- > DECISIONS / BEHAVIOR
- Anchoring
- Attentional Bias
- Bandwagon effect
- Bias blind spot
- Choice-supportive bias
- Confirmation bias
- Congruence bias
- Contrast effect
- Denomination effect
- Distinction bias
- Endowment effect
- Expectation bias
- Extraordinarity bias
- Focusing effect
- Framing effect
- Hostile media effect
- Hyperbolic discounting
- Illusion of control
- Impact bias
- Information bias
- Interloper effect
- Irrational escalation
- Loss aversion
- Mere exposure effect
- Money illusion
- Moral credential effect
- Negativity bias
- Neglect of probability
- Normalcy bias
- Omission bias
- Outcome bias
- Planning fallacy
- Post-purchase rationalization
- Pseudocertainty effect
- Reactance
- Restraint bias
- Selective perception
- Semmelweis reflex
- Social comparison bias
- Status quo bias
- Unit bias
- Wishful thinking
- Zero-risk bias
- > PROBABILITY / BELIEF
- Ambiguity effect
- Anchoring effect
- Attentional bias
- Authority bias
- Availability heuristic
- Availability cascade
- Base rate neglect/fallacy
- Belief bias
- Clustering illusion
- Conjunction fallacy
- Forward Bias
- Gambler's fallacy
- Hindsight bias
- Illusory correlation
- Observer-expectancy effect
- Optimism bias
- Ostrich effect
- Overconfidence effect
- Positive outcome bias
- Pareidolia
- Pessimism bias
- Primacy effect
- Recency effect
- Regression toward the mean
- Stereotyping
- Subadditivity effect
- Subjective validation
- Well travelled road effect
- > SOCIAL BIASES
- Actor–observer bias
- Dunning–Kruger effect
- Egocentric bias
- Forer effect (aka Barnum effect)
- False consensus effect
- Fundamental attribution error
- Halo effect
- Herd instinct
- Illusion of asymmetric insight
- Illusion of transparency
- Illusory superiority
- Ingroup bias
- Just-world phenomenon
- Moral luck
- Outgroup homogeneity bias
- Projection bias
- Self-serving bias
- System justification
- Trait ascription bias
- Ultimate attribution error
- > MEMORY ERRORS
- Consistency bias
- Cryptomnesia
- Egocentric bias
- False memory
- Hindsight bias
- Reminiscence bump
- Rosy retrospection
- Self-serving bias
- Suggestibility
- Telescoping effect
- Von Restorff effect
Cognitive bias is a general term used to describe many distortions in the human mind that are difficult to eliminate and that lead to perceptual distortion, inaccurate judgment, or illogical interpretation.
> DECISIONS / BEHAVIOR
Many of these biases are studied for how they affect belief formation, business decisions, and scientific research.
Anchoring
the common human tendency to rely too heavily, or "anchor," on one trait or piece of information when making decisions.Attentional Bias
implicit cognitive bias defined as the tendency of emotionally salient stimuli in one's environment to preferentially draw and hold attention.Bandwagon effect
the tendency to do (or believe) things because many other people do (or believe) the same. Related to groupthink and herd behavior.Bias blind spot
the tendency to see oneself as less biased than other people.Choice-supportive bias
the tendency to remember one's choices as better than they actually were.Confirmation bias
the tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions.Congruence bias
the tendency to test hypotheses exclusively through direct testing, in contrast to tests of possible alternative hypotheses.Contrast effect
the enhancement or diminishing of a weight or other measurement when compared with a recently observed contrasting object.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).Distinction bias
the tendency to view two options as more dissimilar when evaluating them simultaneously than when evaluating them separately.Endowment effect
"the fact that people often demand much more to give up an object than they would be willing to pay to acquire it".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.Extraordinarity bias
the tendency to value an object more than others in the same category as a result of an extraordinarity of that object that does not, in itself, change the value.Focusing effect
the tendency to place too much importance on one aspect of an event; causes error in accurately predicting the utility of a future outcome.Framing effect
drawing different conclusions from the same information, depending on how that information is presented.Hostile media effect
the tendency to see a media report as being biased due to one's own strong partisan views.Hyperbolic discounting
the 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.Illusion of control
the tendency to overestimate one's degree of influence over other external events.Impact bias
the tendency to overestimate the length or the intensity of the impact of future feeling states.Information bias
the tendency to seek information even when it cannot affect action.Interloper effect
the tendency to value third party consultation as objective, confirming, and without motive. Also consultation paradox, the conclusion that solutions proposed by existing personnel within an organization are less likely to receive support than from those recruited for that purpose.Irrational escalation
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.Loss aversion
"the 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 (face value) of money rather than its value in terms of purchasing power.Moral credential effect
