Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Just so we all know what we're up against....

The following is a potent reminder that you never have to leave the (dis)comfort of your own noggin to find imperfection room for improvement.

Suggested practice: consume the articles these links lead to like one-a-day vitamins. Where no article exists, get informed and write one.


LIST OF COGNITIVE BIASES

Decision-making and behavioral biases
Bandwagon effect (Related to groupthink and herd behaviour);Base rate fallacy; Bias blind spot; Choice-supportive bias; Confirmation bias; Congruence bias; Contrast effect; Déformation professionnelle; Distinction bias; Endowment effect; Extreme aversion; Focusing effect; Framing; Hyperbolic discounting; Illusion of control; Impact bias; Information bias; Irrational escalation; Loss aversion (see also sunk cost effects and Endowment effect); Mere exposure effect; Moral credential effect; Need for closure; Neglect of probability; Omission bias; Outcome bias; Planning fallacy; Post-purchase rationalization; Pseudocertainty effect; Reactance; Selective perception; Status quo bias (see also Loss aversion and Endowment effect); Unit bias; Von Restorff effect; Zero-risk bias


Biases in probability and belief
Ambiguity effect; Anchoring; Attentional bias; Availability heuristic; Availability cascade; Clustering illusion; Capability bias; Conjunction fallacy; Gambler's fallacy; Hawthorne effect; Hindsight bias; Illusory correlation; Ludic fallacy; Neglect of prior base rates effect; Observer-expectancy effect (see also subject-expectancy effect); Optimism bias; Overconfidence effect; Positive outcome bias (see also wishful thinking, optimism bias and valence effect); Primacy effect; Recency effect (see also peak-end rule); Regression toward the mean disregarded; Reminiscence bump; Rosy retrospection; Selection bias; Stereotyping; Subadditivity effect; Subjective validation; Telescoping effect; Texas sharpshooter fallacy


Social biases
Most of these biases are labeled as attributional biases.

Actor-observer bias (see also fundamental attribution error); Dunning-Kruger effect (see also Lake Wobegon effect, and overconfidence effect); Egocentric bias; Forer effect (aka Barnum Effect); False consensus effect; Fundamental attribution error (see also actor-observer bias, group attribution error, positivity effect, and negativity effect); Halo effect (see also physical attractiveness stereotype); Herd instinct; Illusion of asymmetric insight; Illusion of transparency; Ingroup bias; Just-world phenomenon; Lake Wobegon effect (see also worse-than-average effect, and overconfidence effect); Notational bias; Outgroup homogeneity bias; Projection bias; Self-serving bias (see also group-serving bias); Self-fulfilling prophecy; System justification; Trait ascription bias


Memory errors
Further information: Memory bias

Beneffectance (See Self-serving bias); Consistency bias; Cryptomnesia; Egocentric bias; False memory; Hindsight bias (also known as the 'I-knew-it-all-along effect'); Suggestibility