Cognitive Biases Flashcards
The tendency to rely too heavily, or “anchor”, on one trait or piece of information when making decisions (usually the first piece of information that we acquire on that subject
anchoring effect
a person looking to buy a used car - they may focus excessively on the odometer reading and the year of the car, and use those criteria as a basis for evaluating the value of the car, rather than considering how well the engine or the transmission is maintained.
anchoring effect
MSRP for a new Lexus is $39,465. You negotiated a price for $35,250. You feel terrific. You believe you got a great deal.
anchoring effect
What’s an acceptable curfew for a 16-year-old? If you had to be home by 11 p.m. on a weekend evening, a 1 a.m. curfew won’t feel right, even if “all the kids are doing it.”
anchoring effect
If a husband is doing ten times more housework than his dad ever did, he may feel entitled to a “best husband of the year” award from his wife. Imagine his surprise then, when his wife berates him for not doing enough.
anchoring effect
The tendency of our perception to be affected by our recurring thoughts
attentional bias
The tendency to excessively depend on automated systems which can lead to erroneous automated information overriding correct decisions.
automation bias
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
availability heuristic
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”)
availability cascade
When people react to disconfirming evidence by strengthening their beliefs.
backfire effect
The tendency to do (or believe) things because many other people do (or believe) the same
bandwagon effect
The tendency to ignore base rate information (generic, general information) and focus on specific information (information only pertaining to a certain case)
base rate fallacy
An effect where someone’s evaluation of the logical strength of an argument is biased by the believability of the conclusion
belief bias
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 blindspot
The tendency for people to appear more attractive in a group than in isolation
cheerleader effect
The tendency to remember one’s choices as better than they actually were
choice-supportive bias
The tendency to overestimate the importance of small runs, streaks, or clusters in large samples of random data (that is, seeing phantom patterns)
clustering illusion
The tendency to search for, interpret, focus on and remember information in a way that confirms one’s preconceptions
confirmation bias
The tendency to test hypotheses exclusively through direct testing, instead of testing possible alternative hypotheses
congruence bias
The tendency to assume that specific conditions are more probable than general ones
conjunctive fallacy
A certain state of mind wherein high values and high likelihoods are overestimated while low values and low likelihoods are underestimated
regressive bias
The tendency to revise one’s belief insufficiently when presented with new evidence
Conservatism bias
The enhancement or reduction of a certain perception’s stimuli when compared with a recently observed, contrasting object
contrast effect
When better-informed people find it extremely difficult to think about problems from the perspective of lesser-informed people
curse of knowledge
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.
decoy effect
The tendency to spend more money when it is denominated in small amounts (e.g. coins) rather than large amounts (e.g. bills).
denomination effect
The tendency to sell an asset that has accumulated in value and resist selling an asset that has declined in value.
disposition effect
The tendency to view two options as more dissimilar when evaluating them simultaneously than when evaluating them separately
distinction bias
The tendency for unskilled individuals to overestimate their own ability and the tendency for experts to underestimate their own ability
Dunning-Kruger effect
The neglect of the duration of an episode in determining its value
duration neglect
The tendency to underestimate the influence or strength of feelings, in either oneself or others.
empathy gap
when one is angry, it is difficult to understand what it is like for one to be happy, and vice versa; when one is blindly in love with someone, it is difficult to understand what it is like for one not to be, (or to imagine the possibility of not being blindly in love in the future).
empathy gap
The tendency for people to demand much more to give up an object than they would be willing to pay to acquire it
endowment effect
Categorizing people and things according to their essential nature, in spite of variations
essentialism
Based on the estimates, real-world evidence turns out to be less extreme than our expectations (conditionally inverse of the conservatism bias)
exaggerated expectation
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
expectation bias
The tendency to place too much importance on one aspect of an event
focusing 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.
forer effect
Drawing different conclusions from the same information, depending on how that information is presented
framing effect
The illusion in which a word, a name, or other thing that has recently come to one’s attention suddenly seems to appear with improbable frequency shortly afterwards
frequency illusion
Limits a person to using an object only in the way it is traditionally used.
functional fixedness
Based on a specific level of task difficulty, the confidence in judgments is too conservative and not extreme enough
hard-easy effect
The “hot-hand fallacy” (also known as the “hot hand phenomenon” or “hot hand”) is the fallacious belief that a person who has experienced success has a greater chance of further success in additional attempts.
hot-hand fallacy
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.
hyperbolic discounting
The tendency to respond more strongly to a single identified person at risk than to a large group of people at risk
identifiable victim 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 result.
