to subconsciously influence th ...
, the tendency for experimenters to believe, certify, and publish data that agree with their expectations for the outcome of an experiment, and to disbelieve, discard, or downgrade the corresponding weightings for data that appear to conflict with those expectations.
*
Observer-expectancy effect
The observer-expectancy effect (also called the experimenter-expectancy effect, expectancy bias, observer effect, or experimenter effect) is a form of reactivity in which a researcher's cognitive bias causes them to subconsciously influence t ...
, when a researcher expects a given result and therefore unconsciously manipulates an experiment or misinterprets data in order to find it (see also
subject-expectancy effect
In scientific research and psychotherapy, the subject-expectancy effect, is a form of reactivity that occurs when a research subject expects a given result and therefore unconsciously affects the outcome, or reports the expected result. Because ...
).
*
Selective perception
Selective perception is the tendency not to notice and more quickly forget stimuli that cause emotional discomfort and contradict our prior beliefs. For example, a teacher may have a favorite student because they are biased by in-group favoritism. ...
, the tendency for expectations to affect perception.
*
Semmelweis reflex
The Semmelweis reflex or "Semmelweis effect" is a metaphor for the reflex-like tendency to reject new evidence or new knowledge because it contradicts established norms, beliefs, or paradigms.
The term derives from the name of Ignaz Semmelweis, a ...
, the tendency to reject new evidence that contradicts a paradigm.
Egocentric bias
Egocentric bias is the tendency to rely too heavily on one's own perspective and/or have a higher opinion of oneself than reality. The following are forms of egocentric bias:
*
Bias blind spot
The bias blind spot is the cognitive bias of recognizing the impact of biases on the judgment of others, while failing to see the impact of biases on one's own judgment. The term was created by Emily Pronin, a social psychologist from Princeton Uni ...
, the tendency to see oneself as less biased than other people, or to be able to identify more cognitive biases in others than in oneself.
*
False consensus effect, the tendency for people to overestimate the degree to which others agree with them.
*
False uniqueness bias, the tendency of people to see their projects and themselves as more singular than they actually are.
*
Forer effect
The Barnum effect, also called the Forer effect or, less commonly, the Barnum–Forer effect, is a common psychological phenomenon whereby individuals give high accuracy ratings to descriptions of their personality that supposedly are tailored ...
or
Barnum effect
The Barnum effect, also called the Forer effect or, less commonly, the Barnum–Forer effect, is a common psychological phenomenon whereby individuals give high accuracy ratings to descriptions of their personality that supposedly are tailored ...
, the tendency for individuals to give high accuracy ratings to descriptions of their personality that supposedly are tailored specifically for them, but are in fact vague and general enough to apply to a wide range of people. This effect can provide a partial explanation for the widespread acceptance of some beliefs and practices, such as astrology, fortune telling, graphology, and some types of personality tests.
*
Illusion of asymmetric insight
The illusion of asymmetric insight is a cognitive bias whereby people perceive their knowledge of others to surpass other people's knowledge of them.. This bias "has been traced to people's tendency to view their own spontaneous or off-the-cuff re ...
, where people perceive their knowledge of their peers to surpass their peers' knowledge of them.
*
Illusion of control
The illusion of control is the tendency for people to overestimate their ability to control events. It was named by U.S. psychologist Ellen Langer and is thought to influence gambling behavior and belief in the paranormal. Along with illusory supe ...
, the tendency to overestimate one's degree of influence over other external events.
*
Illusion of transparency The illusion of transparency is a tendency for people to overestimate the degree to which their personal mental state is known by others. Another manifestation of the illusion of transparency (sometimes called the observer's illusion of transparency ...
, the tendency for people to overestimate the degree to which their personal mental state is known by others, and to overestimate how well they understand others' personal mental states.
*
Illusion of validity
Illusion of validity is a cognitive bias in which a person overestimates their ability to interpret and predict accurately the outcome when analyzing a set of data, in particular when the data analyzed show a very consistent pattern—that is, ...
, the tendency to overestimate the accuracy of one's judgments, especially when available information is consistent or inter-correlated.
*
Illusory superiority, the tendency to overestimate one's desirable qualities, and underestimate undesirable qualities, relative to other people. (Also known as "Lake Wobegon effect", "better-than-average effect", or "superiority bias".)
*
Naïve cynicism
Naïve cynicism is a philosophy of mind, cognitive bias and form of psychological egoism that occurs when people naïvely expect more egocentric bias in others than actually is the case.
