Cognitive Biases

Question 1

What is anchoring?

Answer 1

cognitive bias to rely too heavily on the first piece of information offered

Question 2

What is the “Availability heuristic”?

Answer 2

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

Question 3

Define “Availability cascade”

Answer 3

A self-reinforcing process in which a collective belief gains more and more plausibility through its increasing repetition in public discourse (or “repeat something long enough and it will become true”)

Question 4

Define “Backfire effect”

Answer 4

When people react to disconfirming evidence by strengthening their beliefs

Question 5

Define “Base rate fallacy” or “base rate neglect”

Answer 5

tendency to ignore base rate information (generic, general information) and focus on specific information (information only pertaining to a certain case)

Question 6

Define Confirmation bias

Answer 6

tendency to search for, interpret, focus on and remember information in a way that confirms one’s preconceptions

Question 7

Define Conjunction fallacy

Answer 7

tendency to assume that specific conditions are more probable than general one

Question 8

Define Conservatism (Bayesian)

Answer 8

tendency to insufficiently revise one’s belief when presented with new evidence

Question 9

Define Curse of knowledge

Answer 9

When better-informed people find it extremely difficult to think about problems from the perspective of lesser-informed people

Question 10

Define Decoy effect

Answer 10

Preferences for either option A or B changes in favor of option B when option C is presented, which is similar to option B but in no way better.

Question 11

Define Endowment effect

Answer 11

people often demand much more to give up an object than they would be willing to pay to acquire it

Question 12

Define Barnum effect

Answer 12

E.g., horoscopes: individuals give high accuracy ratings to descriptions of their personality that supposedly are tailored specifically for them, but are in fact vague and general

Question 13

Define Framing effect

Answer 13

Drawing different conclusions from the same information, depending on how or by whom that information is presented

Question 14

Define Gambler’s fallacy

Answer 14

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.”

Question 15

Define Hindsight bias

Answer 15

“I-knew-it-all-along” effect

Question 16

Define Hyperbolic discounting

Answer 16

tendency for people to have a stronger preference for more immediate payoffs relative to later payoffs, where the tendency increases the closer to the present both payoffs are

Question 17

Define Identifiable victim effect

Answer 17

tendency to respond more strongly to a single identified person at risk than to a large group of people at risk

Question 18

Define Loss aversion

Answer 18

“the disutility of giving up an object is greater than the utility associated with acquiring it” – also SUNK COST EFFECT

Question 19

Define Normalcy bias

Answer 19

The refusal to plan for, or react to, a disaster which has never happened before.

Question 20

Define Outcome bias

Answer 20

tendency to judge a decision by its eventual outcome instead of based on the quality of the decision at the time it was made

Question 21

Define Planning Fallacy

Answer 21

tendency to underestimate task-completion times

Question 22

Define Reactive Devaluation

Answer 22

Devaluing proposals only because they are purportedly originated with an adversary

Question 23

Define Rhyme as Reason

Answer 23

Rhyming statements are perceived as more truthful (Glove don’t fit…)

Question 24

Define Risk compensation

Answer 24

tendency to take greater risks when perceived safety increases.

Question 25

Define Subadditivity effect

Answer 25

tendency to judge probability of the whole to be less than the probabilities of the parts

Question 26

Define Survivorship Bias

Answer 26

Concentrating on the people or things that “survived” some process and inadvertently overlooking those that didn’t because of their lack of visibility.

Question 27

Define Halo Effect

Answer 27

tendency for a person’s positive or negative traits to “spill over” from one personality area to another in others’ perceptions of them

Question 28

Define Consistency Bias

Answer 28

Incorrectly remembering one’s past attitudes and behaviour as resembling present attitudes and behaviour.