the tendency of a track record of non-prejudice to increase subsequent prejudice.Negativity bias
the tendency to pay more attention and give more weight to negative than positive experiences or other kinds of information.Neglect of probability
the tendency to completely disregard probability when making a decision under uncertainty.Normalcy bias
the refusal to plan for, or react to, a disaster which has never happened before.Omission bias
the tendency to judge harmful actions as worse, or less moral, than equally harmful omissions (inactions).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.Planning fallacy
the tendency to underestimate task-completion times.Post-purchase rationalization
the tendency to persuade oneself through rational argument that a purchase was a good value.Pseudocertainty effect
the tendency to make risk-averse choices if the expected outcome is positive, but make risk-seeking choices to avoid negative outcomes.Reactance
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.Restraint bias
the tendency to overestimate one's ability to show restraint in the face of temptation.Selective perception
the tendency for expectations to affect perception.Semmelweis reflex
the tendency to reject new evidence that contradicts an established paradigm.Social comparison bias
the tendency, when making hiring decisions, to favour potential candidates who don't compete with one's own particular strengths.Status quo bias
the tendency to like things to stay relatively the same.Unit 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.Wishful thinking
the formation of beliefs and the making of decisions according to what is pleasing to imagine instead of by appeal to evidence or rationality.Zero-risk bias
preference for reducing a small risk to zero over a greater reduction in a larger risk.> PROBABILITY / BELIEF
Many of these biases are often studied for how they affect business and economic decisions and how they affect experimental research.
Ambiguity effect
the tendency to avoid options for which missing information makes the probability seem "unknown."Anchoring effect
the tendency to rely too heavily, or "anchor," on a past reference or on one trait or piece of information when making decisions (also called "insufficient adjustment").Attentional bias
the tendency to neglect relevant data when making judgments of a correlation or association.Authority bias
the tendency to value an ambiguous stimulus (e.g., an art performance) according to the opinion of someone who is seen as an authority on the topic.Availability heuristic
estimating what is more likely by what is more available in memory, which is biased toward vivid, unusual, or emotionally charged examples.Availability cascade
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").Base rate neglect/fallacy
the tendency to base judgments on specifics, ignoring general statistical information.Belief bias
an effect where someone's evaluation of the logical strength of an argument is biased by the believability of the conclusion.Clustering illusion
the tendency to see patterns where actually none exist.Conjunction fallacy
the tendency to assume that specific conditions are more probable than general ones.Forward Bias
the tendency to create models based on past data which are validated only against that past data.Gambler's fallacy
the tendency to think that future probabilities are altered by past events, when in reality they are unchanged. Results from an erroneous conceptualization of the Law of large numbers. 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."Hindsight bias
sometimes called the "I-knew-it-all-along" effect, the tendency to see past events as being predictable at the time those events happened.Illusory correlation
inaccurately perceiving a relationship between two events, either because of prejudice or selective processing of information.Observer-expectancy effect
when a researcher expects a given result and therefore unconsciously manipulates an experiment or misinterprets data in order to find it.Optimism bias
the tendency to be over-optimistic about the outcome of planned actions.Ostrich effect
ignoring an obvious (negative) situation.Overconfidence effect
excessive confidence in one's own answers to questions. For example, for certain types of questions, answers that people rate as "99% certain" turn out to be wrong 40% of the time.Positive outcome bias
the tendency of one to overestimate the probability of a favorable outcome coming to pass in a given situation.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 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.Primacy effect
the tendency to weigh initial events more than subsequent events.Recency effect
the tendency to weigh recent events more than earlier events.Regression toward the mean
the tendency to expect extreme performance to continue.Stereotyping
expecting a member of a group to have certain characteristics without having actual information about that individual.Subadditivity effect
the tendency to judge 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.Well travelled road effect
underestimation of the duration taken to traverse oft-traveled routes and over-estimate the duration taken to traverse less familiar routes.> SOCIAL BIASES
Most of these biases are labeled as attributional biases.