1 Belief, Decision-making and Behavioral Flashcards
Action bias
The tendency for someone to act when faced with a problem even when inaction would be more effective, or to act when no evident problem exists.
Additive bias
The tendency to solve problems through addition, even when subtraction is a better approach.
Agent detection
The inclination to presume the purposeful intervention of a sentient or intelligent agent.
Ambiguity effect
The tendency to avoid options for which the probability of a favorable outcome is unknown.
Anchoring
The tendency to rely too heavily, or “anchor”, on one trait or piece of information when making decisions (usually the first piece of information acquired on that subject).
Anthropocentric thinking
The tendency to use human analogies as a basis for reasoning about other, less familiar, biological phenomena.
Anthropomorphism
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 dehumanized perception, a type of objectification.
Attentional bias
The tendency of perception to be affected by recurring thoughts.
Attribute substitution
Occurs when a judgment has to be made (of a target attribute) that is computationally complex, and instead a more easily calculated heuristic attribute is substituted. This substitution is thought of as taking place in the automatic intuitive judgment system, rather than the more self-aware reflective system.
Automation bias
The tendency to depend excessively on automated systems which can lead to erroneous automated information overriding correct decisions.
Availability heuristic
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.
Backfire effect
The reaction to disconfirming evidence by strengthening one’s previous beliefs.
Base rate fallacy
The tendency to ignore general information and focus on information only pertaining to the specific case, even when the general information is more important.
Belief bias
An effect where someone’s evaluation of the logical strength of an argument is biased by the believability of the conclusion.
Berkson’s paradox
The tendency to misinterpret statistical experiments involving conditional probabilities.
Clustering illusion
The tendency to overestimate the importance of small runs, streaks, or clusters in large samples of random data (that is, seeing phantom patterns).
Common source bias
The tendency to combine or compare research studies from the same source, or from sources that use the same methodologies or data.
Compassion fade
The predisposition to behave more compassionately towards a small number of identifiable victims than to a large number of anonymous ones.
Confirmation bias
The tendency to search for, interpret, focus on and remember information in a way that confirms one’s preconceptions.
Congruence bias
The tendency to test hypotheses exclusively through direct testing, instead of testing possible alternative hypotheses.
Conjunction fallacy
The tendency to assume that specific conditions are more probable than a more general version of those same conditions.
Conservatism bias
The tendency to revise one’s belief insufficiently when presented with new evidence.
Continued influence effect
The tendency to believe previously learned misinformation even after it has been corrected. Misinformation can still influence inferences one generates after a correction has occurred.
Contrast effect
The enhancement or reduction of a certain stimulus’ perception when compared with a recently observed, contrasting object.
Curse of knowledge
When better-informed people find it extremely difficult to think about problems from the perspective of lesser-informed people.
Declinism
The predisposition to view the past favorably and future negatively
Decoy effect
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
When given a choice between several options, the tendency to favor the default one.
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).
Disposition effect
The tendency to sell an asset that has accumulated in value and resist selling an asset that has declined in value.
Distinction bias
The tendency to view two options as more dissimilar when evaluating them simultaneously than when evaluating them separately.
Dread aversion
Just as losses yield double the emotional impact of gains, dread yields double the emotional impact of savouring.
Dunning–Kruger effect
The tendency for unskilled individuals to overestimate their own ability and the tendency for experts to underestimate their own ability.
Duration neglect
The neglect of the duration of an episode in determining its value.
Hot-cold empathy gap
The tendency to underestimate the influence of visceral drives on one’s attitudes, preferences, and behaviors.
End-of-history illusion
The age-independent belief that one will change less in the future than one has in the past.
Endowment effect
The tendency for people to demand much more to give up an object than they would be willing to pay to acquire it.
Exaggerated expectation
The tendency to expect or predict more extreme outcomes than those outcomes that actually happen.
Experimenter’s or
expectation bias
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.
Forer effect or
Barnum effect
The observation that individuals will 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.
