Decisionmaking-Belief-Behavioral Biases

Question 1

Ambiguity effect

Answer 1

The tendency to avoid options for which missing information makes the probability seem “unknown”.[9]

Question 2

Anchoring or focalism

Answer 2

The tendency to rely too heavily, or “anchor”, on one trait or piece of information when making decisions (usually the first piece of information acquired on that subject)[10][11]

Question 3

Anthropomorphism or personification

Answer 3

The tendency to characterize animals, objects, and abstract concepts as possessing human-like traits, emotions, and intentions.[12]

Question 4

Attentional bias

Answer 4

The tendency of our perception to be affected by our recurring thoughts.[13]

Question 5

Automation bias

Answer 5

The tendency to depend excessively on automated systems which can lead to erroneous automated information overriding correct decisions.[14]

Question 6

Availability heuristic

Answer 6

The tendency to overestimate the likelihood of events with greater “availability” in memory, which can be influenced by how recent the memories are or how unusual or emotionally charged they may be.[15]

Question 7

Availability cascade

Answer 7

A self-reinforcing process in which a collective belief gains more and more plausibility through its increasing repetition in public discourse (or “repeat something long enough and it will become true”).[16]

Question 8

Backfire effect

Answer 8

The reaction to disconfirming evidence by strengthening one’s previous beliefs.[17] cf. Continued influence effect.

Question 9

Bandwagon effect

Answer 9

The tendency to do (or believe) things because many other people do (or believe) the same. Related to groupthink and herd behavior.[18]

Question 10

Base rate fallacy or Base rate neglect

Answer 10

The tendency to ignore base rate information (generic, general information) and focus on specific information (information only pertaining to a certain case).[19]

Question 11

Belief bias

Answer 11

An effect where someone’s evaluation of the logical strength of an argument is biased by the believability of the conclusion.[20]

Question 12

Ben Franklin effect

Answer 12

A person who has performed a favor for someone is more likely to do another favor for that person than they would be if they had received a favor from that person.

Question 13

Berkson’s paradox

Answer 13

The tendency to misinterpret statistical experiments involving conditional probabilities.

Question 14

Bias blind spot

Answer 14

The tendency to see oneself as less biased than other people, or to be able to identify more cognitive biases in others than in oneself.[21]

Question 15

Cheerleader effect

Answer 15

The tendency for people to appear more attractive in a group than in isolation.[22]

Question 16

Choice-supportive bias

Answer 16

The tendency to remember one’s choices as better than they actually were.[23]

Question 17

Clustering illusion

Answer 17

The tendency to overestimate the importance of small runs, streaks, or clusters in large samples of random data (that is, seeing phantom patterns).[11]

Question 18

Confirmation bias

Answer 18

The tendency to search for, interpret, focus on and remember information in a way that confirms one’s preconceptions.[24]

Question 19

Congruence bias

Answer 19

The tendency to test hypotheses exclusively through direct testing, instead of testing possible alternative hypotheses.[11]

Question 20

Conjunction fallacy

Answer 20

The tendency to assume that specific conditions are more probable than general ones.[25]

Question 21

Conservatism (belief revision)

Answer 21

The tendency to revise one’s belief insufficiently when presented with new evidence.[4][26][27]

Question 22

Continued influence effect

Answer 22

The tendency to believe previously learned misinformation even after it has been corrected. Misinformation can still influence inferences one generates after a correction has occurred.[28] cf. Backfire effect

Question 23

Contrast effect

Answer 23

The enhancement or reduction of a certain perception’s stimuli when compared with a recently observed, contrasting object.[29]

Question 24

Courtesy bias

Answer 24

The tendency to give an opinion that is more socially correct than one’s true opinion, so as to avoid offending anyone.[30]

Question 25

Curse of knowledge

Answer 25

When better-informed people find it extremely difficult to think about problems from the perspective of lesser-informed people.[31]

Question 26

Declinism

Answer 26

The belief that a society or institution is tending towards decline. Particularly, it is the predisposition to view the past favourably (rosy retrospection) and future negatively.[32]

Question 27

Decoy effect

Answer 27

Preferences for either option A or B change in favor of option B when option C is presented, which is similar to option B but in no way better.

