Cognitive biases are systematic patterns of deviation from norm or rationality in judgment. They are mental shortcuts, or heuristics, that the brain uses to simplify information processing and make decisions more quickly. While often useful, these biases can lead to distorted perceptions of reality and flawed decision-making. Here's a summary of 20 common cognitive biases and their effects on how we perceive our environment and make choices.
These biases influence how we seek out, interpret, and recall information, often reinforcing our existing beliefs.
- Confirmation Bias: The tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information that confirms or supports one's preexisting beliefs or hypotheses. This affects our decision-making by causing us to selectively gather evidence, leading to skewed perspectives and poor choices. For instance, an investor might only seek out news that is positive about a stock they own, ignoring any negative indicators.
- Anchoring Bias: The over-reliance on the first piece of information offered when making decisions. This initial "anchor" influences subsequent judgments. In negotiations, the first price suggested often sets the stage for the rest of the discussion, and in everyday life, the initial price we see for a product can make subsequent, lower prices seem like a better deal than they actually are.
- Availability Heuristic: Overestimating the importance of information that is most readily available to us. Events that are more recent, vivid, or emotionally charged are more easily recalled and thus perceived as being more common or likely to occur. For example, after hearing several news reports about a plane crash, you might feel that air travel is more dangerous than it statistically is.
- Dunning-Kruger Effect: A cognitive bias whereby people with low ability at a task overestimate their ability. Conversely, experts may underestimate their own competence. This can lead to poor decision-making because individuals may undertake tasks for which they are ill-equipped or fail to recognize their own errors.
- Survivorship Bias: Concentrating on the people or things that "survived" some process and inadvertently overlooking those that did not because of their lack of visibility. This can lead to overly optimistic beliefs because failures are ignored. For example, we might overstate the ease of starting a successful business by focusing on the few who succeeded, while the many who failed are not as visible.
- Hindsight Bias: The tendency, after an event has occurred, to see the event as having been predictable, despite there having been little or no objective basis for predicting it. This can lead to an oversimplification of past events and a failure to learn from them, as we may believe we "knew it all along."
These biases are influenced by our interactions with and perceptions of others.
- Bandwagon Effect: The tendency to do or believe things because many other people do or believe the same. This affects our perception by making us conform to the majority view, which may not always be correct. It can stifle innovation and lead to groupthink in decision-making.
- Halo Effect: The tendency for an initial positive impression of a person in one area to positively influence one's opinion of that person in other areas. For instance, we may perceive an attractive person as also being more intelligent and trustworthy, which can impact hiring decisions and social interactions.
- Fundamental Attribution Error: The tendency to over-emphasize personality-based explanations for behaviors observed in others while under-emphasizing the role and power of situational influences. This can lead to misjudgments about others' character, causing us to blame individuals for their circumstances rather than considering external factors.
- Self-Serving Bias: The tendency to attribute successes to our own abilities and efforts, but attribute failures to external factors. This protects our self-esteem but can hinder self-improvement by preventing us from recognizing and learning from our mistakes.
- In-group Bias: The tendency for people to give preferential treatment to others they perceive as being part of their own group. This can lead to prejudice and discrimination in decision-making, from casual social interactions to significant societal structures.
These biases directly impact the choices we make and the actions we take.
- Sunk Cost Fallacy: The tendency to continue an endeavor once an investment in money, effort, or time has been made. This can lead to irrational decision-making, as we may continue to pour resources into a failing project simply because of what we've already invested, rather than making a rational choice based on the current situation.
- Framing Effect: Drawing different conclusions from the same information, depending on how that information is presented. How a choice is "framed" can significantly influence our decision. For example, a product advertised as "90% fat-free" is more appealing than one described as "containing 10% fat."
- Optimism Bias: The belief that one is less likely to experience a negative event. This can lead to risky behaviors, such as not wearing a seatbelt or failing to save for retirement, because we underestimate the likelihood of negative consequences.
- Negativity Bias: The psychological phenomenon by which humans have a greater recall of unpleasant memories compared with positive memories. This can lead to a more pessimistic outlook and may cause us to be overly cautious in our decision-making.
- Status Quo Bias: The preference for the current state of affairs. The current baseline is taken as a reference point, and any change from that baseline is perceived as a loss. This can lead to resistance to change and a failure to adopt potentially better alternatives.
- Gambler's Fallacy: The belief that if a particular event occurs more frequently than normal during the past, it is less likely to happen in the future (or vice versa), when it has been established that the probability of such events does not depend on what has happened in the past. This can lead to poor decision-making in situations of chance.
- Zero-Risk Bias: The preference for eliminating a small risk entirely over a greater reduction in a larger risk. We are drawn to the certainty of eliminating a threat, even if it's a minor one, which can lead to a misallocation of resources when making decisions about safety and security.
- 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. This can lead to self-destructive behavior in an attempt to assert autonomy.
- Choice-Supportive Bias: The tendency to retroactively ascribe positive attributes to an option one has chosen. This can lead to a reinforcement of our decisions, making it difficult to objectively evaluate whether we made the best choice.