58 Cognitive Biases That Screw

Up Everything We Do
Affect heuristic

Flickr/mariversa

The way you feel filters the way you interpret the world.
Take, for instance, if the words rake, take, and cake flew across a
computer screen blinked on a computer screen for 1/30 of a second.
Which would you recognize?
If you're hungry, research suggests that all you see is cake.

Anchoring bias

fahrudinryuken/statigr.am

People are overreliant on the first piece of information they hear.

In a salary negotiation, for instance, whoever makes the first offer
establishes a range of reasonable possibilities in each person's mind. Any
counteroffer will naturally react to or be anchored by that opening offer.
"Most people come with the very strong belief they should never make an
opening offer," says Leigh Thompson, a professor at Northwestern
University's Kellogg School of Management. "Our research and lots of
corroborating research shows that's completely backwards. The guy or
gal who makes a first offer is better off."

Confirmation bias

NOAA

We tend to listen only to the information that confirms our

preconceptions one of the many reasons it's so hard to have an
intelligent conversation about climate change.

Observer-expectancy effect

Basis Scottsdale

A cousin of confirmation bias, here our expectations unconsciously

influence how we perceive an outcome. Researchers looking for a certain
result in an experiment, for example, may inadvertently manipulate or
interpret the results to reveal their expectations. That's why the "doubleblind" experimental design was created for the field of scientific
research.

Bandwagon effect

en.wikipedia.org

The probability of one person adopting a belief increases based on the

number of people who hold that belief. This is a powerful form of
groupthink and it's a reason meetings are so unproductive.

Bias blind spots

Daimler AG on flickr

Failing to recognize your cognitive biases is a bias in itself.

Notably, Princeton psychologist Emily Pronin has found that "individuals
see the existence and operation of cognitive and motivational biases
much more in others than in themselves."

Choice-supportive bias

LexnGer on flickr

When you choose something, you tend to feel positive about it,even if the
choice has flaws. You think that your dog is awesome even if it bites
people every once in a while and that other dogs are stupid, since
they're not yours.

Clustering illusion

en.wikipedia.org

This is the tendency to see patterns in random events. It is central to

various gambling fallacies, like the idea that red is more or less likely to
turn up on a roulette table after a string of reds.

Conservatism bias

en.wikipedia.org

Where people believe prior evidence more than new evidence or

information that has emerged. People were slow to accept the fact that
the Earth was round because they maintained their earlier understanding
the planet was flat.

Conformity

Drake Baer/BI

This is the tendency of people to conform with other people. It is so

powerful that it may lead people to do ridiculous things, as shown by the
following experiment by Solomon Asch.
Ask one subject and several fake subjects (who are really working with
the experimenter) which of lines B, C, D, and E is the same length as
A? If all of the fake subjects say that D is the same length as A, the real subject will agree
with this objectively false answer a shocking three-quarters of the time.
"That we have found the tendency to conformity in our society so strong that reasonably
intelligent and well-meaning young people are willing to call white black is a matter of
concern," Asch wrote. "It raises questions about our ways of education and about the
values that guide our conduct."

Curse of knowledge

en.wikipedia.org

When people who are more well-informed cannot understand the

common man. For instance, in the TV show "The Big Bang Theory," it's

difficult for scientist Sheldon Cooper to understand his waitress neighbor

Penny.

Decoy effect

Mario Tama/Getty Images

A phenomenon in marketing where consumers have a specific change in

preference between two choices after being presented with a third choice.
Offer two sizes of soda and people may choose the smaller one; but offer
a third even larger size, and people may choose what is now the medium
option.

Denomination effect

People are less likely to spend large bills than their equivalent value in
small bills or coins.

Duration neglect

When the duration of an event doesn't factor enough into the way we
consider it. For instance, we remember momentary pain just as strongly
as long-term pain.

Availability heuristic

Samuel Huron on flickr

When people overestimate the importance of information that is

available to them.
For instance, a person might argue that smoking is not unhealthy on the
basis that his grandfather lived to 100 and smoked three packs a day, an
argument that ignores the possibility that his grandfather was an outlier.

Empathy gap

Lady/Bird on flickr

Where people in one state of mind fail to understand people in another

state of mind. If you are happy you can't imagine why people would be
unhappy. When you are not sexually aroused, you can't understand how
you act when you are sexually aroused.

Frequency illusion

eltpics on flickr

Where a word, name or thing you just learned about suddenly appears
everywhere. Now that you know what that SAT word means, you see it in
so many places!

Fundamental attribution error

Flickr/sharynmorrow

This is where you attribute a person's behavior to an intrinsic quality of

her identity rather than the situation she's in. For instance, you might
think your colleague is an angry person, when she is really just upset
because she stubbed her toe.

"We like to think we're rational human beings. In fact, we are prone to hundreds
of proven biases that cause us to think and act irrationally, and even thinking
we're rational despite evidence of irrationality in others is known as blind spot
bias."

