Show Cognitive biases are systematic patterns of deviation from norm and/or rationality in judgment. They are often studied in psychology, sociology and behavioral economics.[1] Although the reality of most of these biases is confirmed by reproducible research,[2][3] there are often controversies about how to classify these biases or how to explain them.[4] Several theoretical causes are known for some cognitive biases, which provides a classification of biases by their common generative mechanism (such as noisy information-processing[5]). Gerd Gigerenzer has criticized the framing of cognitive biases as errors in judgment, and favors interpreting them as arising from rational deviations from logical thought.[6] Explanations include information-processing rules (i.e., mental shortcuts), called heuristics, that the brain uses to produce decisions or judgments. Biases have a variety of forms and appear as cognitive ("cold") bias, such as mental noise,[5] or motivational ("hot") bias, such as when beliefs are distorted by wishful thinking. Both effects can be present at the same time.[7][8] There are also controversies over some of these biases as to whether they count as useless or irrational, or whether they result in useful attitudes or behavior. For example, when getting to know others, people tend to ask leading questions which seem biased towards confirming their assumptions about the person. However, this kind of confirmation bias has also been argued to be an example of social skill; a way to establish a connection with the other person.[9] Although this research overwhelmingly involves human subjects, some findings that demonstrate bias have been found in non-human animals as well. For example, loss aversion has been shown in monkeys and hyperbolic discounting has been observed in rats, pigeons, and monkeys.[10] Belief, decision-making and behavioralThese biases affect belief formation, reasoning processes, business and economic decisions, and human behavior in general. Anchoring biasThe anchoring bias, or focalism, is the tendency to rely too heavily—to "anchor"—on one trait or piece of information when making decisions (usually the first piece of information acquired on that subject).[11][12] Anchoring bias includes or involves the following:
ApopheniaThe tendency to perceive meaningful connections between unrelated things.[17] The following are types of apophenia:
Availability heuristicThe availability heuristic (also known as the availability bias) is 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.[20] The availability heuristic includes or involves the following:
Cognitive dissonance
Confirmation biasConfirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, focus on and remember information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions.[31] There are multiple other cognitive biases which involve or are types of confirmation bias:
Egocentric biasEgocentric bias is the tendency to rely too heavily on one's own perspective and/or have a higher opinion of oneself than reality.[34] The following are forms of egocentric bias:
Extension neglectThe following are forms of extension neglect:
False priors
Biases based on false priors include:
Framing effectThe framing effect is the tendency to draw different conclusions from the same information, depending on how that information is presented. Forms of the framing effect include:
Logical fallacyLogical fallacy biases include:
Prospect theoryThe following relate to prospect theory:
Self-assessment
Truthiness
Other
SocialAssociation fallacyAssociation fallacies include:
Attribution biasAttribution bias includes:
ConformityConformity is involved in the following:
Ingroup biasIngroup bias is the tendency for people to give preferential treatment to others they perceive to be members of their own groups. It is related to the following:
Other social biases
MemoryIn psychology and cognitive science, a memory bias is a cognitive bias that either enhances or impairs the recall of a memory (either the chances that the memory will be recalled at all, or the amount of time it takes for it to be recalled, or both), or that alters the content of a reported memory. There are many types of memory bias, including: Misattribution of memoryIn psychology, the misattribution of memory or source misattribution is the misidentification of the origin of a memory by the person making the memory recall. Misattribution is likely to occur when individuals are unable to monitor and control the influence of their attitudes, toward their judgments, at the time of retrieval.[136] Misattribution is divided into three components: cryptomnesia, false memories, and source confusion. It was originally noted as one of Daniel Schacter's seven sins of memory.[137] The misattributions include:
Other
See also
Footnotes
References
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