Contemporary Issues in Psychology

Beliefs

Ideas or mental content that we take to be true or accurate

Anomalous Beliefs

False or mistaken beliefs that are clearly out of touch with reality

Heuristic

A mental shortcut that allows people to solve problems & make judgments quickly & efficiently

Cognitive Bias

A systematic error in thinking or reasoning that affects judgment & decision-making

Fallacy

A mistaken belief resulting from invalid or faulty reasoning

Confirmation Bias

Tendency to search for, interpret, favor, & recall information in a way that confirms one's preexisting beliefs or hypotheses

Assimilation Bias

Tendency to interpret ambiguous evidence in a manner that supports a desired conclusion

Artifacts

Biases or errors that were favored by natural selection in ancestral environments, but are no longer advantageous in the current environment

Error Management Biases

Natural selection favored biases toward the less costly error; although error rates are increased, net costs are reduced

Availability Heuristic

Tendency to make a judgement about something based on how easily an example comes to mind

Hindsight Bias

Tendency to exaggerate the likelihood that one would have predicted the outcome in advance

Anchoring Bias

Tendency to depend too heavily on an initial piece of information when making decisions

Framing Effect

Tendency to react to a choice in different ways depending on how it is presented (e.g., gains versus losses)

Self-serving Bias

Tendency to attribute successes & positive outcomes to our doing, & negative events or outcomes to other people or contextual factors outside ourselves

Naive Realism

Tendency to believe that that one perceives objects & events as they actually are, rather than as they appear in light of one's particular vantage point, prior beliefs, & expectations

Non Sequitur

A conclusion that does "not logically follow" from the previous argument, statement, or evidence

Zero Sum (or Fixed Pie) Fallacy

Mistaken belief or argument that gains realized by one entity must come at the cost of another

Naturalistic Fallacy

Mistaken belief or argument that assumes if something is natural, it is good

Ad Hominem

Attacking the person making an argument rather than the argument itself

Bandwagon Fallacy

Appeal to popularity or arguing that many people believing something is evidence of its accuracy

Fallacy of Ignorance

Assuming that if something has not been proven false, then it must be true (or vice versa)

Representativeness Heuristic

Mental shortcut whereby people classify something according to how similar it is to the prototypical case

Gambler's Fallacy

Belief that if a particular outcome has not occurred in a while, then it is due to occur

Regression Fallacy

Mistakenly attributing instances of regression to the mean for a causal relationship

Conjunction Fallacy

Mistaken belief that the combination of two events is more probable than either of its constituent elements

Over-Inference

Tendency to draw firm conclusions from a single instance or small sample

Magical Thinking

Tendency to think that 2 events that "go together" in time, distance or similarity of features are causally linked

Sunk-Cost Fallacy

Mistaken belief that spending time, money or energy on an endeavor is justified by time, money or energy already invested in it

System 1 Thinking

Set of mental processes that occur quickly & effortlessly, & renders quick, holistic judgments that are typically based on associative connections

System 2 Thinking

Deliberate, rule-based system of thinking that allocates attention to the effortful mental activities that demand it

Occam's Razor

Scientific rule that asserts when two theories are equally plausible & supported by the available scientific data, choose the simpler of the two

Appeal to Authority

Arguing that a claim is true simply because a valid authority or expert on the issue said it was true

Appeal to Consequences

Arguing that a proposition is true because belief in it has good consequences, or that it is false because belief in it has bad consequences

Special Pleading

Applying standards, principles, and/or rules to other people or circumstances, while making oneself or certain circumstances exempt from the same critical criteria, without providing adequate justification

Circular Reasoning (Begging the Question)

Error in reasoning that occurs when a premise of an argument depends on the conclusion being true

Observational Selection

The error of only counting or including data that supports one position or conclusion while ignoring the data that doesn't support or even refutes it.

