Cognitive Biases

Question 1

Anchoring Bias

Answer 1

The tendency to overestimate the importance of one piece of information, usually the first piece of information that we acquire on that subject.

Question 2

Attention Bias

Answer 2

The tendency to assign more importance to recurring thoughts and ideas. “Say something often enough and it becomes the truth”

Question 3

Availability Bias

Answer 3

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.

Question 4

Bandwagon Bias

Answer 4

The tendency to do or believe things simply because many other people do as well.

Question 5

Introspective Bias

Answer 5

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. (bias blind spot)

Question 6

Specificity Bias

Answer 6

The tendency to ignore general information and focus only on specific information pertaining to one certain case.

Question 7

Clustering Bias

Answer 7

The tendency to overestimate the importance of small runs, streaks, or clusters in large samples of random data i.e. seeing phantom patterns.

Question 8

Confirmation Bias

Answer 8

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

Question 9

Congruence Bias

Answer 9

The tendency to test hypotheses exclusively through direct testing, instead of testing possible alternative hypotheses.

Question 10

• Contrast Bias

Answer 10

The enhancement or reduction of a certain perception when compared with something similar but relatively harder or easier. “Man on the moon”

Question 11

Decoy Bias

Answer 11

The tendency to prefer option B over option A when option C is presented, which is similar to option B but in no way better.

Question 12

Distinction Bias

Answer 12

The tendency to view two options as less similar when evaluating them simultaneously than when evaluating them separately.

Question 13

Endowment Bias

Answer 13

The tendency for people to demand much more to give up an object than they would be willing to pay to acquire it.

Question 14

Exaggeration Bias

Answer 14

The tendency to expect things to be more extreme than real-world testing indicates.

Question 15

Expectation Bias

Answer 15

The tendency to believe, certify, and publish anticipated outcomes, and to disbelieve, discard, or downgrade data that appear to conflict with those preconceptions.

Question 16

Forer Effect

Barnum Effect

Answer 16

The tendency of 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, etc.

Question 17

Framing Bias

Answer 17

The tendency to draw different conclusions from the same information, depending on how that information is presented.

Question 18

Frequency Bias

Answer 18

The tendency to pay more attention to ideas or events that we have only recently become aware of. The one headlight phenomenon.

Question 19

Gamblers Falacy

Answer 19

The tendency to think that future probabilities are altered by past events, when in reality they are unchanged. 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 20

Ambiguity bias

Answer 20

The tendency to avoid options for which missing information makes the probability seem “unknown.”