# Cognitive Bias Explorer

> Explore cognitive biases, their definitions, examples, and mitigation strategies.

The linked pages provide descriptions, business and personal examples, and practical uses where available.

## Biases


- [Absent–mindedness](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/absentmindedness): A state of mind in which a person shows a lack of attention or awareness of their surroundings or immediate concerns, often due to preoccupation with other thoughts.
- [Actor–observer bias](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/actorobserver-bias): A tendency to attribute one's own actions to external causes while attributing other people's behaviors to internal causes.
- [Ambiguity bias](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/ambiguity-bias): A cognitive bias where decision making is affected by a lack of information, or "ambiguity". People tend to select options for which the probability of a favorable outcome is known, over an option for which the probability of a favorable outcome is unknown.
- [Anchoring](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/anchoring): A cognitive bias whereby an individual's decisions are influenced by a particular reference point or 'anchor'.
- [Anecdotal fallacy](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/anecdotal-fallacy): Using a personal experience or an isolated example instead of sound arguments or compelling evidence. (Related to fallacy of insufficient statistics / hasty generalization)
- [Anthropomorphism](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/anthropomorphism): The attribution of human traits, emotions, or intentions to non-human entities.
- [Appeal to novelty](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/appeal-to-novelty): A fallacy in which one prematurely claims that an idea or proposal is correct or superior, exclusively because it is new and modern.
- [Appeal to probability fallacy](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/appeal-to-probability-fallacy): A statement that takes something for granted because it would probably be the case (or might be the case).
- [Argument from fallacy](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/argument-from-fallacy): The formal fallacy of analyzing an argument and inferring that, since it contains a fallacy, its conclusion must be false.
- [Attentional bias](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/attentional-bias): The tendency for perception to be affected by recurring thoughts, or to pay more attention to certain types of information while ignoring others.
- [Authority bias](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/authority-bias): The tendency to attribute greater accuracy to the opinion of an authority figure (unrelated to its content) and be more influenced by that opinion.
- [Automation bias](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/automation-bias): The tendency to depend excessively on automated systems and trust their outputs, potentially leading to errors when the automated system makes a mistake.
- [Availability heuristic](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/availability-heuristic): A mental shortcut relying on immediate examples that come to mind when evaluating a specific topic, concept, method, or decision.
- [Baader–Meinhof Phenomenon](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/baadermeinhof-phenomenon): (Another name for Frequency Illusion) A cognitive bias in which, after noticing something for the first time, there is a tendency to notice it more often.
- [Backfire effect](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/backfire-effect): The tendency of some people to resist accepting evidence that conflicts with their beliefs, and to strengthen their support for their original stance when challenged.
- [Bandwagon effect](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/bandwagon-effect): The tendency to do or believe things because many other people do or believe the same.
- [Barnum effect](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/barnum-effect): (Same as Forer effect) The tendency to accept vague and general personality descriptions as uniquely applicable to oneself.
- [Base rate fallacy](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/base-rate-fallacy): The tendency to ignore base rate information (generic, statistical information) and focus on specific information (information only pertaining to a certain case).
- [Belief bias](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/belief-bias): The tendency to judge the strength of arguments based on the plausibility of their conclusion rather than how strongly they support that conclusion.
- [Bias blind spot](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/bias-blind-spot): 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.
- [Bike–shedding effect](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/bikeshedding-effect): (Also Law of Triviality) The tendency to give disproportionate weight to trivial issues.
- [Bizarreness effect](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/bizarreness-effect): The tendency for bizarre material to be better remembered than common material.
- [Cheerleader effect](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/cheerleader-effect): The cognitive bias which causes people to think individuals are more attractive when they are in a group than when they are seen individually.
- [Choice–supportive bias](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/choicesupportive-bias): The tendency to retroactively ascribe positive attributes to an option one has chosen.
- [Clustering illusion](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/clustering-illusion): The tendency to erroneously perceive "streaks" or "clusters" in random sequences of events.
- [Confabulation](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/confabulation): A memory error defined as the production of fabricated, distorted, or misinterpreted memories about oneself or the world, without the conscious intention to deceive.
- [Confirmation bias](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/confirmation-bias): The tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports one's preexisting beliefs or hypotheses.
- [Congruence bias](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/congruence-bias): A type of confirmation bias; the tendency to test hypotheses exclusively through direct testing, instead of testing possible alternative hypotheses.
- [Conjunction fallacy](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/conjunction-fallacy): A formal fallacy that occurs when it is assumed that specific conditions are more probable than a single general one.
- [Conservatism](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/conservatism): The tendency to revise one's belief insufficiently when presented with new evidence.
- [Context effect](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/context-effect): A principle in cognitive psychology that describes the influence of environmental factors on one's perception of a stimulus.
- [Continued influence effect](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/continued-influence-effect): The tendency for misinformation to continue to influence memory and reasoning even after it has been corrected.
