Cog Bias

What is regression to the mean and why is it important?

Regression to the mean is the tendency for extreme outcomes to be followed by outcomes closer to the average because performance reflects both skill and luck and luck doesn't repeat reliably. It's important because our minds look for causal explanations so we credit or blame the wrong things for changes that are really just chance. Understanding it helps us evaluate results more accurately and make more realistic predictions.

How does the illusion of validity impede our evaluations?

The illusion of validity is our tendency to feel confident in our judgments even when evidence shows they have little predictive power because confidence comes from how coherent our story feels not from the quality of the evidence. It impedes our evaluations because it makes us overtrust gut judgments, stop seeking feedback, and mistake luck for skill.

Which biases do I gravitate toward?

confirmation bias - seeking out information I already know is true

define cognitive bias

a systematic and predictable distortion between reality and our cognitive representation of reality produced by the normal mechanisms through which the human mind perceives, simplifies, interprets, remembers, and responds to the world

perceives, simplifies, interprets, remembers, and responds

what we notice, reduces complexity, determines what information means, what is retained, converts mind’s representation of reality