Read more in Business Insider:

http://www.businessinsider.com/cognitive-biases-2014-6

The 58 cognitive biases are:

1. Affect heuristic - "The way you feel filters the way you interpret the world. "
2. Anchoring bias - "People are overreliant on the first piece of information they
hear. "
3. Confirmation bias - "We tend to listen only to the information that confirms
our preconceptions" [1]
4. Observer-expectancy effect - "Our expectations unconsciously influence how
we perceive an outcome. " [1]
5. Bandwagon effect - "The probability of one person adopting a belief increases
based on the number of people who hold that belief." [1]
6. Bias blind spots - "Failing to recognize your cognitive biases is a bias in itself.
" [1]
7. Choice-supportive bias - "When you choose something, you tend to feel
positive about it, even if the choice has flaws. " [1]
8. Clustering illusion - "This is the tendency to see patterns in random events."
9. Conservatism bias - "Where people believe prior evidence more than new
evidence or information that has emerged." [1]
10. Conformity - "This is the tendency of people to conform with other
people." [1]
11. Curse of knowledge - "When people who are more well-informed cannot
understand the common man." [1]
12. Decoy effect - "A phenomenon in marketing where consumers have a specific
change in preference between two choices after being presented with a third
choice." [1]
13. Denomination effect - "People are less likely to spend large bills than their

equivalent value in small bills or coins." [1]

14. Duration neglect - "When the duration of an event doesn't factor enough into
the way we consider it." [1]
15. Availability heuristic - "When people overestimate the importance of
information that is available to them."
16. Empathy gap - "Where people in one state of mind fail to understand people
in another state of mind." [1]
17. Frequency illusion - "Where a word, name or thing you just learned about
suddenly appears everywhere." [1]
18. Fundamental attribution error - "This is where you attribute a person's
behavior to an intrinsic quality of her identity rather than the situation she's
in."
19. Galatea Effect - "Where people succeed or underperform because they
think they should." [1]
20. Halo effect - "Where we take one positive attribute of someone and associate
it with everything else about that person or thing." [1]
21. Hard-Easy bias - "Where everyone is overconfident on easy problems and
not confident enough for hard problems." [1]
22. Herding - "People tend to flock together, especially in difficult or uncertain
times." [1]
23. Hindsight bias - "Of course Apple and Google would become the two most
important companies in phones tell that to Nokia, circa 2003."
24. Hyperbolic discounting - "The tendency for people to want an immediate
payoff rather than a larger gain later on." [1]
25. Ideometer effect - "Where an idea causes you to have an unconscious
physical reaction, like a sad thought that makes your eyes tear up." [1] [2]
26. Illusion of control - "The tendency for people to overestimate their ability to
control events, like when a sports fan thinks his thoughts or actions had an effect
on the game." [1]
27. Information bias - "The tendency to seek information when it does not affect
action." [1] [2]
28. Inter-group bias - "We view people in our group differently from how see we
someone in another group." [1]
29. Irrational escalation - "When people make irrational decisions based on past
rational decisions."
30. Negativity bias - "The tendency to put more emphasis on negative
experiences rather than positive ones." [1]
31. Omission bias - "The tendency to prefer inaction to action, in ourselves and

even in politics." [1]

32. Ostrich effect - "The decision to ignore dangerous or negative information by
"burying" one's head in the sand." [1]
33. Outcome bias - "Judging a decision based on the outcome rather than how
exactly the decision was made in the moment." [1]
34. Overconfidence - "Some of us are too confident about our abilities, and this
causes us to take greater risks in our daily lives." [1]
35. Overoptimism - "When we believe the world is a better place than it is, we
aren't prepared for the danger and violence we may encounter." [1]
36. Pessimism bias - "This is the opposite of the overoptimism bias." [1]
37. Placebo effect - "Where believing that something is happening helps cause it
to happen." [1]
38. Planning fallacy - "The tendency to underestimate how much time it will
take to complete a task." [1]
39. Post-purchase rationalization - "Making ourselves believe that a purchase
was worth the value after the fact." [1]
40. Priming - "Priming is where if you're introduced to an idea, you'll more
readily identify related ideas." [1]
41. Pro-innovation bias - "When a proponent of an innovation tends to
overvalue its usefulness and undervalue its limitations." [1]
42. Procrastination - "Deciding to act in favor of the present moment over
investing in the future." [1]
43. Reactance - "The desire to do the opposite of what someone wants you to do,
in order to prove your freedom of choice." [1]
44. Recency - "The tendency to weigh the latest information more heavily than
older data." [1]
45. Reciprocity - "The belief that fairness should trump other values, even when
it's not in our economic or other interests." [1]
46. Regression bias - "People take action in response to extreme situations."[1]
47. Restraint bias - "Overestimating one's ability to show restraint in the face of
temptation." [1]
48. Salience - "Our tendency to focus on the most easily-recognizable features of
a person or concept." [1]
49. Scope insensitivity - "This is where your willingness to pay for something
doesn't correlate with the scale of the outcome." [1]
50. Seersucker Illusion - "Over-reliance on expert advice. This has to do with the
avoidance or responsibility." [1]

51. Selective perception - "Allowing our expectations to influence how we

perceive the world." [1]
52. Self-enhancing transmission bias - "Everyone shares their successes more
than their failures." [1]
53. Status quo bias - "The tendency to prefer things to stay the same." [1]
54. Stereotyping - "Expecting a group or person to have certain qualities
without having real information about the individual." [1] [2]
55. Survivorship bias - "An error that comes from focusing only on surviving
examples, causing us to misjudge a situation." [1]
56. Tragedy of the commons - "We overuse common resources because it's not in
any individual's interest to conserve them." [1]
57. Unit bias - "We believe that there is an optimal unit size, or a universallyacknowledged amount of a given item that is perceived as appropriate." [1]
58. Zero-risk bias - "The preference to reduce a small risk to zero versus
achieving a greater reduction in a greater risk." [1]
To summary, our cognitive experience can be unreasonable influenced by our
emotional experience and our cognition can be based upon invalid logic and
influence our emotional experience.
Related concepts in Neojungian Typology:
Organic Contextualization, Deterministic Contextualization, Contextualization
Delta, Abstract, Concrete, Execution, Processing.