Biases are like mental shortcuts that our brain uses to make decisions faster, but they can sometimes lead us to make mistakes without even realizing it.
Here’s a list of common cognitive biases that affect human thinking and decision-making.
Disclaimer : A long read :)
1. Confirmation Bias
The tendency to search for, interpret, and remember information that confirms preexisting beliefs while ignoring or dismissing contradictory evidence. Example: If we fear that we have a particular disease, we keep searching for its symptoms and connecting them with what we currently experience.
2. Anchoring Bias
Relying too heavily on the first piece of information encountered (the "anchor") when making decisions, even if it’s irrelevant. Imagine you’re shopping for a new jacket. The first store you visit has a jacket priced at INR2000, which seems pretty expensive to you. Then, you go to another store and find a similar jacket priced at INR1200. Even though 1200 might still be a bit high for a jacket, the fact that you saw the 2000 price first makes the 1200 jacket seem like a much better deal.
3. Change Bias
The tendency to perceive changes as being more significant than they actually are, or the tendency to focus on changes rather than on constancy. Let’s say you’ve been using a certain app on your phone for months, and then it gets an update with a new design and some different features. Even though the update might actually improve the app, you might feel like the change is unnecessary or frustrating because you were used to the old version.
4. Availability Heuristic
Estimating the likelihood of an event based on how easily examples come to mind, often influenced by recent news or personal experiences. Maybe you’re more influenced by a recent event, like seeing a news story about a plane crash, so you suddenly think air travel is riskier than it really is—that’s availability bias.
5. Bandwagon Effect
The tendency to adopt beliefs or behaviors because others are doing so, or because something has become popular. Imagine you're at a party, and everyone starts doing the "floss" dance. At first, you’re like, “I have no idea how to do this!” But then, you see everyone else having a blast, and before you know it, you’re doing the floss too—even though you’ve never danced in your life!
6. Hindsight Bias
The tendency to believe, after an event has occurred, that we would have predicted or expected the outcome beforehand (the "knew-it-all-along" effect).
You’re watching Cricket, and your team loses in a dramatic way. After the game, you’re talking to your friends, and you say, “I totally knew they were going to lose! They should’ve changed their strategy in the first half!” But… at the time, you were actually glued to the TV, totally hopeful your team would pull through. You didn’t "know" they were going to lose—you're just making it seem like you did because it’s easy to say that after the game’s over.
7. Self-serving Bias
The tendency to attribute successes to internal factors (like talent or effort) and failures to external factors (like bad luck or others' mistakes).
Let’s say you just aced a big exam. You think to yourself, “I studied hard, and that’s why I did so well! I’m just really smart!” That’s the self-serving bias—taking credit for the success because it’s all about your effort or ability. But then, when you fail another exam, your thoughts shift to, “The teacher didn’t explain things well,” or “The test was unfair!” Suddenly, it’s someone else’s fault.
8. Attribution Bias
The tendency to attribute others' actions to their character or personality, while attributing our own actions to situational factors. You’re at work and notice a colleague, makes a mistake during a presentation. You immediately think, “She’s just not prepared enough. She’s not good at this.” That’s dispositional attribution bias—you assume the mistake is because of her character or abilities. But when you make the same mistake the next day, You blame the slow internet!
9. Overconfidence Bias
When people overestimate their knowledge, abilities, or the accuracy of their predictions. You’re playing a trivia game with friends, and the question is, “Who was the first president of the United States?” You confidently shout, “Easy! It’s George Washington!” But then, in the next round, the question is, “What is the capital of Australia?” and you confidently say, “Sydney!” (Even though it’s actually Canberra.)
10. Optimism Bias
The tendency to overestimate the probability of positive outcomes and underestimate the likelihood of negative events. An example would be your belief that you can easily drive an 8-hour road trip, even when you've never done that before.
11. Loss Aversion
The tendency to prefer avoiding losses rather than acquiring equivalent gains; losses are psychologically more impactful than gains. You buy a concert ticket for 1000, but the day before the event, you get sick. You’re feeling miserable, but instead of selling the ticket or staying home, you drag yourself to the concert because you don’t want to "lose" that 1000 Rupees, even though you’d enjoy it more by resting.
12. Framing Effect
People’s decisions are influenced by how information is presented, rather than just by the content itself. Imagine you’re at a restaurant, and the waiter says the special today is a burger that’s 99% fat-free. You think, "That sounds healthy!" But then the waiter says the burger has 1% fat, and suddenly, it doesn’t seem as appealing, even though it’s basically the same thing.
13. Sunk Cost Fallacy
The tendency to continue investing in a decision, project, or endeavor based on the cumulative prior investment (time, money, effort), rather than current and future benefits. Ok, this is something that happens to me a lot! You’re watching a movie that’s so bad it’s giving you a headache. But you keep watching, thinking, “I’ve already spent 30 minutes on this. I might as well finish it.” Even though you’re not enjoying it at all, you feel like you can’t quit because of the time you’ve already invested.
14. Cognitive Dissonance
The discomfort felt when holding two or more contradictory beliefs, values, or attitudes, leading individuals to try to reduce the inconsistency, often by changing one of the conflicting beliefs. Another one that I relate to personally! You’re trying to eat healthier, but one night you eat a whole KFC bucket. To reduce the discomfort of knowing you’ve broken your diet, you tell yourself, “Well, I’ll just start my healthy eating tomorrow. One bucket of fried chicken doesn’t matter that much.”
15. Negativity Bias
The tendency to give more weight to negative experiences or information than to positive ones. You get 10 compliments about your new haircut, but one person says, "I don’t really like it." The whole day, you can’t stop thinking about that one negative comment, even though most people liked it.
16. In-group Bias
The tendency to favor members of one’s own group (social, cultural, political, etc.) over those in out-groups. Pretty simple!