False Dichotomy

Incorrectly asserting that a choice must be made from two extremes when many alternative possibilities exist

Type I Error

A false positive or detecting a pattern where none exists

Type II Error

A false negative or failing to detect a pattern where one exists

Hasty Generalization

Drawing a conclusion from too little data

Post hoc, ergo propter hoc (post hoc fallacy)

Tendency to assume that because an event follows another event, the second event must have been caused by the initial event

Faulty Analogy

Comparing two things that do not share a fundamental similarity

Slippery Slope Fallacy

Mistakenly assuming that a relatively small first step is going to lead to a chain of events that culminates in some significant effect

Relativist Fallacy

Asserting that some fact is true for one person but not for another

Red Herring

Introducing an irrelevant topic into an argument to distract the opponent or audience from the actual topic of discussion

Appeal to Emotion

Attempt to manipulate the recipient's emotions in order to win an argument, especially in the absence of factual evidence

Strawman Fallacy

Refuting an argument that is different from the one being made without acknowledging the distinction

Weasel Words

Use of language in a deliberate way to influence thought on superficial grounds

Poisoning the Well

Priming the recipient to distrust the presenter's argument in advance

Ad hominem Circumstantial

Claiming an argument is invalid becuase the person making an argument is biased or predisposed to take a particular stance

Ad hominem tu quoque

Claiming an argument is flawed by pointing out that the one making the argument is not acting consistently with the claims of the argument

Shoehorning

The process of force-fitting some current affair into one's personal, political, or religious agenda

Selective Attention

Focusing attention on certain aspects of the argument while completely ignoring or missing other parts

Political Correctness Fallacy

Claiming a statement is false because it is politically incorrect, or true because it is politically correct

Reactance Bias

Tendency to do something different from what someone wants you to do in reaction to a perceived attempt to constrain your freedom of choice

Dunning Kruger Effect

Cognitive bias in which individuals who are incompetent overestimate their competence, & those who are highly competent underestimate their competence

Law of Small Numbers

Tendency to assume that the characteristics of a population will be replicated in all of its subsets

Appeal to Ancient Wisdom

Tendency to think that beliefs that have been held for a long time must be valid

Fallacy Fallacy

Assuming that a conclusion must be wrong when the reasoning for the conclusion contains a fallacy

Fallacy of Self-Proclaimed Expertise

Tendency to believe assertions when the speaker claims to be an expert on the subject, even when they do not provide evidence to support their assertion

Sharpening & Leveling

When the gist of a speaker's message is emphasized & details thought to be less essential are de-emphasized - results in second-hand accounts that are cleaner & simpler

False Consensus Effect

Tendency to overestimate the extent to which others share our beliefs & behaviors

Cognitive Dissonance

Mental discomfort experienced by a person who simultaneously holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values

Continued Influence Effect

Tendency for discredited information to continue to influence reasoning & understanding even after it has been corrected

Backfire Effect

Tendency to hold one's beliefs even more strongly after confronted with evidence that conflicts with those beliefs

Groupthink

Tendency for a group with a particular agenda to make irrational or problematic decisions because its members value harmony & coherence over accurate analysis & critical evaluation

Scarcity Heuristic

A compliance gaining strategy that assumes people want to try to secure those opportunities that are scarce

Message Length Heuristic

Tendency to assume that longer messages represent stronger arguments

Representativeness Heuristic

Mental shortcut whereby people classify something according to how similar it is to the prototypical case

Illusory Correlation

Mistakenly believing that two statistically unrelated events are related

Placebo Effect

Improvement resulting from the mere expectation of improvement

Stereotyping

Overgeneralized belief about a particular category of people

Cognitive Ease

The ease with which our brains process information

Mindfulness

The awareness that arises from paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment & non-judgmentally

Selective Exposure

Tendency to select sources of information that support one's existing views

Self-serving Bias

Tendency to attribute successes & positive outcomes to our doing, & negative events or outcomes to other people or contextual factors outside ourselves

Fundamental Attribution Error

Tendency for people to over-emphasise dispositional, or personality-based explanations for behaviours observed in others while under-emphasising situational explanations

Anthropomorphism

Tendency to characterize animals, objects, & abstract concepts as possessing human-like traits, emotions, & intentions

Base Rate Fallacy

Tendency to ignore base rate information & focus on specific information pertaining to a certain case

Declinism

Tendency to view the past favorably & future negatively

Pareidolia

Tendencty to perceive a vague or random stimulus as meaningful