The term was formally proposed by Justin Kruger and Tho ...
, expecting more egocentric bias in others than in oneself.
*
Naïve realism
In philosophy of perception and philosophy of mind, naïve realism (also known as direct realism, perceptual realism, or common sense realism) is the idea that the senses provide us with direct awareness of objects as they really are. When refer ...
, the belief that we see reality as it really is—objectively and without bias; that the facts are plain for all to see; that rational people will agree with us; and that those who do not are either uninformed, lazy, irrational, or biased.
*
Overconfidence effect
The overconfidence effect is a well-established bias in which a person's subjective ''confidence'' in his or her judgments is reliably greater than the objective ''accuracy'' of those judgments, especially when confidence is relatively high. Overco ...
, a tendency to have excessive confidence in one's own answers to questions. For example, for certain types of questions, answers that people rate as "99% certain" turn out to be wrong 40% of the time.
*
Planning fallacy
The planning fallacy is a phenomenon in which predictions about how much time will be needed to complete a future task display an optimism bias and underestimate the time needed. This phenomenon sometimes occurs regardless of the individual's know ...
, the tendency for people to underestimate the time it will take them to complete a given task.
*
Restraint bias
Restraint bias is the tendency for people to overestimate their ability to control impulsive behavior. An inflated self-control belief may lead to greater exposure to temptation, and increased impulsiveness. Therefore, the restraint bias has beari ...
, the tendency to overestimate one's ability to show restraint in the face of temptation.
*
Trait ascription bias
Trait ascription bias is the tendency for people to view ''themselves'' as relatively variable in terms of personality, behavior and mood while viewing others as much more predictable in their personal traits across different situations. More speci ...
, the tendency for people to view themselves as relatively variable in terms of personality, behavior, and mood while viewing others as much more predictable.
*
Third-person effect
The third-person effect hypothesis predicts that people tend to perceive that mass media messages have a greater effect on others than on themselves, based on personal biases. The third-person effect manifests itself through an individual's overe ...
, a tendency to believe that mass-communicated media messages have a greater effect on others than on themselves.
Extension neglect
The following are forms of extension neglect:
*
Base rate fallacy
The base rate fallacy, also called base rate neglect or base rate bias, is a type of fallacy in which people tend to ignore the base rate (i.e., general prevalence) in favor of the individuating information (i.e., information pertaining only to a ...
or base rate neglect, the tendency to ignore general information and focus on information only pertaining to the specific case, even when the general information is more important.
*
Compassion fade
Compassion fade is the tendency to experience a decrease in empathy as the number of people in need of aid increase. As a type of cognitive bias, it has a significant effect on the prosocial behaviour from which helping behaviour generates.Morri ...
, the tendency to behave more compassionately towards a small number of identifiable victims than to a large number of anonymous ones.
*
Conjunction fallacy
The conjunction fallacy (also known as the Linda problem) is an inference from an array of particulars, in violation of the laws of probability, that a logical conjunction, conjoint set of two or more conclusions is likelier than any single member ...
, the tendency to assume that specific conditions are more probable than a more general version of those same conditions.
*
Duration neglect
Duration neglect is the psychological observation that people's judgments of the unpleasantness of painful experiences depend very little on the duration of those experiences. Multiple experiments have found that these judgments tend to be affecte ...
, the neglect of the duration of an episode in determining its value.
*
Hyperbolic discounting
In economics, hyperbolic discounting is a time-''inconsistent'' model of delay discounting. It is one of the cornerstones of behavioral economics and its brain-basis is actively being studied by neuroeconomics researchers.
According to the disc ...
, where discounting is the tendency for people to have a stronger preference for more immediate payoffs relative to later payoffs. Hyperbolic discounting leads to choices that are inconsistent over time—people make choices today that their future selves would prefer not to have made, despite using the same reasoning.
Also known as current moment bias or present bias, and related to
Dynamic inconsistency
In economics, dynamic inconsistency or time inconsistency is a situation in which a decision-maker's preferences change over time in such a way that a preference can become inconsistent at another point in time. This can be thought of as there be ...
. A good example of this is a study showed that when making food choices for the coming week, 74% of participants chose fruit, whereas when the food choice was for the current day, 70% chose chocolate.
*
Insensitivity to sample size
Insensitivity to sample size is a cognitive bias that occurs when people judge the probability of obtaining a sample statistic without respect to the sample size. For example, in one study subjects assigned the same probability to the likelihood of ...
