A collection of all thinking flaws - cognitive biases, fallacies, psychological weirdities and more.
Every cognitive bias is there for a reason - primarily to save our brains time or energy. If you look at them by the problem they're trying to solve, it becomes a lot easier to understand why they exist, how they're useful, and the trade-offs(resulting mental errors) that they introduce.
Cognitive Biases addresses these issues...
Our brain filters out information that it thinks is not important. There is too much information available - its not practical to process all of it.
There is a significant difference in how we act in an emotionally charged state(hot state) when compared to your normal state(cold).
We might not be able to recall information without memory aids/cues that we used at study.
Psychological phenomenon by which people tend to develop a preference for things merely because they are familiar with them.
What we believe/want influences what we focus on/notice.
Once you learn a new word/concept, you see it everywhere.
We believe incorrect information to be correct after repeated exposure.
More significance is given to a recent event/data/evidence when compared to past events/data/evidence.
You overestimate the probability of something that you hear more often/remember easily.
We generally skip information that's ordinary or expected.
If there are multiple similar stimuli, we remember the one that differs from the rest.
We remember bizarre material better.
We favour an act of omission/inaction over commission/action.
Negative stimuli have bigger impact on the mental state.
Bias that favours positive results in published academic research.
People's choices can change based on how the question is framed or worded.
When evaluating between two options, we view them as very different - as compared to evaluating them separately(we would have evaluated them very close to each other).
Choices are affected by an anchor.
Perceived difference is not the same as actual difference.
And ignore/miss details that contridicts our beliefs
People over-rely on their initial hypothesis.
Experimenters interpreting results incorrectly because they have a pre-existing hypothesis.
Not notice/quickly forget things that cause us emotional discomfort and contradict our prior beliefs.
People justify a past decision by subconsciously giving it positive attributes.
Lumping a decision to a related but not necessarily causing result.
Continue to believe wrong information even after learning that it's wrong.
Public and press likes narratives. More widely accepted a narrative is, the more it shapes the perception of facts.
Avoiding negative information that can cause discomfort.
A 'reflex' like tendency to reject opposing ideas to what you believe.
You believe a hypothesis because it has personal meaning/significance to you.
It's more difficult to notice biases in ourselves.
Belief that our view of the world is objective, and people who disagree are irrational/biased/misinformed.
Expecting others to be biased all the time.
The world is too complex to understand fully. So we compensate by filling in the gaps of our understanding to make better sense of it - or at least have a belief that we have an understanding of the world. We assign meaning to the world - we do our own sensemaking.
Our brain needs to feel that it has a coherent model/story about the situation - even if we have too little information about it.
Belief that streaks or clusters in parts of random data are non-random.
We believe that personal experience/anecdotal examples trumps data or logical argument.
Tendency to ignore probability when making decisions in uncertain conditions.
If an unlikely event(that's statistically independent) occurred multiple times, it's less likely to occur in the future.
Assigning human traits, attributes, emotions or agency to non-human things.
Memory error - people sometimes have wrong/distorted memories that they are confident about.
Belief that someone who has been successful will be more likely to be successful in future attempts.
People tend to ignore sample size of data. They forget that variation is more likely in smaller sample sizes.
Perceiving a relation between things(people, behaviours, events, etc) when no such relation exists.
Overestimation of ability to interpret and predict outcome when analysing data that shows a consistent pattern.
Seeing a pattern/meaning where there is none.
When we have only limited information/gap in knowledge we tend to fill in the gaps using best guesses from stereotypes and generalities. Once its done, we can't easily determine which part is real and which part is filled up.
An inert pill can cure health issues if the patient believes that it will.
Tendency to believe decisions from an automated decision making system have more accuracy. And even ignore contradictory information made without automation.
Tendency to follow the crowd. Adopting behaviours, practices, attitudes, beliefs only because others are doing it.
We believe that the views of an authority figure(Eg. God, Govt., Parent) is more accurate - and let it influence our options.
The idea that since an argument had a logical fallacy in it, it must be false.
Cognitive bias that limits your imagination of how an object can be used to only its traditional use.
Philosophical view that all things have a set of properties that are necessary to their identity.
Belief that the characteristics of one person in a group must be there in all.
Belief that people will get what they deserve. Or Everything happens for a reason.
A previous 'good' behaviour will make it easier to do 'bad' behaviour.
General belief about a group of people - and expects that belief to be true of all individuals in the group.
Explains the negative behaviours of out-group(others) to personality defects and negative behaviours of the in-group(us) to external circumstances or chance.
Belief that people/things we like or familiar with are better than that we don't like/are familiar with.