IKEA effect
The tendency to overestimate one’s degree of influence over other external events
illusion of control
Belief that furtherly acquired information generates additional relevant data for predictions, even when it evidently does not
illusion of vailidity
The tendency to overestimate the length or the intensity of the impact of future feeling states
impact bias
The tendency to seek information even when it cannot affect action.
information bias
The tendency to under-expect variation in small samples
Insensitivity to sample size
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.
sunk cost fallacy
The tendency to prefer a smaller set to a larger set judged separately, but not jointly
less is better effect
seven ounces of ice cream overflowing in a small cup was preferred over eight ounces of ice cream in a much larger cup
less is better effect
a dinnerware set with 24 intact pieces was preferred over a dinnerware set of 31 pieces with a few broken pieces
less is better effect
“the disutility of giving up an object is greater than the utility associated with acquiring it”
loss aversion
The tendency to express undue liking for things merely because of familiarity with them.
mere exposure effect
The tendency to concentrate on the nominal value (face value) of money rather than its value in terms of purchasing power
money illusion
The tendency of a track record of non-prejudice to increase subsequent prejudice.
moral credential effect
individuals who had the opportunity to recruit a woman or African American in one setting were more likely to say later, in a different setting, that a job would be better suited for a man or a Caucasian.
moral credential effect
The tendency of people, when evaluating the causes of the behaviors of a person they dislike, to attribute their positive behaviors to the environment and their negative behaviors to the person’s inherent nature.
negativity effect
Psychological phenomenon by which humans have a greater recall of unpleasant memories compared with positive memories
negativity bias
The tendency to completely disregard probability when making a decision under uncertainty
neglect of probability
The refusal to plan for, or react to, a disaster which has never happened before.
normalcy bias
Aversion to contact with or use of products, research, standards, or knowledge developed outside a group
not invented here
When a researcher expects a given result and therefore unconsciously manipulates an experiment or misinterprets data in order to find it
observer-expectancy effect
The tendency to judge harmful actions as worse, or less moral, than equally harmful omissions (inactions)
omission bias
The tendency to be over-optimistic, overestimating favorable and pleasing outcomes
optimism bias
Ignoring an obvious (negative) situation.
ostrich effect
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.
outcome bias
Excessive confidence in one’s own answers to questions
overconfidence effect
or certain types of questions, answers that people rate as “99% certain” turn out to be wrong 40% of the time.
overconfidence effect
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.
Pareidolia
The tendency to give disproportionate weight to trivial issues. Also known as bikeshedding, this bias explains why an organization may avoid specialized or complex subjects, such as the design of a nuclear reactor, and instead focus on something easy to grasp or rewarding to the average participant, such as the design of an adjacent bike shed
Parkinson’s Law of Triviality
The tendency to underestimate task-completion times
planning fallacy
The tendency to persuade oneself through rational argument that a purchase was a good value.
post purchase rationalization
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
pro innovation bias
The tendency to make risk-averse choices if the expected outcome is positive, but make risk-seeking choices to avoid negative outcomes
Pseudocertainty effect
The urge to do the opposite of what someone wants you to do out of a need to resist a perceived attempt to constrain your freedom of choice
reactance
Devaluing proposals only because they purportedly originated with an adversary.
reactive devaluation
The illusion that a word or language usage is a recent innovation when it is in fact long-established
recency illusion
The tendency to overestimate one’s ability to show restraint in the face of temptation.
restraint bias
Rhyming statements are perceived as more truthful
rhyme as reason effect
The tendency to take greater risks when perceived safety increases.
risk compensation
The tendency for expectations to affect perception.
selective perception
The tendency to reject new evidence that contradicts a paradigm
Semmelweis reflex
The tendency, when making hiring decisions, to favour potential candidates who don’t compete with one’s own particular strengths
social comparison bias
The tendency to over-report socially desirable characteristics or behaviours in one self and under-report socially undesirable characteristics or behaviours
social desirability bias
The tendency to like things to stay relatively the same
status quo bias
Expecting a member of a group to have certain characteristics without having actual information about that individual.
stereotyping
The tendency to judge probability of the whole to be less than the probabilities of the parts
Subadditivity effect
Perception that something is true if a subject’s belief demands it to be true. Also assigns perceived connections between coincidences.
Subjective validation
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.
time-saving bias
The tendency to want to finish a given unit of a task or an item. Strong effects on the consumption of food in particular
unit bias
Difficulty in comparing small differences in large quantities.
