Cognitive Biases

A list of the most relevant biases in behavioral economics

Biases

Action Bias

 

Why do we prefer doing something to doing nothing?

Affect Heuristic

 

Why do we rely on our current emotions when making quick decisions?

Ambiguity Effect

 

Why do we prefer options we know?

Anchoring Bias

 

Why do we compare everything to the first piece of information we received?

Attentional Bias

 

Why do we focus more on some things than others?

Authority Bias

 

Why do we always trust the doctor, even though they might be wrong?

Availability Heuristic

 

Why do we tend to think that things that happened recently are more likely to happen again?

Bandwagon Effect

 

Why do we support opinions as they become more popular?

Barnum Effect

 

Why do we believe our horoscopes?

Base Rate Fallacy

 

Why do we rely on specific information over statistics?

Belief Perseverance (The Backfire Effect)

 

Why do we maintain the same beliefs, even when we are proved wrong?

Benjamin Franklin effect

 

Why do we like someone more after doing them a favor?

Bikeshedding

 

Why do we focus on trivial things?

Bottom-Dollar Effect

 

Why do we transfer negative emotions about being broke on items that we purchase?

Bounded Rationality

 

Why are we satisfied by “good enough?”

Bundling Bias

 

Why do we value items purchased in a bundle less than those purchased individually?

Bye-Now Effect

 

Why are we likely to spend more after reading the word “bye”?

Cashless Effect

 

Why does paying without physical cash increase the likelihood that we purchase something?

Category Size Bias

 

Why do we think we’re more likely to win at the big casino versus the small one?

Choice Overload

 

Why do we have a harder time choosing when we have more options?

Cognitive Dissonance

 

Why is it so hard to change someone's beliefs?

Commitment Bias

 

Why do people support their past ideas, even when presented with evidence that they're wrong?

Confirmation Bias

 

Why do we favor our existing beliefs?

Decision Fatigue

 

Why do we make worse decisions at the end of the day?

Declinism

 

Why do we think the past is better than the future?

Decoy Effect

 

Why do we feel more strongly about one option after a third one is added?

Disposition Effect

 

Why do we tend to hold on to losing investments?

Distinction Bias

 

Why do we view options as more distinct when evaluating them simultaneously?

Dunning–Kruger Effect

 

Why do we fail to accurately gauge our own abilities?

Einstellung Effect

 

Why do our past experiences prevent us from reaching the best possible outcome?

Empathy Gap

 

Why do we mispredict how much our emotions influence our behavior?

Endowment Effect

 

Why do we value items more if they belong to us?

Extrinsic Incentive Bias

 

Why do we think others are in it for the money, but we’re in it for the experience?

False Consensus Effect

 

Why do we overestimate agreement?

Framing Effect

 

Why do our decisions depend on how options are presented to us?

Functional Fixedness

 

Why do we have trouble thinking outside the box?

Fundamental Attribution Error

 

Why do we underestimate the influence of the situation on people’s behavior?

Gambler's Fallacy

 

Why do we think a random event is more or less likely to occur if it happened several times in the past?

Google Effect

 

Why do we forget information that we just looked up?

Halo Effect

 

Why do positive impressions produced in one area positively influence our opinions in another area?

Hard-easy effect

 

Why is our confidence disproportionate to the difficulty of a task?

Heuristics

 

Why do we take mental shortcuts?

Hindsight Bias

 

Why do unpredictable events only seem predictable after they occur?

Hot Hand Fallacy

 

Why do we expect previous success to lead to future success?

Hyperbolic Discounting

 

Why do we value immediate rewards more than long-term rewards?

IKEA Effect

 

Why do we place disproportionately high value on things we helped to create?

Identifiable Victim Effect

 

Why are we more likely to offer help to a specific individual than a vague group?

Illusion of Control

 

Why do we think we have more control over the world than we do?

Illusion of Transparency

 

Why do we feel that others can read our mind?

Illusion of Validity

 

Why are we overconfident in our predictions?

Illusory Correlation

 

Why do we think some things are related when they aren’t?

Illusory Truth Effect

 

Why do we believe misinformation more easily when it’s repeated many times?

Impact Bias

 

Why do we overestimate our emotional reactions to future events?