, the tendency to under-expect variation in small samples.
*
Less-is-better effect
The less-is-better effect is a type of preference reversal that occurs when the lesser or smaller alternative of a proposition is preferred when evaluated separately, but not evaluated together. The term was first proposed by Christopher Hsee.
I ...
, the tendency to prefer a smaller set to a larger set judged separately, but not jointly.
*
Neglect of probability
The neglect of probability, a type of cognitive bias, is the tendency to disregard probability when making a decision under uncertainty and is one simple way in which people regularly violate the normative rules for decision making. Small risks are ...
, the tendency to completely disregard probability when making a decision under uncertainty.
*
Scope neglect
Scope neglect or scope insensitivity is a cognitive bias that occurs when the valuation of a problem is not valued with a multiplicative relationship to its size. Scope neglect is a specific form of extension neglect.
In one study, respondents we ...
or scope insensitivity, the tendency to be insensitive to the size of a problem when evaluating it. For example, being willing to pay as much to save 2,000 children or 20,000 children.
*
Zero-risk bias, the preference for reducing a small risk to zero over a greater reduction in a larger risk.
False priors
Biases based on false priors include:
*
Agent detection
Agent detection is the inclination for animals, including humans, to presume the purposeful intervention of a sentient or intelligent agent in situations that may or may not involve one.
Evolutionary origins
It is believed that humans evolved agen ...
, the inclination to presume the purposeful intervention of a sentient or intelligent
agent
Agent may refer to:
Espionage, investigation, and law
*, spies or intelligence officers
* Law of agency, laws involving a person authorized to act on behalf of another
** Agent of record, a person with a contractual agreement with an insuranc ...
.
*
Automation bias
Automation bias is the propensity for humans to favor suggestions from automated decision-making systems and to ignore contradictory information made without automation, even if it is correct. Automation bias stems from the social psychology lite ...
, the tendency to depend excessively on automated systems which can lead to erroneous automated information overriding correct decisions.
*
Gender bias
Sexism is prejudice or discrimination based on one's sex or gender. Sexism can affect anyone, but it primarily affects women and girls.There is a clear and broad consensus among academic scholars in multiple fields that sexism refers primaril ...
, a widespread set of implicit biases that discriminate against a gender. For example, the assumption that women are less suited to jobs requiring high intellectual ability. Or the assumption that people or animals are male in the absence of any indicators of gender.
*
Sexual overperception bias, the tendency to overestimate sexual interest of another person in oneself, and
Sexual underperception bias
Error management theory (EMT) is an extensive theory of perception and cognition biases created by David Buss and Martie Haselton. How humans think and make decisions using heuristics and biases may be embedded in the human brain. Error manageme ...
, the tendency to underestimate it.
*
Stereotyping
In social psychology, a stereotype is a generalized belief about a particular category of people. It is an expectation that people might have about every person of a particular group. The type of expectation can vary; it can be, for example ...
, expecting a member of a group to have certain characteristics without having actual information about that individual.
Framing effect
The framing effect is the tendency to draw different conclusions from the same information, depending on how that information is presented. Forms of the framing effect include:
*
Contrast effect
A contrast effect is the enhancement or diminishment, relative to normal, of perception, cognition or related performance as a result of successive (immediately previous) or simultaneous exposure to a stimulus of lesser or greater value in the sa ...
, the enhancement or reduction of a certain stimulus's perception when compared with a recently observed, contrasting object.
*
Decoy effect
In marketing, the decoy effect (or attraction effect or asymmetric dominance effect) is the phenomenon whereby consumers will tend to have a specific change in preference between two options when also presented with a third option that is ''asymmet ...
, where preferences for either option A or B change in favor of option B when option C is presented, which is completely dominated by option B (inferior in all respects) and partially dominated by option A.
*
Default effect
The default effect, a concept within the study of nudge theory, explains the tendency for an agent to generally accept the default option in a strategic interaction. The default option is the course of action that the agent, or chooser, will obtain ...
, the tendency to favor the default option when given a choice between several options.
*
Denomination effect, the tendency to spend more money when it is denominated in small amounts (e.g., coins) rather than large amounts (e.g., bills).
*
Distinction bias
Distinction bias, a concept of decision theory, is the tendency to view two options as more distinctive when evaluating them simultaneously than when evaluating them separately.