Question 28

Denomination effect

Answer 28

The tendency to spend more money when it is denominated in small amounts (e.g., coins) rather than large amounts (e.g., bills).[33]

Question 29

Disposition effect

Answer 29

The tendency to sell an asset that has accumulated in value and resist selling an asset that has declined in value.

Question 30

Distinction bias

Answer 30

The tendency to view two options as more dissimilar when evaluating them simultaneously than when evaluating them separately.[34]

Question 31

Dunning–Kruger effect

Answer 31

The tendency for unskilled individuals to overestimate their own ability and the tendency for experts to underestimate their own ability.[35]

Question 32

Duration neglect

Answer 32

The neglect of the duration of an episode in determining its value

Question 33

Empathy gap

Answer 33

The tendency to underestimate the influence or strength of feelings, in either oneself or others.

Question 34

Endowment effect

Answer 34

The tendency for people to demand much more to give up an object than they would be willing to pay to acquire it.[36]

Question 35

Exaggerated expectation

Answer 35

Based on the estimates, real-world evidence turns out to be less extreme than our expectations (conditionally inverse of the conservatism bias).[unreliable source?][4][37]

Question 36

Experimenter's or expectation bias

Answer 36

The tendency for experimenters to believe, certify, and publish data that agree with their expectations for the outcome of an experiment, and to disbelieve, discard, or downgrade the corresponding weightings for data that appear to conflict with those expectations.[38]

Question 37

Focusing effect

Answer 37

The tendency to place too much importance on one aspect of an event.[39]

Question 38

Forer effect or Barnum effect

Answer 38

The observation that individuals will give high accuracy ratings to descriptions of their personality that supposedly are tailored specifically for them, but are in fact vague and general enough to apply to a wide range of people. This effect can provide a partial explanation for the widespread acceptance of some beliefs and practices, such as astrology, fortune telling, graphology, and some types of personality tests.

Question 39

Framing effect

Answer 39

Drawing different conclusions from the same information, depending on how that information is presented

Question 40

Frequency illusion

Answer 40

The illusion in which a word, a name, or other thing that has recently come to one's attention suddenly seems to appear with improbable frequency shortly afterwards (not to be confused with the recency illusion or selection bias).[40] This illusion may explain some examples of the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon, whereby someone hears a new word or phrase repeatedly in a short span of time.

Question 41

Functional fixedness

Answer 41

Limits a person to using an object only in the way it is traditionally used.

Question 42

Gambler's fallacy

Answer 42

The tendency to think that future probabilities are altered by past events, when in reality they are unchanged. The fallacy arises from an erroneous conceptualization of the law of large numbers. For example, "I've flipped heads with this coin five times consecutively, so the chance of tails coming out on the sixth flip is much greater than heads."

Question 43

Hard–easy effect

Answer 43

Based on a specific level of task difficulty, the confidence in judgments is too conservative and not extreme enough[4][41][42][43]

Question 44

Hindsight bias

Answer 44

Sometimes called the "I-knew-it-all-along" effect, the tendency to see past events as being predictable[44] at the time those events happened.

Question 45

Hot-hand fallacy

Answer 45

The "hot-hand fallacy" (also known as the "hot hand phenomenon" or "hot hand") is the fallacious belief that a person who has experienced success with a random event has a greater chance of further success in additional attempts.

Question 46

Hyperbolic discounting

Answer 46

Discounting is the tendency for people to have a stronger preference for more immediate payoffs relative to later payoffs. Hyperbolic discounting leads to choices that are inconsistent over time – people make choices today that their future selves would prefer not to have made, despite using the same reasoning.[45] Also known as current moment bias, present-bias, and related to Dynamic inconsistency.

Question 47

Identifiable victim effect

Answer 47

The tendency to respond more strongly to a single identified person at risk than to a large group of people at risk.[46]

Question 48

IKEA effect

Answer 48

The tendency for people to place a disproportionately high value on objects that they partially assembled themselves, such as furniture from IKEA, regardless of the quality of the end result.

