Systematic Deviations From Rationality In Judgment
Limited information processing capacity, emotions, motivation, and social influence
Action Bias
The tendency to act when faced with a problem even when inaction would be more effective, or to act when no evident problem exists.
A manager might implement a new policy to solve a problem without thoroughly analyzing whether the problem actually exists or if a simpler solution is available.
Attribute Substitution
Occurs when a judgment has to be made (of a target attribute) that is computationally complex, and instead a more easily calculated heuristic attribute is substituted.
When judging the intelligence of a person, one might substitute the more easily judged attribute of their attractiveness.
Confirmation Bias
The tendency to search for, interpret, or recall information in a way that confirms one's beliefs or hypotheses.
A person who believes that vaccines are harmful might only seek out information that supports this belief and ignore evidence that contradicts it.
Cognitive Dissonance
A mental phenomenon in which people unknowingly hold fundamentally conflicting cognitions.
The tendency to make changes to justify the stressful behavior by avoiding contradictory information likely to increase the magnitude of the cognitive dissonance.
False Consensus Effect
The tendency to overestimate how much other people agree with us and think that most people share our same values.
Someone who believes in a strict vegetarian diet might assume that most people agree with them and share their values.
Hindsight Bias
The inclination to see past events as having been predictable.
After a company fails, people might say they knew it would happen, even if they had no prior indication of the company's impending failure.
Optimism Bias
The tendency to be over-optimistic, underestimating greatly the probability of undesirable outcomes and overestimating favorable and pleasing outcomes.
A person might underestimate the likelihood of getting sick and overestimate the likelihood of winning a lottery.
Apophenia Bias
The tendency to perceive meaningful patterns or connections in random or unrelated data.
A person might see faces in clouds, bushes, toast, or wood grain.
Projection Bias
The tendency to overestimate how much one's future self will share one's current preferences, thoughts, and values.
A person might buy too much food thinking they will eat it all, when their future self might not be as hungry.
Anchoring Bias
The tendency to be overly influenced on one trait or piece of information.
When negotiating a salary, the first number mentioned can set a reference point that influences all subsequent negotiations.
Availability Heuristic
Estimating the probability of something happening based on the examples we can think of.
We might think plane crashes happen more often because we can easily recall news stories about them.
Status Quo Bias
The desire to keep things as they are.
A person might resist changes in their daily routine or work processes, even if the changes could be beneficial.