One writer has presented what he called "a simplistic view" of distin ...
, the tendency to view two options as more dissimilar when evaluating them simultaneously than when evaluating them separately.
*
Domain neglect bias, the tendency to neglect relevant domain knowledge while solving interdisciplinary problems.
Logical fallacy
Logical fallacy biases include:
*
Berkson's paradox
Berkson's paradox, also known as Berkson's bias, collider bias, or Berkson's fallacy, is a result in conditional probability and statistics which is often found to be counterintuitive, and hence a veridical paradox. It is a complicating factor ari ...
, the tendency to misinterpret statistical experiments involving conditional probabilities.
*
Escalation of commitment
Escalation of commitment is a human behavior pattern in which an individual or group facing increasingly negative outcomes from a decision, action, or investment nevertheless continue the behavior instead of altering course. The actor maintains ...
, irrational escalation, or
sunk cost fallacy
In economics and business decision-making, a sunk cost (also known as retrospective cost) is a cost that has already been incurred and cannot be recovered. Sunk costs are contrasted with '' prospective costs'', which are future costs that may be ...
, where people justify increased investment in a decision, based on the cumulative prior investment, despite new evidence suggesting that the decision was probably wrong.
*
G.I. Joe fallacy The G.I. Joe fallacy is the mistaken belief that mere awareness of a cognitive or social bias is sufficient to effectively counteract its influence. This fallacy derives its name from the animated television series '' G.I. Joe'', which aired in t ...
, the tendency to think that knowing about cognitive bias is enough to overcome it.
*
Gambler's fallacy, the tendency to think that future probabilities are altered by past events, when in reality they are unchanged. The fallacy arises from an erroneous conceptualization of the
law of large numbers
In probability theory, the law of large numbers (LLN) is a theorem that describes the result of performing the same experiment a large number of times. According to the law, the average of the results obtained from a large number of trials shou ...
. For example, "I've flipped heads with this coin five times consecutively, so the chance of tails coming out on the sixth flip is much greater than heads."
*
Hot-hand fallacy
The "hot hand" (also known as the "hot hand phenomenon" or "hot hand fallacy") is a phenomenon, previously considered a cognitive social bias, that a person who experiences a successful outcome has a greater chance of success in further attempts. ...
(also known as "hot hand phenomenon" or "hot hand"), the belief that a person who has experienced success with a random event has a greater chance of further success in additional attempts.
*
Illicit transference
A fallacy of illicit transference is an informal fallacy occurring when an argument assumes there is no difference between a term in the ''distributive'' (referring to every member of a class) and ''collective'' (referring to the class itself as a ...
, occurs when a term in the distributive (referring to every member of a class) and collective (referring to the class itself as a whole) sense are treated as equivalent. The variants of this fallacy are the
fallacy of composition
The fallacy of composition is an informal fallacy that arises when one infers that something is true of the whole from the fact that it is true of some part of the whole. A trivial example might be: "This tire is made of rubber, therefore the ve ...
and the
fallacy of division
A fallacy of division is an informal fallacy that occurs when one reasons that something that is true for a whole must also be true of all or some of its parts.
An example:
# The second grade in Jefferson Elementary eats a lot of ice cream
# Ca ...
.
*
Plan continuation bias, failure to recognize that the original plan of action is no longer appropriate for a changing situation or for a situation that is different than anticipated.
*
Subadditivity effect, the tendency to judge the probability of the whole to be less than the probabilities of the parts.
*
Time-saving bias, a tendency to underestimate the time that could be saved (or lost) when increasing (or decreasing) from a relatively low speed, and to overestimate the time that could be saved (or lost) when increasing (or decreasing) from a relatively high speed.
*
Zero-sum bias
Zero-sum game is a mathematical representation in game theory and economic theory of a situation which involves two sides, where the result is an advantage for one side and an equivalent loss for the other. In other words, player one's gain is ...
, where a situation is incorrectly perceived to be like a zero-sum game (i.e., one person gains at the expense of another).
Prospect theory
The following relate to prospect theory:
*
Ambiguity effect
The ambiguity effect is a cognitive bias where decision making is affected by a lack of information, or "ambiguity". The effect implies that people tend to select options for which the probability of a favorable outcome is known, over an option ...
, the tendency to avoid options for which the probability of a favorable outcome is unknown.
*
Disposition effect
The disposition effect is an anomaly discovered in behavioral finance. It relates to the tendency of investors to sell assets that have increased in value, while keeping assets that have dropped in value.
