>>Cognitive Biases<<

In @ScottAdamsSays book "How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big" he suggests you learn psychology and then provides a list of cognitive biases.

This thread is going to list all of them (80+) and provide a brief description of each.

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I'll start with 5 biases to avoid spamming everyone.

After all Cognitive Biases are listed, I will move on to Social Biases.

Hope this thread helps you to better understand your psychology and in turn contributes to your success.

I recommend spending time with each.

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>>Ambiguity effect<<

This describes how you tend to avoid decisions where the outcome is unknown and favor decisions where the outcome is known.

Example:

Choosing the security of a regular paycheck, over the unknown value of a business venture.

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>>Anchoring<<

Anchoring is where you depend too heavily on an initial piece of information offered to make subsequent judgments during decision making.

Example:

The product originally $200 is now 50% off. Anchoring uses the original price to persuade you to now purchase.

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>>Availability heuristic<<

This shortcut relies on immediate examples that come to your mind when evaluating a specific topic, concept, method, or decision.

Example:

You refuse to swim in the ocean because you watched shark week and now believe shark attacks are common.

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>>Availability cascade<<

A self-reinforcing process where a certain stance gains increasing prominence in public discourse. This increases its availability to people and makes them more likely to believe it and spread it further.

Example:

A Contagious Virus

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>>Backfire effect<<

When your deepest beliefs are challenged by contradictory evidence, but your beliefs get stronger.

Example:

When you are given negative but factual information about a political candidate that you favor but it only causes you to increase your support.

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>>Bandwagon Effect<<

The tendency of an individual to acquire a particular style, behaviour, or attitude because everyone else is doing it regardless if they actually desire or believe it.

Examples:

Consumer: Air pods. Medical: Leaching. Fashion: Skinny Jeans

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>>Barnum Effect<<

When individuals believe that personality descriptions apply specifically to them, despite the fact that the description is actually filled with information that applies to everyone.

Example:

Horospcopes, fortune tellers, vague symptoms (Web md).

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>>Base Rate Fallacy<<

If presented with related base rate information and specific information, people tend to ignore the base rate in favor of the individuating information, rather than correctly integrating the two.

Example: Complicated, so example below.

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>>Belief Bias<<

Belief bias is the tendency to judge the strength of arguments based on the plausibility of their conclusion rather than how strongly they support that conclusion.

Example: Athiest attempting to disprove atheism.

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>>Bias Blindspot<<

The cognitive bias of recognizing the impact of biases on the judgment of others while failing to see the impact of biases on one's own judgment.

Example: Everyone is subject to cognitive biases except for me because I'm reading up on them now.

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>>Choice-Supportive Bias<<

Tendency to remember our choices as better than they actually were. We tend to over attribute positive features to our decisions and negative to decisions not chosen.

Example: Believe our bad team is going to win because WE chose the "best" team.

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>>Clustering Illusion<<

The tendency to erroneously consider the inevitable "streaks" or "clusters" arising in small samples from random distributions to be non-random.

Example:

You're playing roulette, black hit 5 times in a row, red is bound to hit next, right? No.

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>>Confirmation Bias<<

The tendency to search for information that confirms or supports your prior beliefs or values and the avoidance of anything that doesn't.

Example:

Using the first impression of a person to continually form conclusions about subsequent interactions.

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>>Congruence Bias<<

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

Example: You discover $10 per item sells a lot, so you never test $15, $20, or more. Maybe your customers are willing to pay more?

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>>Conjunction Fallacy<<

Occurs when it is assumed that specific conditions are more probable than a single general one.

Example: While jogging around the neighborhood, you are more likely to get bitten by someone’s pet dog, than by any member of the canine species.

[False]

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>>Conservatism Bias<<

Refers to the tendency to revise one's belief insufficiently when presented with new evidence.

Example: You invest in a company that is believed to grow. When the company announces slower than projected growth, your beliefs in its growth aren't swayed.

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>>Contrast Effect<<

This bias distorts our perception of something when we compare it to something else, by enhancing the differences between the two.

Example: Feeling more attractive than you actually are immediately after looking at pictures of objectivly ugly people.