Cognitive Biases and Heuristics

Question 1

Status-quo bias

Answer 1

Also denoted as the power of inertia, conveys our tendency to resist change and go along with the path of least
resistance (i.e. deciding not to act or sticking to a decision that was already made), spite of changing preferences.

Question 2

Positioning heuristic

Answer 2

Denotes our tendency to be influenced by the location, arrangement, scale or assemblage of the alternatives.

Question 3

Regret aversion bias

Answer 3

Conveys our tendency to become more cautious making decisions in order to reduce the possibility of regret.

Question 4

Availability heuristic

Answer 4

Reflects our tendency to judge the probability of occurrence of an event based on the ease at which it can be recalled. When the likelihood of an event is hard to estimate, people tend to use the readiness with which information associated is brought to mind, as an indicator of frequency.

Question 5

Confirmation bias

Answer 5

Refers to our tendency to merely seek information that matches our beliefs. This bias leads us to pay little attention to our reject information that contradicts our reasoning.

Question 6

Decoy effect

Answer 6

Refers to our tendency to increase the preference for an option when an inferior alternative (decoy) is added to the original set.

Question 7

Peak-end rule

Answer 7

Suggest that our memory of past experiences is shaped by two moments: their most intense (i.e. Peak) and the last episode.

Question 8

Placebo effect

Answer 8

Denotes that the provision of an element that has no effect upon the individual’s condition, or his environment, is able to improve her mental or physical response due to its perceived effect.

Question 9

Salience bias

Answer 9

Refers to the fact that individuals are more likely to focus on items or information that are more prominent and ignore those that are less so.

Question 10

Reciprocity bias

Answer 10

Conveys people’s tendency to return with an equivalent action the actions that they receive from others.

Question 11

Commitment bias

Answer 11

Refers to our tendency to “be true to our word” and keep commitments we have made, even if there is evidence that is not paying off.

Question 12

Spotlight effect

Answer 12

Conveys our tendency to overestimate the extent to which our actions and decisions are noticeable to others.

Question 13

Herd instinct bias

Answer 13

Refers to our tendency to replicate other’s actions, even if this implies overriding own beliefs.

Question 14

Scarcity bias

Answer 14

Denotes our tendency to attribute more value to an object because we believe it will be more difficult to acquire in the future.

Question 15

Affect heuristic

Answer 15

Denotes that, given that our first response to a stimulus is affective, they have a strong influence our decision. This
automatic reaction plays an important role on the decision: it occurs prior to conscious reasoning and carries more weight in judgment. People base their judgments on what they feel about a stimulus: if the stimulus activates positive feelings, it serves as an incentive and automatically incites actions to prolong those feelings. If the stimulus triggers negative responses, it is perceived a level of risk that instigates actions to mitigate it.

Question 16

Lehmann et al. [26] replaced an opt-in policy, where the user was asked to schedule an appointment for vaccinations, with an opt-out policy, where permanent appointments were assigned, assuming
prior consent.

Answer 16

Status-quo bias

Question 17

Turland et al. [28] re-ordered the presentation of wireless networks (i.e. placing the most secure options at the top) and used color codes to label the networks’ security (i.e. red color for unsecure networks and green for trusted ones).

Answer 17

Positioning heuristic

Question 18

Wang et al. [33] designed a plugin for the Chrome browser that holds the publication of a Facebook post for 10 seconds, inciting the re-examination of the post’s content.

Answer 18

Regret aversion bias

Question 19

Harbach et al. [18] redesigned the permissions dialogue of the Google Play Store to incorporate personalized scenarios that disclosed potential risks from app permissions. If the app required access to one’s storage, the system would randomly select images stored on the phone along with the message “this app can see and
delete your photos”.

Answer 19

Availability heuristic

Question 20

NewsCube [44] aims at mitigating the media bias by collecting different points of view for an event and offering an unbiased clustered overview. The system collects articles offering different viewpoints, extracts irrelevant data and clusters the information in evenly distributed sections, while identifying the unread sections, to nudge the user to get exposed to all viewpoints.

Answer 20

Confirmation bias

Question 21

For instance, Lee et al. [11] promoted healthy choices on a snack ordering website. To increase the preference for fruit over a cookie, the picture of a big and shiny Fuji apple was positioned next to a small withered one.

Answer 21

Decoy effect

Question 22

Cockburn manipulated the speed of progress bars [52] and reordering tasks’ sequence in a way that the ones demanding lower workload are located in the end.

Answer 22

Peak-end rule

Question 23

Wrong Lane Chase, an arcade racing game, delivers a bonus able to potentially boost the player performance by decreasing the speed of incoming obstacles that should be avoided. However, in fact only the background stage slows down and the obstacles uphold the normal speed [57].

Answer 23

Placebo effect

Question 24

For instance, Adams et al. [10] leveraged the Delboeuf illusion to create the mindless plate which attempts to influence individual’s perception of the amount of food that is on the plate. The mindless plate, through a top-down projection, modifies the color of the inner circle of the plate, which causes the portion of food to appear
bigger in relation to the spare space on the plate.

Answer 24

Salience bias

Question 25

Gamberini et al. [60] web platform, offers access to online resources before requesting the user to provide contact details.

Answer 25

Reciprocity bias

Question 26

Cheng et al. [66] wanten to reduce the risks of student dropouts in large online classes. They added a simple button located at the top of the assignment webpage with the message “I’ve started on this Assignment”. When clicked, the button turns green, and the system logs the student’s progress through the assignment, and shares this with the course’s instructor.

Answer 26

Commitment bias

Question 27

Wang Y. et al. [33] developed a Chrome plugin that presents the size of the post’s audience, helping the user to evaluate the content relative to a certain group of friends. The web-plugin selects five contacts from the user’s friend list, according to the post’s privacy setting, and presents the contacts’ profile pictures along the
message “These people and [number] more can see this.

Answer 27

Spotlight effect

Question 28

Gouveia et al. [72] developed Normly, a smartwatch interface that continuously visualizes one’s walked distance and that of another user that shares the same daily step goal, through two progress bars that advance clockwise.

Answer 28

Herd instinct bias

Question 29

Gouveia et al. [72] designed TickTock, a smartwatch interface that displayed one’s physical activity of only the past hour, thus making feedback a scarce resource.

Answer 29

Scarcity bias

Question 30

Never Hungry Caterpillar [40], an energy monitoring system that uses the representation of a living animal, a ‘caterpillar’, to display feedback and engage users in sustainable behaviors. When the system detects ‘ideal’ energy consumption, the ‘caterpillar’ extension breathes gently and slowly. When behaviors deviate from the ideal (e.g. leaving a device on stand-by mode), the extension starts twisting in pain.

Answer 30

Affect heuristic