Question 49

Illusion of control

Answer 49

The tendency to overestimate one's degree of influence over other external events.[47]

Question 50

Illusion of validity

Answer 50

Belief that furtherly acquired information generates additional relevant data for predictions, even when it evidently does not.[48]

Question 51

Illusory correlation

Answer 51

Inaccurately perceiving a relationship between two unrelated events.[49][50]

Question 52

Illusory truth effect

Answer 52

A tendency to believe that a statement is true if it is easier to process, or if it has been stated multiple times, regardless of its actual veracity. These are specific cases of truthiness.

Question 53

Impact bias

Answer 53

The tendency to overestimate the length or the intensity of the impact of future feeling states.[51]

Question 54

Information bias

Answer 54

The tendency to seek information even when it cannot affect action.[52]

Question 55

Insensitivity to sample size

Answer 55

The tendency to under-expect variation in small samples.

Question 56

Irrational escalation

Answer 56

The phenomenon where people justify increased investment in a decision, based on the cumulative prior investment, despite new evidence suggesting that the decision was probably wrong. Also known as the sunk cost fallacy.

Question 57

Law of the instrument

Answer 57

"If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail."

Question 58

Less-is-better effect

Answer 58

The tendency to prefer a smaller set to a larger set judged separately, but not jointly.

Question 59

Loss aversion

Answer 59

The disutility of giving up an object is greater than the utility associated with acquiring it.[53] (see also Sunk cost effects and endowment effect).

Question 60

Mere exposure effect

Answer 60

The tendency to express undue liking for things merely because of familiarity with them.[54]

Question 61

Money illusion

Answer 61

The tendency to concentrate on the nominal value (face value) of money rather than its value in terms of purchasing power.[55]

Question 62

Moral credential effect

Answer 62

The tendency of a track record of non-prejudice to increase subsequent prejudice.

Question 63

Negativity bias or Negativity effect

Answer 63

Psychological phenomenon by which humans have a greater recall of unpleasant memories compared with positive memories.[56] [57] (see also actor-observer bias, group attribution error, positivity effect, and negativity effect).[58]

Question 64

Neglect of probability

Answer 64

The tendency to completely disregard probability when making a decision under uncertainty.[59]

Question 65

Normalcy bias

Answer 65

The refusal to plan for, or react to, a disaster which has never happened before.

Question 66

Not invented here

Answer 66

Aversion to contact with or use of products, research, standards, or knowledge developed outside a group. Related to IKEA effect.

Question 67

Observer-expectancy effect

Answer 67

When a researcher expects a given result and therefore unconsciously manipulates an experiment or misinterprets data in order to find it (see also subject-expectancy effect).

Question 68

Omission bias

Answer 68

The tendency to judge harmful actions as worse, or less moral, than equally harmful omissions (inactions).[60]

Question 69

Optimism bias

Answer 69

The tendency to be over-optimistic, overestimating favorable and pleasing outcomes (see also wishful thinking, valence effect, positive outcome bias).[61][62]

Question 70

Ostrich effect

Answer 70

Ignoring an obvious (negative) situation.

Question 71

Outcome bias

Answer 71

The tendency to judge a decision by its eventual outcome instead of based on the quality of the decision at the time it was made.

Question 72

Overconfidence effect

Answer 72

Excessive confidence in one's own answers to questions. For example, for certain types of questions, answers that people rate as "99% certain" turn out to be wrong 40% of the time.[4][63][64][65]

Question 73

Pareidolia

Answer 73

A vague and random stimulus (often an image or sound) is perceived as significant, e.g., seeing images of animals or faces in clouds, the man in the moon, and hearing non-existent hidden messages on records played in reverse.

Question 74

Pessimism bias

Answer 74

The tendency for some people, especially those suffering from depression, to overestimate the likelihood of negative things happening to them.

Question 75

Planning fallacy

Answer 75

The tendency to underestimate task-completion times.[51]

Question 76

Post-purchase rationalization

Answer 76

The tendency to persuade oneself through rational argument that a purchase was good value.

Question 77

Pro-innovation bias

Answer 77

The tendency to have an excessive optimism towards an invention or innovation's usefulness throughout society, while often failing to identify its limitations and weaknesses.