Hersh Shefrin and Meir Statman identified ...
, the tendency to sell an asset that has accumulated in value and resist selling an asset that has declined in value.
*
Dread aversion, just as losses yield double the emotional impact of gains, dread yields double the emotional impact of savouring.
*
Endowment effect
In psychology and behavioral economics, the endowment effect (also known as divestiture aversion and related to the mere ownership effect in social psychology) is the finding that people are more likely to retain an object they own than acquire th ...
, the tendency for people to demand much more to give up an object than they would be willing to pay to acquire it.
*
Loss aversion
Loss aversion is the tendency to prefer avoiding losses to acquiring equivalent gains. The principle is prominent in the domain of economics. What distinguishes loss aversion from risk aversion is that the utility of a monetary payoff depends o ...
, where the perceived disutility of giving up an object is greater than the utility associated with acquiring it. (see also
Sunk cost fallacy
In economics and business decision-making, a sunk cost (also known as retrospective cost) is a cost that has already been incurred and cannot be recovered. Sunk costs are contrasted with '' prospective costs'', which are future costs that may be ...
)
*
Pseudocertainty effect
In prospect theory, the pseudocertainty effect is the tendency for people to perceive an outcome as certain while it is actually uncertain in multi-stage decision making. The evaluation of the certainty of the outcome in a previous stage of decisi ...
, the tendency to make risk-averse choices if the expected outcome is positive, but make risk-seeking choices to avoid negative outcomes.
*
Status quo bias
Status quo bias is an emotional bias; a preference for the maintenance of one's current or previous state of affairs, or a preference to not undertake any action to change this current or previous state. The current baseline (or status quo) is take ...
, the tendency to prefer things to stay relatively the same.
*
System justification
System justification theory (SJT) is a theory within social psychology that system-justifying beliefs serve a psychologically palliative function. It proposes that people have several underlying needs, which vary from individual to individual, that ...
, the tendency to defend and bolster the status quo. Existing social, economic, and political arrangements tend to be preferred, and alternatives disparaged, sometimes even at the expense of individual and collective self-interest.
Self-assessment
*
Dunning–Kruger effect
The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias whereby people with low ability, expertise, or experience regarding a certain type of task or area of knowledge tend to overestimate their ability or knowledge. Some researchers also include in th ...
, the tendency for unskilled individuals to overestimate their own ability and the tendency for experts to underestimate their own ability.
*
Hot-cold empathy gap
A hot-cold empathy gap is a cognitive bias in which people underestimate the influences of visceral drives on their own attitudes, preferences, and behaviors. It is a type of empathy gap.
The most important aspect of this idea is that human und ...
, the tendency to underestimate the influence of
visceral drives on one's attitudes, preferences, and behaviors.
*
Hard–easy effect, the tendency to overestimate one's ability to accomplish hard tasks, and underestimate one's ability to accomplish easy tasks.
*
Illusion of explanatory depth, the tendency to believe that one understands a topic much better than one actually does.
The effect is strongest for explanatory knowledge, whereas people tend to be better at self-assessments for procedural, narrative, or factual knowledge.
*
Objectivity illusion
Objectivity can refer to:
* Objectivity (philosophy), the property of being independent from perception
** Objectivity (science), the goal of eliminating personal biases in the practice of science
** Journalistic objectivity, encompassing fairn ...
, the phenomena where people tend to believe that they are more objective and unbiased than others. This bias can apply to itself - where people are able to see when others are affected by the objectivity illusion, but unable to see it in themselves. See also ''
bias blind spot
The bias blind spot is the cognitive bias of recognizing the impact of biases on the judgment of others, while failing to see the impact of biases on one's own judgment. The term was created by Emily Pronin, a social psychologist from Princeton Uni ...
.''
Truthiness
*
Belief bias
Belief bias is the tendency to judge the strength of arguments based on the plausibility of their conclusion rather than how strongly they support that conclusion. A person is more likely to accept an argument that supports a conclusion that alig ...
, an effect where someone's evaluation of the logical strength of an argument is biased by the believability of the conclusion.
*
Illusory truth effect
The illusory truth effect (also known as the illusion of truth effect, validity effect, truth effect, or the reiteration effect) is the tendency to believe false information to be correct after repeated exposure. This phenomenon was first identif ...