- [Contrast effect](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/contrast-effect): The enhancement or diminishment, relative to normal, of perception, cognition or related performance as a result of successive (immediately previous) or simultaneous exposure to a stimulus of lesser or greater value in the same dimension.
- [Cross–race effect](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/crossrace-effect): The tendency to more easily recognize faces of the race that one is most familiar with.
- [Cryptomnesia](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/cryptomnesia): Occurs when a forgotten memory returns without its being recognized as such by the subject, who believes it is something new and original.
- [Cue–dependent forgetting](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/cuedependent-forgetting): A type of forgetting that occurs when information is available in memory but cannot be recalled without appropriate retrieval cues.
- [Curse of knowledge](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/curse-of-knowledge): A cognitive bias that occurs when an individual, communicating with other individuals, unknowingly assumes that the others have the background to understand.
- [Declinism](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/declinism): The predisposition to view the past more favorably and the future more negatively.
- [Decoy effect](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/decoy-effect): The phenomenon whereby consumers will tend to have a specific change in preference between two options when also presented with a third option that is asymmetrically dominated.
- [Defensive attribution hypothesis](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/defensive-attribution-hypothesis): A set of beliefs used as a shield against the fear that one will be the victim or cause of a serious mishap. It may involve blaming the victim for their fate.
- [Denomination effect](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/denomination-effect): The tendency to spend more money when it is denominated in small amounts (e.g., coins) rather than large amounts (e.g., bills).
- [Disposition effect](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/disposition-effect): The tendency of investors to sell assets that have increased in value, while keeping assets that have dropped in value.
- [Distinction bias](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/distinction-bias): The tendency to view two options as more dissimilar when evaluating them simultaneously than when evaluating them separately.
- [Dunning–Kruger effect](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/dunningkruger-effect): A cognitive bias whereby people with low ability at a task overestimate their ability. It is related to the cognitive bias of illusory superiority and comes from the inability of individuals to recognize their lack of ability.
- [Duration neglect](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/duration-neglect): The psychological observation that people's judgments of the unpleasantness of painful experiences depend very little on the duration of those experiences.
- [Effort justification](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/effort-justification): The tendency to attribute a greater value (greater than the objective value) to an outcome they had to put effort into acquiring or achieving.
- [Egocentric bias](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/egocentric-bias): The tendency to overemphasize one's own perspective and role in events or to overestimate the importance of one's own contributions.
- [Empathy gap](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/empathy-gap): A cognitive bias that causes people to underestimate the influence of visceral states (e.g., hunger, pain, emotion) on their own or others' behavior or preferences.
- [Endowment effect](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/endowment-effect): The hypothesis that people ascribe more value to things merely because they own them.
- [Escalation of commitment](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/escalation-of-commitment): A human behavior pattern in which an individual or group facing increasingly negative outcomes from a decision, action, or investment nevertheless continues the behavior instead of altering course.
- [Essentialism](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/essentialism): The view that objects have a set of attributes that are necessary to their identity and function. In social contexts, this can lead to stereotyping.
- [Expectation bias](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/expectation-bias): (A form of Observer-expectancy effect) When an individual's expectations about an outcome influence their perception of events or their own behavior.
- [Experimenter's bias](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/experimenters-bias): (Same as Observer-expectancy effect) A researcher's cognitive bias causes them to subconsciously influence participants.
- [Extrinsic incentive error](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/extrinsic-incentive-error): The tendency to attribute others' motivations more to extrinsic incentives (like pay) and less to intrinsic incentives (like enjoyment or personal values) than is actually the case.
- [Fading affect bias](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/fading-affect-bias): A psychological phenomenon in which information regarding negative emotions tends to be forgotten more quickly than that regarding positive emotions.
- [False consensus effect](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/false-consensus-effect): An attributional type of cognitive bias whereby people tend to overestimate the extent to which their opinions, beliefs, preferences, values, and habits are normal and typical.
- [False memory](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/false-memory): A psychological phenomenon where a person recalls something that did not happen or recalls it differently from the way it actually happened.
- [Focusing effect](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/focusing-effect): A cognitive bias that occurs when people place too much importance on one aspect of an event, causing an error in accurately predicting the utility of a future outcome.
- [Forer effect](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/forer-effect): (Also Barnum effect) 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.
- [Framing effect](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/framing-effect): A cognitive bias where people decide on options based on whether the options are presented with positive or negative connotations; e.g. as a loss or as a gain.
- [Frequency illusion](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/frequency-illusion): A cognitive bias in which, after noticing something for the first time, there is a tendency to notice it more often, leading one to believe that it has an increased frequency.
- [Functional fixedness](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/functional-fixedness): A cognitive bias that limits a person to using an object only in the way it is traditionally used.
- [Fundamental attribution error](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/fundamental-attribution-error): The tendency for people to under-emphasize situational explanations for an individual's observed behavior while over-emphasizing dispositional and personality-based explanations.
- [Gambler's fallacy](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/gamblers-fallacy): The mistaken belief that if something happens more frequently than normal during a given period, it will happen less frequently in the future (or vice versa).