Tendency to transfer the good impression of a person/ company/ brand/ etc in one context to things they recommend in another context.
Tendency to recognize faces from your own race more easily when compared to recognizing faces from other races.
Tendency to believe that individuals are more attractive when they are in a group.
Favouring people of your in-group over people outside.
The belief that the people in the out-group are very similar to each other.
Tendency to avoid things with an external origin.
Tendency to seek the positive.
Tendency to devalue ideas/proposals that comes from an 'enemy'.
Tendency to think that travelling to an unfamiliar place has taken longer - but an equal time journey in very familiar route would feel shorter.
Subconscious mind is bad at maths - and uses simplification to optimize decision making. This can get wrong results.
Less likely to spend a large denomination currency than the equal value in smaller notes.
Belief that probability of the whole is lesser than the sum of probabilities of the parts.
People tend to assign subjective value to money - this is susceptible to biases, thinking flaws.
Belief that if it's possible, then it's probable.
We tend to overvalue the specific information - rather than integrating it with general information like the base rate.
People don't easily change existing belief even when presented with new evidence.
It describes the widely experienced difficulty of accurately estimating the time it will take to complete tasks of substantial complexity.
People mistake the face value of money(the amount of money) with the real value(what it can buy).
Number of items that can be held in short term memory: 7 +/- 2
The brain sometimes ignores multiple warnings signals.
Concentrating on the people/things that got past a selection point.
People confuse selection factors with results.
We underestimate time saved when moving from a relatively smaller speed to higher speed. Also, we overestimate time saved when moving from a relatively faster speed to even faster speed.
Belief that your situation is a zero sum situation and competing - even when there are unlimited resources.
We model the thinking of other people based on our own mind or a much simpler mind than ours.
Individuals are less likely to offer help to a victim when there are other people present.
When communicating with others, we assume that they have all the background information about the topic that we have already.
We think other people are driven more by extrinsic motivators(like monetary reward) and we are driven more by intrinsic motivators(learning a new skill).
We think other people can understand our mental state fairly accurately.
A belief that good/bad things happen to us because of external influences rather than personal actions.
Belief that we know other people better than the other person knows us.
We think we are noticed/thought about by others way more than we actually are.
We exaggerate the probability of bad things happening to us.
If we see an innovation at work, we tend to believe that it can be applied everywhere without need of alterations.
We forecast our current preference on to a future event.
People tend to think that events could have been easily predictable AFTER the outcome is clear.
We overestimate duration and intensity of future emotional states.
Belief that a society or institution is becoming worse over time.
Assigning praise or blame of an action based on outcome even if its not fully in their control.
Evaluating the quality of a decision after the outcome is known.
We underestimate time required to finish a task.
We judge past events more positively than we do the present.
We overestimate our ability to control impulsive behaviour.
We believe that we are consistent in our beliefs, behaviours, options, attitudes, etc.
Events in the past or future seems more distant(backward telescoping/time expansion) or nearer(forward telescoping) than they actually are.
We evolved with the need to make quick decisions when faced with limited time and information. This programming continues in the present time in form of these thinking flaws.
We overestimate our own perspective.
We think that mass media affects other people more than it affects us.
We overestimate how much control we have over situations.
We tend to believe theories about the cause of a mishap in a way that minimizes our own blame or threat in that mishap.
We attribute the reason of our own(or of our friends) failures to the environment, but the failures of others(or our enemies) to their character.
We exaggerate the probability of good things happening to us.
Hard tasks makes you overconfident - and predict higher success probability while easier tasks makes you under confident - and predict lower success.
If we put in a lot of effort into something, its value will go up in our mind.
We overestimate our own qualities and abilities when compared to other people.
Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which people with low ability at a task overestimate their ability.
We think that vague and generic personality descriptions that can apply to a lot of people are very accurate and made specifically for them.
We think our beliefs, behaviours, personal qualities are the norm.
We overestimate our performance, think our performance is better than that of others, and think we have more accurate beliefs.
We adjust behaviour according to perceived risk - we are more risk taking when we feel protected, and more careful when we sense greater risk.
Our thinking and perception is distorted in ways to enhance our self esteem.
We think that our traits, attitudes, behaviours, moods are relatively variable(it can change as needed) - but other peoples traits are more predictable and static.
Survey respondents will give answers that be viewed favourably by others.
We favor present over future. Stories about specific individuals over anonymous person.
We discount the value of a reward given later by a factor of the delay in getting the reward.
We believe that things are better just because they are new.
We are more willing to help a specific, identifiable person over a large but vaguely defined group with the same issue.
