The outcome bias (or outcome effect) is a cognitive bias that leads us to judge decisions and actions mainly based on their outcomes, in a way that’s irrelevant to the true quality of those decisions and actions. Accordingly, the outcome bias can cause people to judge good decisions as being bad if they lead …
The action bias is a cognitive bias that causes people to favor action over inaction without properly considering the potential consequences of this. For example, the action bias can drive someone to make unnecessary changes to their investment portfolio when it would be better to do nothing. The action bias has major implications in …
The von Restorff isolation effect (sometimes called the von Restorff effect or the isolation effect) is a cognitive bias that causes people to remember things better when they stand out from adjacent things. For example, the von Restorff isolation effect means that people who are shown a color photo in a group of black-and-white …
The projection bias is the tendency to overestimate how much our future attributes (like beliefs and preferences) will resemble our current ones. Essentially, this bias leads people to engage in flawed self-forecasting, by projecting their current attributes onto their future self, and thus underestimating how much their attributes will likely change over time. The …
The law of small numbers is the incorrect belief that small samples are likely to be highly representative of the populations they come from (similarly to large samples). For example, the law of small numbers could cause someone to assume that the way one person behaves necessarily represents the way everyone from that person’s …
The bias blind spot is our tendency to underestimate and be less aware of our own biases compared to those of others. For example, the bias blind spot can cause someone to assume that other people’s political stance is influenced by various biases, whereas their own political stance is perfectly rational. The bias blind …
The belief bias is a cognitive bias that causes people to over-rely on preexisting beliefs and knowledge when evaluating an argument, instead of properly considering the argument itself. Accordingly, the belief bias means that people tend to: Accept arguments that align with their preexisting beliefs, even if those arguments are weak, invalid, or unsound. …
Making decisions is a crucial part of life, but many people struggle to make decisions, in one way or another. Some people, for example, are naturally indecisive, and therefore struggle to make decisions in a timely manner, even when it comes to trivial things, such as choosing what to eat for dinner. Other people, on …
Making decisions is often hard, and making good decisions quickly is even harder. Accordingly, many people struggle when it comes to making big life-alternating decisions, such as which college to go to or what career path to pursue. Furthermore, some people also struggle with other types of decisions, from somewhat important decisions, such as …
Hubris is a personality trait that involves excessive pride, confidence, and self-importance. Accordingly, hubristic individuals tend to overestimate things such as their abilities, knowledge, importance, and likelihood of success. For example, a hubristic person might believe that they’re never wrong, that they’re guaranteed to succeed in all their ventures, or that they deserve to …