In-group Bias

 

Why do we treat our in-group better than we do our out-group?

Incentivization

 

Why do we work harder when we are promised a reward?

Just-World Hypothesis

 

Why do we believe that we get what we deserve?

Lag Effect

 

Why does spacing out the repetition of information make one more likely to remember it?

Law of the Instrument

 

Why do we use the same skills everywhere?

Less-is-Better Effect

 

Why do our preferences change depending on whether we judge our options together or separately?

Leveling and Sharpening

 

Why do we exaggerate some details of a story, but minimize others?

Levels of Processing

 

Why do we remember information that we attach significance to better than information we repeat?

Look-elsewhere Effect

 

Why do scientists keep looking for a statistically significant result after failing to find one initially?

Loss Aversion

 

Why do we buy insurance?

Mental Accounting

 

Why do we think less about some purchases than others?

Mere Exposure Effect

 

Why do we prefer things that we are familiar with?

Messenger Effect

 

Why do we find some people more credible than others?

Motivating Uncertainty Effect

 

Why are we more motivated by rewards of unknown sizes?

Naive Allocation

 

Why do we prefer to spread limited resources across our options?

Naive Realism

 

Why do we believe we have an objective understanding of the world?

Negativity Bias

 

Why is the news always so depressing?

Noble Edge Effect

 

Why do we tend to favor brands that show care for societal issues?

Normalcy Bias

 

Why do we believe that nothing bad is going to happen?

Nostalgia Effect

 

How do our sentimental feelings for the past influence our actions in the present?

Observer Expectancy Effect

 

Why do we change our behavior when we’re being watched?

Omission Bias

 

Why don’t we pull the trolley lever?

Optimism Bias

 

Why do we overestimate the probability of success?

Ostrich Effect

 

Why do we prefer to ignore negative information?

Overjustification Effect

 

Why do we lose interest in an activity after we are rewarded for it?

Peak-end Rule

 

How do our memories differ from our experiences?

Pessimism bias

 

Why do we think we’re destined to fail?

Planning Fallacy

 

Why do we underestimate how long it will take to complete a task?

Pluralistic Ignorance

 

Why do we think our beliefs are different from the majority?

Primacy Effect

 

Why do we only remember the first things on our grocery list?

Priming

 

Why do some ideas prompt other ideas later on without our conscious awareness?

Projection Bias

 

Why do we think our current preferences will remain the same in the future?

Reactive devaluation

 

Why is negotiation so difficult?

Recency Effect

 

Why do we better remember items at the end of a list?

Regret Aversion

 

Why do we anticipate regret before we make a decision?

Representativeness Heuristic

 

Why do we use similarity to gauge statistical probability?

Response Bias

 

Why do we give false survey responses?

Restraint Bias

 

Why do we overestimate our self-control?

Rosy Retrospection

 

Why do we think the good old days were so good?

Salience Bias

 

Why do we focus on items or information that are more prominent and ignore those that are not?

Self-serving Bias

 

Why do we blame external factors for our own mistakes?

Serial Position Effect

 

Why do we better remember items at the beginning or end of a list?

Sexual Overperception Bias

 

Why do men think that women are always flirting with them?

Social Norms

 

Why do we follow the behavior of others?

Source Confusion

 

Why do we forget where our memories come from?

Spacing Effect

 

Why do we retain information better when we learn it over a long time period?

Spotlight Effect

 

Why do we feel like we stand out more than we really do?

Status Quo Bias

 

Why do we tend to leave things as they are?

Suggestibility

 

Why is yawning contagious?

Survivorship Bias

 

Why do we misjudge groups by only looking at specific group members?

Take-the-best Heuristic

 

Why do we focus on one characteristic to compare when choosing between alternatives?

Telescoping Effect

 

Why do some things “seem like they just happened yesterday?”

The Illusion of Explanatory Depth

 

Why do we think we understand the world more than we actually do?

The Pygmalion effect

 

Why do we perform better when someone has high expectations of us?

The Sunk Cost Fallacy

 

Why are we likely to continue with an investment even if it would be rational to give it up?

Zero Risk Bias

 

Why do we seek certainty in risky situations?

Notes illustration

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