, the tendency to believe that a statement is true if it is
easier to process, or if it has been
stated multiple times, regardless of its actual veracity. These are specific cases of
truthiness
Truthiness is the belief or assertion that a particular statement is true based on the intuition (knowledge), intuition or perceptions of some individual or individuals, without regard to evidence, logic, Intelligence, intellectual examination, o ...
.
*
Rhyme as reason effect, where rhyming statements are perceived as more truthful.
*
Subjective validation
Subjective validation, sometimes called personal validation effect, is a cognitive bias by which people will consider a statement or another piece of information to be correct if it has any personal meaning or significance to them. People whose opi ...
, where statements are perceived as true if a subject's belief demands it to be true. Also assigns perceived connections between coincidences. (Compare
confirmation bias
Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports one's prior beliefs or values. People display this bias when they select information that supports their views, ignoring ...
.)
Other
Social
Association fallacy
Association fallacies include:
*
Authority bias, the tendency to attribute greater accuracy to the opinion of an authority figure (unrelated to its content) and be more influenced by that opinion.
*
Cheerleader effect
The cheerleader effect, also known as the group attractiveness effect, is the cognitive bias which causes people to think individuals are more attractive when they are in a group. The term was backed up by research by Drew Walker and Edward Vul (20 ...
, the tendency for people to appear more attractive in a group than in isolation.
*
Halo effect
The halo effect (sometimes called the halo error) is the tendency for positive impressions of a person, company, brand, or product in one area to positively influence one's opinion or feelings in other areas. Halo effect is “the name given to t ...
, the tendency for a person's positive or negative traits to "spill over" from one personality area to another in others' perceptions of them (see also
physical attractiveness stereotype
The physical attractiveness stereotype is a tendency to assume that people who are physically attractive also possess other desirable personality traits. Stereotyping
In social psychology, a stereotype is a generalized belief about a pa ...
).
Attribution bias
Attribution bias includes:
*
Actor-observer bias, the tendency for explanations of other individuals' behaviors to overemphasize the influence of their personality and underemphasize the influence of their situation (see also
Fundamental attribution error
In social psychology, fundamental attribution error (FAE), also known as correspondence bias or attribution effect, is the tendency for people to under-emphasize situational and environmental explanations for an individual's observed behavior whil ...
), and for explanations of one's own behaviors to do the opposite (that is, to overemphasize the influence of our situation and underemphasize the influence of our own personality).
*
Defensive attribution hypothesis, a tendency to attribute more blame to a harm-doer as the outcome becomes more severe or as personal or situational
similarity to the victim increases.
*
Extrinsic incentives bias
The extrinsic incentives bias is an attributional bias according to which people attribute relatively more to "extrinsic incentives" (such as monetary reward) than to "intrinsic incentives" (such as learning a new skill) when weighing the motives o ...
, an exception to the ''fundamental attribution error'', where people view others as having (situational) extrinsic motivations and (dispositional) intrinsic motivations for oneself
*
Fundamental attribution error
In social psychology, fundamental attribution error (FAE), also known as correspondence bias or attribution effect, is the tendency for people to under-emphasize situational and environmental explanations for an individual's observed behavior whil ...
, the tendency for people to overemphasize personality-based explanations for behaviors observed in others while under-emphasizing the role and power of situational influences on the same behavior
(see also actor-observer bias,
group attribution error The group attribution error refers to people's tendency to believe either
# the characteristics of an individual group member are reflective of the group as a whole, or
# a group's decision outcome must reflect the preferences of individual group me ...
, positivity effect, and
negativity effect
The negativity bias,Kanouse, D. E., & Hanson, L. (1972). Negativity in evaluations. In E. E. Jones, D. E. Kanouse, S. Valins, H. H. Kelley, R. E. Nisbett, & B. Weiner (Eds.), ''Attribution: Perceiving the causes of behavior.'' Morristown, NJ: Gene ...
).
*
Group attribution error The group attribution error refers to people's tendency to believe either
# the characteristics of an individual group member are reflective of the group as a whole, or
# a group's decision outcome must reflect the preferences of individual group me ...
, the biased belief that the characteristics of an individual group member are reflective of the group as a whole or the tendency to assume that group decision outcomes reflect the preferences of group members, even when information is available that clearly suggests otherwise.
*
Hostile attribution bias
Hostile attribution bias, or hostile attribution of intent, is the tendency to interpret others' behaviors as having hostile intent, even when the behavior is ambiguous or benign.Nasby, W., Hayden, B., & DePaulo, B. M. (1980). Attributional bias am ...