Helps us to finish things, even with difficult. Actions have inertia - once started its easier to continue.
We want to keep a thing we own more than we want to get the same thing when we don't own it.
We value things much higher if we created them(even partially).
We prefer to eliminate risks completely in a smaller part rather than reduce overall risk even if the second option reduces risk to a greater extend.
When we are presented with evidence against a pre-existing belief that we had, we sometimes reject the evidence and hold the belief even more strongly.
We remember things better if our own mind makes it up rather than when we just read it.
We think of an outcome as certain - but in reality if we zoom out, it would be part of a multi-step process - which in entirety is not certain.
People generally put in more investment into a failing thing to win back the investment that has already gone in.
We want to finish a unit of anything we are consuming - we don't want to stop in the middle.
When doing stock investing, we tend to sell off stocks that do well/increase in price - and keep the stock that is performing poorly.
When we get negative feedback for an outcome we are invested in, we increase effort towards it instead of altering course.
We prefer to avoid making a loss over making a profit of the same value.
We prefer the current situation. We tend to think it is better than other alternatives.
Reverse psychology is a manipulation technique that asks someone to do something opposite to the action that is actually required.
Hippo - or Highest Paid Person's Opinion. In meetings, there might be a person who has the most experience or authority(usually the boss). Decisions they make might go unchallenged.
It is possible for a group to decide on something that is against most or all of the group members' preference.
Ideally, we should not change something until we understand the purpose behind it.
When deciding between two options, an unattractive third option can change the perceived preference between the other two.
We tend to over-rely on a familiar tool.
Reactance is the resistance we feel when there is a threat to our behavioural freedom.
We have a feeling of dislike and competitiveness towards people who we think are better than us.
We tend to defend the system we are in because it provides for many of our underlying needs.
We want to search for information even when it does not affect the decision.
We prefer options with known probability over options with unknown probability even if the payout is smaller in the known option.
We judge arguments based on the probability of the conclusion rather than how strongly the argument supports the conclusion.
We tend to spend more time on figuring out trivial things rather than spending time on the important things.
We think that specific conditions are more probable than a single general condition.
The simplest explanation is often the best one.
The languages you know influence your cognition and world view.
lesser option is preferred when evaluated separately.
We believe that proverbs, sayings etc. are more accurate if it rhymes.
We tend to have more defined and articulated goals about parts of our lives which has lower priority.
We have to prioritize what to remember and what to discard. We have a set of filters that will help us do this - but it can cause issues too.
We some times remember something that was forgotten - but we think that is an original thought that we made.
We tend to wrongly identify the source of a memory at point of recall.
Suggestibility is tendency to accept or act on the suggestion of others.
Negative emotions have immediate survival benefits. Positive emotions have long term benefits.
Memory error that can create slightly wrong or wildly inaccurate recollection that the person is very confident about.
Recollection of memory is better if we try to remember that information at specific intervals.
Social identity is the part of a person's self-concept that is made from their membership in a social group.
Memories associated with negative emotions are forgotten more quickly than memories associated with positive emotions.
We assign certain qualities to a member of an out group.
Prejudice is a preconceived(usually unfavourable) assignment of qualities to members of an out group.
We chose a few items to represent the whole.
We are able to recollect items or events in the order they are given.
Our memory can change and become less accurate based on information we get after the event.
Our memory of things we study is based on the presentations of the material.
We judge an experience based on what happens at either the peak(most intense part of the experience) or at the end of the event rather that the entire event.
We tend to recall the first(Primacy effect) and last items(Recency effect) in a series.
The Serial-position effect ie. strong recall of last item of the list, will be impaired if there is an irrelevant item(that need not be remembered) at the end of the list.
Our judgment of how unpleasant an experience is does not depend on the duration of the event - but on the peak(most intense part) and how quickly the pain reduces.
Memory inhibition is the ability NOT to remember irrelevant information.
There are automatic functions of memory. Sharpening is when we remember small details in retelling of a memory. Levelling is when we leave out parts of the memory.
Our brain will save things that it thinks is important. Importantce is judged based on the situation - not just the value of the information. Eg. Traumatic memories can be very strong.
There are times when we can't recall a word from memory - even though we think that we are close to remembering it.
We remember things better if we are affected by the information.
We tend to forget something that we looked up online.
Absent mindedness is a mental state where people are not focused or might be forgetful.
We recall pictures better than words.
We tend to remember things that have more depth of mental processing.
We tend to forget things that happened just before we have to perform something.
We remember things for a longer period if we try to recall it once in a while.
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