Form function attribution bias
In human–robot interaction, the tendency of people to make systematic errors when interacting with a robot. People may base their expectations and perceptions of a robot on its appearance (form) and attribute functions which do not necessarily mirror the true functions of the robot.
Framing effect
Drawing different conclusions from the same information, depending on how that information is presented.
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).[51] 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.
Functional fixedness
Limits a person to using an object only in the way it is traditionally used.
Gambler’s fallacy
The tendency to think that future probabilities are altered by past events, when in reality they are unchanged.
Gender bias
A widely held set of implicit biases that discriminate against a gender.
Hard–easy effect
The tendency to overestimate one’s ability to accomplish hard tasks, and underestimate one’s ability to accomplish easy tasks
Hindsight bias
Sometimes called the “I-knew-it-all-along” effect, the tendency to see past events as being predictable before they happened.
Hot-hand fallacy
The “hot-hand fallacy” (also known as the “hot hand phenomenon” or “hot hand”) is the belief that a person who has experienced success with a random event has a greater chance of further success in additional attempts.
Hungry judge effect
Judicial decision making and mood may be affected by physiological factors such as what the judge had for breakfast.
Hyperbolic discounting
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.
IKEA effect
The tendency for people to place a disproportionately high value on objects that they partially assembled themselves, such as furniture from IKEA, regardless of the quality of the end product.
Illicit transference
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.
Illusion of control
The tendency to overestimate one’s degree of influence over other external events.
Illusion of validity
Overestimating the accuracy of one’s judgments, especially when available information is consistent or inter-correlated.
Illusory correlation
Inaccurately perceiving a relationship between two unrelated events.
Illusory truth effect
A 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.
Impact bias
The tendency to overestimate the length or the intensity of the impact of future feeling states.
Implicit association
The speed with which people can match words depends on how closely they are associated.
Information bias
The tendency to seek information even when it cannot affect action.
Insensitivity to sample size
The tendency to under-expect variation in small samples.
Interoceptive bias
The tendency for sensory input about the body itself to affect one’s judgement about external, unrelated circumstances. (As for example, in parole judges who are more lenient when fed and rested.)
Irrational escalation or
Escalation of commitment
The phenomenon where people justify increased investment in a decision, based on the cumulative prior investment, despite new evidence suggesting that the decision was probably wrong. Also known as the sunk cost fallacy.
Law of the instrument
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.”
Less-is-better effect
The tendency to prefer a smaller set to a larger set judged separately, but not jointly.
Loss aversion
The perceived disutility of giving up an object is greater than the utility associated with acquiring it.[
Mere exposure effect
The tendency to express undue liking for things merely because of familiarity with them.
Money illusion
The tendency to concentrate on the nominal value (face value) of money rather than its value in terms of purchasing power.
Moral credential effect
Occurs when someone who does something good gives themselves permission to be less good in the future.
Neglect of probability
The tendency to completely disregard probability when making a decision under uncertainty.
Non-adaptive choice switching
After experiencing a bad outcome with a decision problem, the tendency to avoid the choice previously made when faced with the same decision problem again, even though the choice was optimal. Also known as “once bitten, twice shy” or “hot stove effect”.
Normalcy bias
The refusal to plan for, or react to, a disaster which has never happened before.
Observer-expectancy effect
When a researcher expects a given result and therefore unconsciously manipulates an experiment or misinterprets data in order to find it
Omission bias
The tendency to judge harmful actions (commissions) as worse, or less moral, than equally harmful inactions (omissions).
Optimism bias
The tendency to be over-optimistic, underestimating greatly the probability of undesirable outcomes and overestimating favorable and pleasing outcomes
Ostrich effect
Ignoring an obvious (negative) situation.
Outcome bias
The tendency to judge a decision by its eventual outcome instead of based on the quality of the decision at the time it was made.
Overconfidence effect
Excessive confidence in one’s own answers to questions.
