cognitive bias
systematic pattern of deviation from norm or rationality in judgment due to subjective perception of reality
response bias
a general term for a wide range of tendencies for survey participants to respond inaccurately or falsely to questions
risk compensation
theory which suggests that people typically adjust their behavior in response to the perceived level of risk, becoming more careful where they sense greater risk and less careful if they feel more protected
Levels of Processing model
a psychological model of memory
self-deception
process of denying or rationalizing away the relevance, significance, or importance of opposing evidence and logical argument
base rate fallacy
error in thinking which involves under-valuing base rate information
Pollyanna principle
Tendency of people to remember pleasant events more than unpleasant ones
selective omission
exhibition of memory bias where certain events are selectively recalled or reported over others
faulty generalization
process of reaching a conclusion about all or many instances of a phenomenon, on the basis of one or a few instances of that phenomenon
precision bias
bias caused by fallacious belief that greater precision implies greater accuracy
reactive devaluation
cognitive bias that occurs when a proposal is devalued if it appears to originate from an antagonist
automation bias
propensity for humans to favor suggestions from automated decision-making systems and to ignore contradictory information made without automation
plant blindness
human tendency to ignore plants
recency bias
cognitive bias that favors recent events over historic ones
Hawthorne effect
type of reactivity in which individuals modify an aspect of their behavior in response to their awareness of being observed
law of the instrument
cognitive bias that involves an over-reliance on a familiar tool
self-fulfilling prophecy
prediction that directly or indirectly causes itself to become true, by the very terms of the prophecy itself, due to positive feedback between belief and behavior
fundamental attribution error
tendency for people to under-emphasize situational explanations for an individual's observed behavior while over-emphasizing dispositional and personality-based explanations
Barnum effect
psychological phenomenon whereby individuals give high accuracy ratings to descriptions of their personality that supposedly are tailored specifically to them, yet which are in fact vague and general enough to apply to a wide range of people
Simpson's paradox
phenomenon in probability and statistics, in which a trend appears in several different groups of data but disappears or reverses when these groups are combined
halo effect
tendency for positive impressions of a person, company, brand or product in one area to positively influence one's opinion or feelings in other areas
spacing effect
psychological effect that people learn more by spreading studying out in time
third-person effect
hypothesis in social sciences that that people tend to perceive that mass media messages have a greater effect on others than on themselves, based on personal biases
self-serving bias
any cognitive or perceptual process that is distorted by the need to maintain and enhance self-esteem, or to perceive oneself in an overly favorable manner
availability heuristic
tendency and mental shortcut of preferring an item with more available information
planning fallacy
concept in behavioral economics that predictions about how much time will be needed to complete a future task display an optimism bias and underestimate the time needed
ostrich effect
attempt made by investors to avoid negative financial information
denomination effect
form of cognitive bias relating to currency
egocentric bias
tendency to rely too heavily on one's own perspective, with a higher opinion of oneself than reality
curse of knowledge
cognitive bias that occurs when an individual unknowingly assumes that the others have the same background to understand
ambiguity effect
the tendency to avoid options for which the probability of a favorable outcome is unknown
emotional reasoning
a cognitive process by which one's own emotional reaction is used to prove something is true
conservatism
cognitive bias of the tendency to revise one's belief insufficiently when presented with new evidence
outcome bias
an error made in evaluating the quality of a decision when the outcome of that decision is already known, instead of based on the quality of the decision at the time it was made, given what was known at that time
restraint bias
cognitive bias
system justification theory
theory within social psychology that people have several underlying needs that can be satisfied by the defense and justification of the status quo
overconfidence effect
bias in which a person's subjective confidence in their judgements is reliably greater than the objective accuracy of those judgements
preparedness paradox
cognitive bias wherein less risk is attributed to dangers that have been prepared for than those that haven't
confirmation bias
tendency of people to favor information that confirms their beliefs or hypotheses
confirmation bias
tendency of people to favor information that confirms their beliefs or hypotheses
psychological projection
a defence mechanism in which the human ego defends itself against unconscious impulses or qualities
false-consensus effect
attributional type of cognitive bias whereby people tend to overestimate the extent to which their own opinions, beliefs, preferences, values, and habits are normal and typical of those of others
hostile media effect
Theory of mass communication
physical attractiveness stereotype
stereotype
omission bias
tendency to favor inaction over action, and to judge harmful action as worse than inaction
money illusion
cognitive bias to think of money in nominal, rather than real, terms
Ikea effect
cognitive bias in which consumers place a disproportionately high value on products they partially created
hindsight bias
tendency to perceive past events as more predictable than they actually were at the time
herd mentality
human tendency to adopt beliefs and behaviors favored by one's peer group, instead of thinking independently
conjunction fallacy
formal fallacy that occurs when it is assumed that specific conditions are more probable than a single general one