, the tendency to interpret others' behaviors as having hostile intent, even when the behavior is ambiguous or benign.
*
Intentionality bias
''Intentionality'' is the power of minds to be about something: to represent or to stand for things, properties and states of affairs. Intentionality is primarily ascribed to mental states, like perceptions, beliefs or desires, which is why it ha ...
, the tendency to judge human action to be intentional rather than accidental.
*
Just-world hypothesis
The just-world hypothesis or just-world fallacy is the cognitive bias that assumes that "people get what they deserve" – that actions will have morally fair and fitting consequences for the actor. For example, the assumptions that noble actions w ...
, the tendency for people to want to believe that the world is fundamentally just, causing them to rationalize an otherwise inexplicable injustice as deserved by the victim(s).
*
Moral luck
Moral luck describes circumstances whereby a moral agent is assigned moral blame or praise for an action or its consequences, even if it is clear that said agent did not have full control over either the action or its consequences. This term, in ...
, the tendency for people to ascribe greater or lesser moral standing based on the outcome of an event.
*
Puritanical bias, the tendency to attribute cause of an undesirable outcome or wrongdoing by an individual to a moral deficiency or lack of self-control rather than taking into account the impact of broader societal determinants .
*
Self-serving bias
A self-serving bias is any cognitive or perceptual process that is distorted by the need to maintain and enhance self-esteem, or the tendency to perceive oneself in an overly favorable manner. It is the belief that individuals tend to ascribe succe ...
, the tendency to claim more responsibility for successes than failures. It may also manifest itself as a tendency for people to evaluate ambiguous information in a way beneficial to their interests (see also
group-serving bias
In-group favoritism, sometimes known as in-group–out-group bias, in-group bias, intergroup bias, or in-group preference, is a pattern of favoring members of one's in-group over out-group members. This can be expressed in evaluation of others, ...
).
*
Ultimate attribution error The ultimate attribution error is a type of attribution error which proposed to explain why attributions of outgroup behavior is more negative (ie. antisocial or undesirable) than ingroup behavior (see '' in-group and out-group''). Ultimate attrib ...
, similar to the fundamental attribution error, in this error a person is likely to make an internal attribution to an entire group instead of the individuals within the group.
Conformity
Conformity is involved in the following:
*
Availability cascade An availability cascade is a self-reinforcing cycle that explains the development of certain kinds of collective beliefs. A novel idea or insight, usually one that seems to explain a complex process in a simple or straightforward manner, gains rapid ...
, a self-reinforcing process in which a
collective belief
A belief is an attitude that something is the case, or that some proposition is true. In epistemology, philosophers use the term "belief" to refer to attitudes about the world which can be either true or false. To believe something is to take i ...
gains more and more plausibility through its increasing repetition in public discourse (or "repeat something long enough and it will become true"). See also
availability heuristic
The availability heuristic, also known as availability bias, is a mental shortcut that relies on immediate examples that come to a given person's mind when evaluating a specific topic, concept, method, or decision. This heuristic, operating on the ...
.
*
Bandwagon effect
The bandwagon effect is the tendency for people to adopt certain behaviors, styles, or attitudes simply because others are doing so. More specifically, it is a cognitive bias by which public opinion or behaviours can alter due to particular acti ...
, the tendency to do (or believe) things because many other people do (or believe) the same. Related to
groupthink
Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an irrational or dysfunctional decision-making outcome. Cohesiveness, or the desire for cohesiveness ...
and
herd behavior
Herd behavior is the behavior of individuals in a group acting collectively without centralized direction. Herd behavior occurs in animals in herds, packs, bird flocks, fish schools and so on, as well as in humans. Voting, demonstrations, rio ...
.
*
Courtesy bias
Response bias is a general term for a wide range of tendencies for participants to respond inaccurately or falsely to questions. These biases are prevalent in research involving participant self-report, such as structured interviews or surveys. R ...
, the tendency to give an opinion that is more socially correct than one's true opinion, so as to avoid offending anyone.
*
Groupthink
Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an irrational or dysfunctional decision-making outcome. Cohesiveness, or the desire for cohesiveness ...
