List of Cognitive Biases and Heuristics - The Decision Lab

Cognitive Biases

A list of the most relevant biases in behavioral economics

Biases

AI Literacy Gap<br>Why do we feel so confident using generative AI while our AI literacy lags behind?

Accountability diffusion in AI<br>Why do AI systems make responsibility feel like no one’s job?

Action Bias<br>Why do we prefer doing something to doing nothing?

Affect Heuristic<br>Why do we rely on our current emotions when making quick decisions?

Ambiguity Effect<br>Why do we prefer options we know?

Anchoring Bias<br>Why do we compare everything to the first piece of information we received?

Attentional Bias<br>Why do we focus more on some things than others?

Authority Bias<br>Why do we always trust the doctor, even though they might be wrong?

Automation Bias<br>Why do we accept the first plausible AI solution and stop searching?

Availability Heuristic<br>Why do we tend to think that things that happened recently are more likely to happen again?

Bandwagon Effect<br>Why do we support opinions as they become more popular?

Barnum Effect<br>Why do we believe our horoscopes?

Base Rate Fallacy<br>Why do we rely on specific information over statistics?

Belief Perseverance (The Backfire Effect)<br>Why do we maintain the same beliefs, even when we are proved wrong?

Benjamin Franklin effect<br>Why do we like someone more after doing them a favor?

Bikeshedding<br>Why do we focus on trivial things?

Bottom-Dollar Effect<br>Why do we transfer negative emotions about being broke on items that we purchase?

Bounded Rationality<br>Why are we satisfied by “good enough?”

Bundling Bias<br>Why do we value items purchased in a bundle less than those purchased individually?

Bye-Now Effect<br>Why are we likely to spend more after reading the word “bye”?

Cashless Effect<br>Why does paying without physical cash increase the likelihood that we purchase something?

Category Size Bias<br>Why do we think we’re more likely to win at the big casino versus the small one?

Choice Overload<br>Why do we have a harder time choosing when we have more options?

Cognitive Dissonance<br>Why is it so hard to change someone's beliefs?

Commitment Bias<br>Why do people support their past ideas, even when presented with evidence that they're wrong?

Confirmation Bias<br>Why do we favor our existing beliefs?

Decision Fatigue<br>Why do we make worse decisions at the end of the day?

Declinism<br>Why do we think the past is better than the future?

Decoy Effect<br>Why do we feel more strongly about one option after a third one is added?

Delegation Creep<br>Why do we keep handing more decisions to AI?

Disposition Effect<br>Why do we tend to hold on to losing investments?

Distinction Bias<br>Why do we view options as more distinct when evaluating them simultaneously?

Dunning–Kruger Effect<br>Why do we fail to accurately gauge our own abilities?

Einstellung Effect<br>Why do our past experiences prevent us from reaching the best possible outcome?

Empathy Gap<br>Why do we mispredict how much our emotions influence our behavior?

Endowment Effect<br>Why do we value items more if they belong to us?

Extrinsic Incentive Bias<br>Why do we think others are in it for the money, but we’re in it for the experience?

False Consensus Effect<br>Why do we overestimate agreement?

Framing Effect<br>Why do our decisions depend on how options are presented to us?

Functional Fixedness<br>Why do we have trouble thinking outside the box?

Fundamental Attribution Error<br>Why do we underestimate the influence of the situation on people’s behavior?

Gambler's Fallacy<br>Why do we think a random event is more or less likely to occur if it happened several times in the past?

Google Effect<br>Why do we forget information that we just looked up?

Halo Effect<br>Why do positive impressions produced in one area positively influence our opinions in another area?

Hard-easy effect<br>Why is our confidence disproportionate to the difficulty of a task?

Heuristics<br>Why do we take mental shortcuts?

Hindsight Bias<br>Why do unpredictable events only seem predictable after they occur?

Hot Hand Fallacy<br>Why do we expect previous success to lead to future success?

Hyperbolic Discounting<br>Why do we value immediate rewards more than long-term rewards?

IKEA Effect<br>Why do we place disproportionately high value on things we helped to create?

Identifiable Victim Effect<br>Why are we more likely to offer help to a specific individual than a vague group?

Illusion of Control<br>Why do we think we have more control over the world than we do?

Illusion of Transparency<br>Why do we feel that others can read our mind?

Illusion of Validity<br>Why are we overconfident in our predictions?

Illusory Correlation<br>Why do we think some things are related when they aren’t?

Illusory Truth Effect<br>Why do we believe misinformation more easily when it’s repeated many times?

Impact Bias<br>Why do we overestimate our emotional reactions to future events?

In-group Bias<br>Why do we treat our in-group better than we do our out-group?

Incentivization<br>Why do we work harder when we are promised a...