Weber–Fechner law
Underestimation of the duration taken to traverse oft-traveled routes and overestimation of the duration taken to traverse less familiar routes.
well traveled road effect
Preference for reducing a small risk to zero over a greater reduction in a larger risk.
Zero-risk bias
Intuitively judging a situation to be zero-sum
zero-sum bias
The tendency for explanations of other individuals’ behaviors to overemphasize the influence of their personality and underemphasize the influence of their situation (see also Fundamental attribution error), and for explanations of one’s own behaviors to do the opposite (that is, to overemphasize the influence of our situation and underemphasize the influence of our own personality).
actor-observer bias
Attributing more blame to a harm-doer as the outcome becomes more severe or as personal or situational similarity to the victim increases.
Defensive attribution hypothesis
Occurs when people claim more responsibility for themselves for the results of a joint action than an outside observer would credit them with.
egocentric bias
An exception to the fundamental attribution error, when people view others as having (situational) extrinsic motivations and (dispositional) intrinsic motivations for oneself
extrinsic incentives bias
The tendency for people to overestimate the degree to which others agree with them
false consensus effect
The tendency for people to over-emphasize personality-based explanations for behaviors observed in others while under-emphasizing the role and power of situational influences on the same behavior
fundamental attribution error
The biased belief that the characteristics of an individual group member are reflective of the group as a whole or the tendency to assume that group decision outcomes reflect the preferences of group members, even when information is available that clearly suggests otherwise.
group attribution error
The tendency for a person’s positive or negative traits to “spill over” from one personality area to another in others’ perceptions of them
halo effect
People perceive their knowledge of their peers to surpass their peers’ knowledge of them
Illusion of asymmetric insight
When people view self-generated preferences as instead being caused by insightful, effective and benevolent agents
Illusion of external agency
People overestimate others’ ability to know them, and they also overestimate their ability to know others.
illusion of transparency
Overestimating one’s desirable qualities, and underestimating undesirable qualities, relative to other people.
illusory superiority
The tendency for people to give preferential treatment to others they perceive to be members of their own groups.
ingroup bias
The tendency for people to want to believe that the world is fundamentally just, causing them to rationalize an otherwise inexplicable injustice as deserved by the victim(s).
just world hypothesis
The tendency for people to ascribe greater or lesser moral standing based on the outcome of an event
moral luck
Expecting more egocentric bias in others than in oneself
naive cynicism
The belief that we see reality as it really is – objectively and without bias; that the facts are plain for all to see; that rational people will agree with us; and that those who don’t are either uninformed, lazy, irrational, or biased.
naive realism
Individuals see members of their own group as being relatively more varied than members of other groups
Outgroup homogeneity bias
The tendency to unconsciously assume that others (or one’s future selves) share one’s current emotional states, thoughts and values
projection bias
The tendency to claim more responsibility for successes than failures. It may also manifest itself as a tendency for people to evaluate ambiguous information in a way beneficial to their interests
self-serving bias
Known as the tendency for group members to spend more time and energy discussing information that all members are already familiar with (i.e., shared information), and less time and energy discussing information that only some members are aware of (i.e., unshared information).
shared info bias
The tendency to defend and bolster the status quo. Existing social, economic, and political arrangements tend to be preferred, and alternatives disparaged, sometimes even at the expense of individual and collective self-interest.
system justification
The tendency for people to view themselves as relatively variable in terms of personality, behavior, and mood while viewing others as much more predictable.
trait ascription bias
Similar to the fundamental attribution error, in this error a person is likely to make an internal attribution to an entire group instead of the individuals within the group.
ultimate attribution error
A tendency to believe ourselves to be worse than others at tasks which are difficult
worse-than-average effect
Bizarre material is better remembered than common material.
Bizarreness effect
In a self-justifying manner retroactively ascribing one’s choices to be more informed than they were when they were made.