, the psychological
phenomenon
A phenomenon ( : phenomena) is an observable event. The term came into its modern philosophical usage through Immanuel Kant, who contrasted it with the noumenon, which ''cannot'' be directly observed. Kant was heavily influenced by Gottfried W ...
that occurs within a
group of people
In the social sciences, a social group can be defined as two or more people who interact with one another, share similar characteristics, and collectively have a sense of unity. Regardless, social groups come in a myriad of sizes and varieties ...
in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an irrational or dysfunctional
decision-making
In psychology, decision-making (also spelled decision making and decisionmaking) is regarded as the Cognition, cognitive process resulting in the selection of a belief or a course of action among several possible alternative options. It could be ...
outcome. Group members try to minimize conflict and reach a consensus decision without
critical evaluation of alternative viewpoints by actively suppressing dissenting viewpoints, and by isolating themselves from outside influences.
*
Groupshift Groupshift is a phenomenon in which the initial positions of individual members of a group are exaggerated toward a more extreme position. When people are in groups, they make decisions about risk differently from when they are alone. The decision m ...
, the tendency for decisions to be more risk-seeking or risk-averse than the group as a whole, if the group is already biased in that direction
*
Social desirability bias
In social science research, social-desirability bias is a type of response bias that is the tendency of survey respondents to answer questions in a manner that will be viewed favorably by others. It can take the form of over-reporting "good behavio ...
, the tendency to over-report socially desirable characteristics or behaviours in oneself and under-report socially undesirable characteristics or behaviours. See also: .
*
Truth bias is people's inclination towards believing, to some degree, the communication of another person, regardless of whether or not that person is actually lying or being untruthful.
Ingroup bias
Ingroup bias is the tendency for people to give preferential treatment to others they perceive to be members of their own groups. It is related to the following:
*
Not invented here
Not invented here (NIH) is the tendency to avoid using or buying products, research, standards, or knowledge from external origins. It is usually adopted by social, corporate, or institutional cultures. Research illustrates a strong bias against i ...
, an aversion to contact with or use of products, research, standards, or knowledge developed outside a group.
*
Outgroup homogeneity bias
The out-group homogeneity effect is the perception of out-group members as more similar to one another than are in-group members, e.g. "they are alike; we are diverse". Perceivers tend to have impressions about the diversity or variability of group ...
, where individuals see members of other groups as being relatively less varied than members of their own group.
Other social biases
Memory
In
psychology
Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries betwe ...
and
cognitive science, a memory bias is a
cognitive bias
A cognitive bias is a systematic pattern of deviation from norm or rationality in judgment. Individuals create their own "subjective reality" from their perception of the input. An individual's construction of reality, not the objective input, m ...
that either enhances or impairs the recall of a
memory
Memory is the faculty of the mind by which data or information is encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed. It is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future action. If past events could not be remembered, ...
(either the chances that the memory will be recalled at all, or the amount of time it takes for it to be recalled, or both), or that alters the content of a reported memory. There are many types of memory bias, including:
Misattribution of memory
The misattributions include:
*
Cryptomnesia
Cryptomnesia occurs when a forgotten memory returns without its being recognized as such by the subject, who believes it is something new and original. It is a memory bias whereby a person may falsely recall generating a thought, an idea, a tune, ...
, where a memory is mistaken for novel thought or imagination, because there is no subjective experience of it being a memory.
*
False memory
In psychology, a false memory is a phenomenon where someone recalls something that did not happen or recalls it differently from the way it actually happened. Suggestibility, activation of associated information, the incorporation of misinformat ...
, where imagination is mistaken for a memory.
*
Social cryptomnesia, a failure by people and society in general to remember the origin of a change, in which people know that a change has occurred in society, but forget how this change occurred; that is, the steps that were taken to bring this change about, and who took these steps. This has led to reduced social credit towards the minorities who made major sacrifices that led to the change in societal values.
*
Source confusion, episodic memories are confused with other information, creating distorted memories.
*
Suggestibility
Suggestibility is the quality of being inclined to accept and act on the suggestions of others. One may fill in gaps in certain memories with false information given by another when recalling a scenario or moment. Suggestibility uses cues to disto ...
, where ideas suggested by a questioner are mistaken for memory.
* The
Perky effect, where real images can influence imagined images, or be misremembered as imagined rather than real
Other
See also
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Footnotes
References
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External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:List Of Cognitive Biases
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Cognitive biases
A cognitive bias is a systematic pattern of deviation from norm or rationality in judgment. Individuals create their own "subjective reality" from their perception of the input. An individual's construction of reality, not the objective input, m ...
Behavioral finance
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