biases

  • Confirmation bias: favoring something that reaffirms your existing beliefs

    • A way to avoid or lessen cognitive dissonance, so we ignore conflicting info

    • EX: a conservative or liberal individual only looking at new articles matching their ideological spectrum

  • Anchoring bias: the first thing you’re introduced to influences judgement of all to follow

    • Anchors influence policy bc makes us lose sight of other choices, miss underlying problems, or undermine systematic analysis of issues

    • EX: a car dealership overpitching a price, but giving a “discount”. The customer thinks the discount is a great deal when in reality the market price is way lower

  • Curse of Knowledge: once you understand something, you assume it’s obvious to everyone else

    • Need to know your audience and explain slowly from scratch

    • EX: politicians using lot of jargon

  • Belief bias: tendency to think something is true bc it’s believable rather than it being logically sound

    • EX: We think tomatoes are vegetables because we use it in savory recipes, but it’s botanically a vegetable

  • Barnum effect: we fill in gaps for vague statements to make it apply to us

    • EX: tik tok astrologers giving vague statements and all the comments claiming

  • Sunk cost fallacy: 

  • Self-serving bias: all your failures are bc of someone/thing else, but all your successes are bc of you→ protect ego

  • Groupthink: when everyone goes with the group’s vibes instead of what the actual best decision is

    • EX: Abu Ghraib

  • Availability heuristic: your judgement is influenced by all the stories off the top of your head

    • My mom sees how someone got kidnapped at a grocery store, so i’m at danger in the grocery store too

  • Dunning-Kruger effect: getting overconfident about something even though you just started learning it

  • Backfire effect: when a core belief is challenged, it makes you believe it even more strongly

    • Feels like an attack on identity

  • Negativity bias: you let bad things disproportionately influence your thinking

  • Declinism: thinking that the future is going to be way worse than it actually is

    • EX: MAGA- when did america actually stop being great, we’d rather live in now than thousands of years ago

  • Halo Effect: just because someone is more attractive or charismatic, you’re willing to listen to them

    • EX: pretty privilege

  • Just-World Hypothesis: you think that the world always has justice, so you assume it always exists

    • EX: karma will get her

  • Bystander Effect: you should know this, if you don’t kys

  • Framing Effect: being unknowingly influenced by context, delivery and subtle cues

    • EX: Moderna covid vaccine is 95% effective vs 5% failure rate

  • Optimism Bias: overestimating positive outcomes→ wishful thinking

    • EX: wall street, investors, etc. always expect market to keep going up, but it will eventually go down and maybe crash too

  • Pessimism Bias: overestimating negative outcomes→ can be a self-fulfilling prophecy

    • Pessimism- expecting bad outcomes
      Skepticism- rational approach seeking to be impartial

  • In-Group Bias: unfairly preferring people with similar identities to you

  • Reactance: wanting to do the opposite of what someone else is convincing you of→ reacting opposingly bc of threat to freedom or a choice

    • EX: being told not to push red button→ now you want to push it

  • Fundamental Attribution Error: thinking some action happened bc of one’s character when it could just be external circumstances

    • EX: getting mad when someone cut you off and call them rude, but that person could be rushing a loved one to hospital→ you never know

  • Placebo Effect: you should know this, if you don’t kys

  • Spotlight Effect: thinking people are always watching how you look/act (overestimating

EX: Lot of ppl get nervous at gym thinking ppl are always watching