17. Out-group Homogeneity Bias
The tendency to see members of an out-group as being more similar to each other than they actually are. Again, think about all the stereotypes you know!
18. The Halo Effect
The tendency for a positive impression of one quality of a person to positively influence the overall perception of that person. You meet someone for the first time, and they’re super charming and friendly. Instantly, you think they must be amazing at everything—great at their job, super smart, and probably an incredible cook.
19. The Horn Effect
The opposite of the Halo Effect: a negative impression of one quality of a person negatively influences the overall perception. You met someone who happens to be a bad cook and you judge them to be bad at everything they do!
20. Planning Fallacy
The tendency to underestimate the time, costs, and risks of future actions and overestimate the benefits. You plan to clean your entire house in two hours, thinking it’ll be quick. But four hours later, you’re still scrubbing the bathroom, wondering how time got away from you.
21. False Consensus Effect
The tendency to overestimate how much others share our beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors. You assume everyone at your office loves a particular political party because you do. When someone says they don’t like it, you're shocked, thinking, "How could anyone not like ***?"
22. Status Quo Bias
A preference for things to remain the same, and the belief that change is bad or unnecessary. You’ve been using the same phone for years, even though it’s slow and outdated. When your friend suggests upgrading to a newer model, you hesitate and think, “I’m just used to this one. It works fine enough.”
23. Recency Bias
The tendency to give undue weight to the most recent information or experience, rather than considering all relevant data. You just watched an amazing action movie last night, and now when someone asks for a movie recommendation, you immediately suggest that one, even though you’ve seen plenty of other great movies before. Btw, watch “The Substance”- its an amazing body horror! Oops, I just did it!
24. Endowment Effect
The tendency to overvalue something simply because we own it. You’ve been using your old, worn-out coffee mug for years. One day, a friend offers you a brand-new, shiny mug, but you turn it down, thinking, “I can’t part with my mug—it’s got character and ugh…memories!”
25. Just-world Hypothesis
The belief that the world is fundamentally just, and that people get what they deserve (good things happen to good people, bad things happen to bad people). You hear about someone getting into a car accident, and you think, “They must have done something to deserve that”.
26. Escalation of Commitment
The tendency to continue a course of action once an investment has been made, even if it’s clear that the decision was a mistake. You’ve been working on a project for hours, and it’s just not going well. Its not even your kind of project. But instead of stopping, you keep pouring in more time and energy, thinking, “I’ve already invested so much; I can’t quit now!”
27. Illusory Superiority
The tendency to think we are above average in various attributes, such as intelligence, kindness, or driving ability. (cough, cough :))
28. Mere Exposure Effect
The tendency to develop a preference for things simply because they are familiar. You hear a song on the radio for the first time and think it’s okay. After hearing it a few more times, you start to love it and can’t stop singing along / A R Rahman Fans.
29. Cognitive Bias Blind Spot
The tendency to see biases in others' thinking but not in one's own. You’re talking to a friend about how biased people are in their decision-making, and you go on about confirmation bias, anchoring bias, and all these other biases. Then, you pick the same restaurant for lunch every time, even though you’ve complained about it being too crowded before.
30. False Memory Bias
The tendency for our memories to be influenced by post-event information or expectations, leading us to remember things inaccurately. You vividly remember going on a school trip to a theme park when you were a kid, but when you check with your friends, they all swear it never happened. Turns out, you’ve mixed up that memory with a similar trip your family took years later.
31. Altruism Bias
The tendency to believe that people’s actions are driven by selfless motives, rather than acknowledging self-interest or other factors.
32. Social Desirability Bias
The tendency to answer questions in a way that will be viewed favorably by others, even if it doesn’t reflect true beliefs or behaviors. You know it, Political Correctness!
33. Dunning-Kruger Effect
The tendency for people with low ability in a particular area to overestimate their competence in that area. A design student believing they have amazing design skills despite never putting effort into learning actual design principles or theories.
34. Vividness Bias
The tendency to give disproportionate weight to information that is particularly vivid or attention-grabbing, even if it’s not representative or accurate. You’re choosing a vacation destination and suddenly remember a friend’s intense story about getting stuck in a storm while hiking in the mountains. Even though you’ve never heard any negative stories about the planned destination, you end up choosing a resort near the beach because the dramatic hiking story sticks in your mind.
35. The Barnum Effect
The tendency for people to believe vague or general statements about themselves are accurate, often used in astrology and personality tests. Your astrologer will tell you an example for this one 🙂
36. Illusion of Control
The tendency to overestimate one’s ability to control or influence outcomes, especially in situations that are largely outside of one’s control.
37. Temporal Discounting
The tendency to value immediate rewards more highly than future rewards, often leading to short-term thinking. We tend to focus too heavily on exam scores and grades rather than considering education’s long-term impact on our career path.
38. Choice-Supportive Bias
The tendency to remember one's choices as being better than they actually were, often after the fact. You buy a new phone, and after using it for a few days, you start noticing it’s not as great as you thought. But instead of admitting it, you convince yourself, “Actually, the camera is pretty good!” or “It’s really fast, once you get used to it!” — My Nothing CMF Phone :(
39. Actor-Observer Bias
The tendency to attribute one’s own actions to external causes, but attribute others' actions to their character or personality. We spoke about this a while ago under another title- attribution bias!
40. Groupthink
The tendency for groups to make irrational or poor decisions due to the desire for harmony or conformity in the group.You and your friends are deciding where to eat. Everyone is saying they’re fine with pizza, even though you secretly wanted sushi. But because everyone else is happy with pizza, you go along with it and don’t speak up.
These biases are a natural part of human thinking, but being aware of them can help mitigate their impact and lead to better decision-making and critical thinking.
Comments