Question 78

Projection bias

Answer 78

The tendency to overestimate how much our future selves share one's current preferences, thoughts and values, thus leading to sub-optimal choices.[66] [67][57]

Question 79

Pseudocertainty effect

Answer 79

The tendency to make risk-averse choices if the expected outcome is positive, but make risk-seeking choices to avoid negative outcomes.[68]

Question 80

Reactance

Answer 80

The urge to do the opposite of what someone wants you to do out of a need to resist a perceived attempt to constrain your freedom of choice (see also Reverse psychology).

Question 81

Reactive devaluation

Answer 81

Devaluing proposals only because they purportedly originated with an adversary.

Question 82

Recency illusion

Answer 82

The illusion that a word or language usage is a recent innovation when it is in fact long-established (see also frequency illusion).

Question 83

Regressive bias

Answer 83

A certain state of mind wherein high values and high likelihoods are overestimated while low values and low likelihoods are underestimated.[4][69][70][unreliable source?]

Question 84

Restraint bias

Answer 84

The tendency to overestimate one's ability to show restraint in the face of temptation.

Question 85

Rhyme as reason effect

Answer 85

Rhyming statements are perceived as more truthful. A famous example being used in the O.J Simpson trial with the defense's use of the phrase "If the gloves don't fit, then you must acquit."

Question 86

Risk compensation / Peltzman effect

Answer 86

The tendency to take greater risks when perceived safety increases.

Question 87

Selective perception

Answer 87

The tendency for expectations to affect perception.

Question 88

Semmelweis reflex

Answer 88

The tendency to reject new evidence that contradicts a paradigm.[27]

Question 89

Social comparison bias

Answer 89

The tendency, when making hiring decisions, to favour potential candidates who don't compete with one's own particular strengths.[71]

Question 90

Social desirability bias

Answer 90

The tendency to over-report socially desirable characteristics or behaviours in oneself and under-report socially undesirable characteristics or behaviours.[72]

Question 91

Status quo bias

Answer 91

The tendency to like things to stay relatively the same (see also loss aversion, endowment effect, and system justification).[73][74]

Question 92

Stereotyping

Answer 92

Expecting a member of a group to have certain characteristics without having actual information about that individual.

Question 93

Subadditivity effect

Answer 93

The tendency to judge probability of the whole to be less than the probabilities of the parts.[75]

Question 94

Subjective validation

Answer 94

Perception that something is true if a subject's belief demands it to be true. Also assigns perceived connections between coincidences.

Question 95

Survivorship bias

Answer 95

Concentrating on the people or things that "survived" some process and inadvertently overlooking those that didn't because of their lack of visibility.

Question 96

Time-saving bias

Answer 96

Underestimations of the time that could be saved (or lost) when increasing (or decreasing) from a relatively low speed and overestimations of the time that could be saved (or lost) when increasing (or decreasing) from a relatively high speed.

Question 97

Third-person effect

Answer 97

Belief that mass communicated media messages have a greater effect on others than on themselves.

Question 98

Triviality / Parkinson's Law of

Answer 98

The tendency to give disproportionate weight to trivial issues. Also known as bikeshedding, this bias explains why an organization may avoid specialized or complex subjects, such as the design of a nuclear reactor, and instead focus on something easy to grasp or rewarding to the average participant, such as the design of an adjacent bike shed.[76]

Question 99

Unit bias

Answer 99

The tendency to want to finish a given unit of a task or an item. Strong effects on the consumption of food in particular.[77]

Question 100

Weber–Fechner law

Answer 100

Difficulty in comparing small differences in large quantities.

Question 101

Well travelled road effect

Answer 101

Underestimation of the duration taken to traverse oft-traveled routes and overestimation of the duration taken to traverse less familiar routes.

Question 102

Zero-risk bias

Answer 102

Preference for reducing a small risk to zero over a greater reduction in a larger risk.

Question 103

Zero-sum bias

Answer 103

A bias whereby a situation is perceived to be like a zero-sum game (i.e., one person gains at the expense of another).