Pareidolia
A vague and random stimulus (often an image or sound) is perceived as significant, e.g., seeing images of animals or faces in clouds, the man in the moon, and hearing non-existent hidden messages on records played in reverse.
Pessimism bias
The tendency for some people, especially those suffering from depression, to overestimate the likelihood of negative things happening to them.
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.
Planning fallacy
The tendency to underestimate one’s own task-completion times.
Planning fallacy
The tendency to underestimate one’s own task-completion times.
Present bias
The tendency of people to give stronger weight to payoffs that are closer to the present time when considering trade-offs between two future moments.
Plant blindness
The tendency to ignore plants in their environment and a failure to recognize and appreciate the utility of plants to life on earth.
Prevention bias
When investing money to protect against risks, decision makers perceive that a dollar spent on prevention buys more security than a dollar spent on timely detection and response, even when investing in either option is equally effective.
Probability matching
Sub-optimal matching of the probability of choices with the probability of reward in a random context.
Pro-innovation bias
The tendency to have an excessive optimism towards an invention or innovation’s usefulness throughout society, while often failing to identify its limitations and weaknesses.
Projection bias
The tendency to overestimate how much our future selves share one’s current preferences, thoughts and values, thus leading to sub-optimal choices.
Proportionality bias
Our innate tendency to assume that big events have big causes, may also explain our tendency to accept conspiracy theories.
Pseudocertainty effect
The tendency to make risk-averse choices if the expected outcome is positive, but make risk-seeking choices to avoid negative outcomes.
Recency illusion
The illusion that a phenomenon one has noticed only recently is itself recent.
Systematic bias
Judgement that arises when targets of differentiating judgement become subject to effects of regression that are not equivalent.
Restraint bias
The tendency to overestimate one’s ability to show restraint in the face of temptation.
Rhyme as reason effect
Rhyming statements are perceived as more truthful.
Risk compensation / Peltzman effect
The tendency to take greater risks when perceived safety increases.
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.
Scope neglect 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
Selection bias
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.
Selective perception
The tendency for expectations to affect perception.
Semmelweis reflex
The tendency to reject new evidence that contradicts a paradigm.
Status quo bias
The tendency to like things to stay relatively the same
Stereotyping
Expecting a member of a group to have certain characteristics without having actual information about that individual.
Subadditivity effect
The tendency to judge the probability of the whole to be less than the probabilities of the parts.
Subjective validation
Perception that something is true if a subject’s belief demands it to be true. Also assigns perceived connections between coincidences.
Surrogation
Losing sight of the strategic construct that a measure is intended to represent, and subsequently acting as though the measure is the construct of interest.
Survivorship bias
Concentrating on the people or things that “survived” some process and inadvertently overlooking those that didn’t because of their lack of visibility.
System justification
The tendency to defend and bolster the status quo.
Time-saving bias
Underestimations of the time that could be saved (or lost) when increasing (or decreasing) from a relatively low speed and overestimations of the time that could be saved (or lost) when increasing (or decreasing) from a relatively high speed.
Parkinson’s law of triviality
The tendency to give disproportionate weight to trivial issues. Also known as bikeshedding.
Unconscious bias
Also known as implicit biases, are the underlying attitudes and stereotypes that people unconsciously attribute to another person or group of people that affect how they understand and engage with them.
Unit bias
The standard suggested amount of consumption (e.g., food serving size) is perceived to be appropriate, and a person would consume it all even if it is too much for this particular person.
Weber–Fechner law
Difficulty in comparing small differences in large quantities.
Well travelled road effect
Underestimation of the duration taken to traverse oft-travelled routes and overestimation of the duration taken to traverse less familiar routes.
Women are wonderful effect
A tendency to associate more positive attributes with women than with men.
Zero-risk bias
Preference for reducing a small risk to zero over a greater reduction in a larger risk.
Zero-sum bias
A bias whereby a situation is incorrectly perceived to be like a zero-sum game (i.e., one person gains at the expense of another).