Choice-supportive bias
After an investment of effort in producing change, remembering one’s past performance as more difficult than it actually was
change bias
Tendency to remember high values and high likelihoods/probabilities/frequencies as lower than they actually were and low ones as higher than they actually were. Based on the evidence, memories are not extreme enough
regressive bias
Incorrectly remembering one’s past attitudes and behaviour as resembling present attitudes and behaviour
consistency bias
That cognition and memory are dependent on context, such that out-of-context memories are more difficult to retrieve than in-context memories (e.g., recall time and accuracy for a work-related memory will be lower at home, and vice versa)
context effect
The tendency for people of one race to have difficulty identifying members of a race other than their own.
cross-race effect
A form of misattribution where a memory is mistaken for imagination, because there is no subjective experience of it being a memory
Cryptomnesia
Recalling the past in a self-serving manner, e.g., remembering one’s exam grades as being better than they were, or remembering a caught fish as bigger than it really was.
egocentric memory bias
A bias in which the emotion associated with unpleasant memories fades more quickly than the emotion associated with positive events.
fading effect bias
A form of misattribution where imagination is mistaken for a memory.
false memory
That self-generated information is remembered best. For instance, people are better able to recall memories of statements that they have generated than similar statements generated by others
generation effect
The tendency to forget information that can be found readily online by using Internet search engines.
google effect
The inclination to see past events as being more predictable than they actually were;
hindsight bias
That humorous items are more easily remembered than non-humorous ones, which might be explained by the distinctiveness of humor, the increased cognitive processing time to understand the humor, or the emotional arousal caused by the humor
humor effect
That people are more likely to identify as true statements those they have previously heard (even if they cannot consciously remember having heard them), regardless of the actual validity of the statement. In other words, a person is more likely to believe a familiar statement than an unfamiliar one.
illusion of truth effect
Inaccurately remembering a relationship between two events
illusory correlation
Memory distortions introduced by the loss of details in a recollection over time, often concurrent with sharpening or selective recollection of certain details that take on exaggerated significance in relation to the details or aspects of the experience lost through leveling. Both biases may be reinforced over time, and by repeated recollection or re-telling of a memory
Leveling and Sharpening
That different methods of encoding information into memory have different levels of effectiveness
Levels-of-processing effect
A smaller percentage of items are remembered in a longer list, but as the length of the list increases, the absolute number of items remembered increases as well
list-length effect
Memory becoming less accurate because of interference from post-event informatio
misinformation effect
That memory recall is higher for the last items of a list when the list items were received via speech than when they were received through writing.
modality effect
The improved recall of information congruent with one’s current mood.
Mood-congruent memory bias
That a person in a group has diminished recall for the words of others who spoke immediately before himself, if they take turns speaking
next in line effect
That being shown some items from a list and later retrieving one item causes it to become harder to retrieve the other items
Part-list cueing effect
That people seem to perceive not the sum of an experience but the average of how it was at its peak (e.g. pleasant or unpleasant) and how it ended.
Peak–end rule
The unwanted recurrence of memories of a traumatic event
persistence
The notion that concepts that are learned by viewing pictures are more easily and frequently recalled than are concepts that are learned by viewing their written word form counterparts
Picture superiority effect
That older adults favor positive over negative information in their memories.
Positivity effect
That items near the end of a sequence are the easiest to recall, followed by the items at the beginning of a sequence; items in the middle are the least likely to be remembered
primacy effect
That information that takes longer to read and is thought about more (processed with more difficulty) is more easily remembered
Processing difficulty effect
The recalling of more personal events from adolescence and early adulthood than personal events from other lifetime periods
Reminiscence bump
The remembering of the past as having been better than it really was.
Rosy retrospection
That memories relating to the self are better recalled than similar information relating to others.
Self-relevance effect
Confusing episodic memories with other information, creating distorted memories.
source confusion
That information is better recalled if exposure to it is repeated over a long span of time rather than a short one.
spacing effect
The tendency to overestimate the amount that other people notice your appearance or behavior.
spotlight effect
Memory distorted towards stereotypes (e.g., racial or gender), e.g., “black-sounding” names being misremembered as names of criminals
stereotypical bias
Diminishment of the recency effect because a sound item is appended to the list that the subject is not required to recall
suffix effect
A form of misattribution where ideas suggested by a questioner are mistaken for memory.
suggestibility
The tendency to displace recent events backward in time and remote events forward in time, so that recent events appear more remote, and remote events, more recent.
telescoping effect
The fact that you more easily remember information you have read by rewriting it instead of rereading it
testing effect
When a subject is able to recall parts of an item, or related information, but is frustratingly unable to recall the whole item. This is thought an instance of “blocking” where multiple similar memories are being recalled and interfere with each other
tip of tongue
Overestimating the significance of the present
travis syndrome
That the “gist” of what someone has said is better remembered than the verbatim wording.[108] This is because memories are representations, not exact copies.
verbatim effect
That an item that sticks out is more likely to be remembered than other items
Von Restorff effect
That uncompleted or interrupted tasks are remembered better than completed ones.
Zeigarnik effect