- [Generation effect](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/generation-effect): The phenomenon where information is better remembered if it is generated from one's own mind rather than simply read.
- [Google effect](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/google-effect): The tendency to forget information that can be found readily online by using Internet search engines.
- [Group attribution error](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/group-attribution-error): The tendency to believe that the characteristics of an individual group member are reflective of the group as a whole, or that a group's decision outcome must reflect the preferences of individual group members, even when information is available suggesting otherwise.
- [Halo effect](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/halo-effect): The tendency for positive impressions of a person, company, brand or product in one area to positively influence one's opinion or feelings in other areas.
- [Hard–easy effect](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/hardeasy-effect): A cognitive bias that manifests as overconfidence on hard tasks and underconfidence on easy tasks.
- [Hindsight bias](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/hindsight-bias): The tendency, after an event has occurred, to see the event as having been predictable, despite there having been little or no objective basis for predicting it.
- [Hot–hand fallacy](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/hothand-fallacy): The fallacious belief that a person who has experienced success with a random event has a greater chance of further success in additional attempts.
- [Humor effect](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/humor-effect): Humorous items are more easily remembered than non-humorous ones, due to increased cognitive processing or emotional arousal.
- [Hyperbolic discounting](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/hyperbolic-discounting): The tendency for people to increasingly choose a smaller-sooner reward over a larger-later reward as the delay occurs sooner rather than later in time.
- [Identifiable victim effect](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/identifiable-victim-effect): The tendency of individuals to offer greater aid when a specific, identifiable person ("victim") is observed under hardship, as compared to a large, vaguely defined group with the same need.
- [IKEA effect](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/ikea-effect): A cognitive bias in which consumers place a disproportionately high value on products they partially created.
- [Illusion of asymmetric insight](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/illusion-of-asymmetric-insight): A cognitive bias whereby people perceive their knowledge of others to surpass other people's knowledge of them.
- [Illusion of control](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/illusion-of-control): The tendency for people to overestimate their ability to control events.
- [Illusion of external agency](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/illusion-of-external-agency): The experience of an action being willed or chosen by oneself is retrospectively attributed to an external agent. (Less common in typical business, more psychopathological).
- [Illusion of transparency](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/illusion-of-transparency): The tendency for people to overestimate the degree to which their personal mental state is known by others.
- [Illusion of validity](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/illusion-of-validity): A cognitive bias in which a person overestimates their ability to interpret and predict accurately the outcome when analyzing a set of data, in particular when the data analyzed show a very consistent pattern.
- [Illusory correlation](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/illusory-correlation): The phenomenon of perceiving a relationship between variables (typically people, events, or behaviors) even when no such relationship exists.
- [Illusory superiority](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/illusory-superiority): A cognitive bias whereby a person overestimates their own qualities and abilities, in relation to the same qualities and abilities of other persons.
- [Illusory truth effect](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/illusory-truth-effect): The tendency to believe false information to be correct after repeated exposure.
- [Impact bias](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/impact-bias): The tendency for people to overestimate the length or the intensity of future feeling states.
- [Implicit association](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/implicit-association): The preconscious, automatic association between concepts in memory.
- [Implicit stereotypes](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/implicit-stereotypes): Learned, automatic associations between social groups and attributes.
- [In–group favoritism](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/ingroup-favoritism): The tendency for people to give preferential treatment to others they perceive to be members of their own groups.
- [Information bias](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/information-bias): The tendency to seek information even when it cannot affect action.
- [Insensitivity to sample size](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/insensitivity-to-sample-size): A cognitive bias that occurs when people judge the probability of obtaining a sample statistic without respect to the sample size.
- [Irrational escalation](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/irrational-escalation): (Related to Sunk Cost Fallacy and Escalation of Commitment) Making irrational decisions to justify actions already taken.
- [Just–world hypothesis](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/justworld-hypothesis): The cognitive bias that a person's actions are inherently inclined to bring morally fair and fitting consequences to that person.
- [Lake Wobegone effect](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/lake-wobegone-effect): A natural human tendency to overestimate one's capabilities; a specific form of illusory superiority.
- [Law of Triviality](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/law-of-triviality): (Same as Bike-shedding effect) Argues that members of an organization give disproportionate weight to trivial issues.
- [Less–is–better effect](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/lessisbetter-effect): A type of preference reversal that occurs when the lesser or smaller alternative of a proposition is preferred when evaluated separately, but not evaluated together.
- [Leveling and sharpening](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/leveling-and-sharpening): Two complementary types of memory distortion in which details of a memory are lost (leveling) while others are highlighted or exaggerated (sharpening) as the memory is retold.
- [Levels–of–processing effect](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/levelsofprocessing-effect): A model of memory that suggests that the depth of mental processing affects memory retention, with deeper, more semantic processing leading to better recall.
- [List–length effect](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/listlength-effect): The finding that recall performance decreases as the length of a list to be remembered increases.
- [Loss aversion](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/loss-aversion): The tendency to prefer avoiding losses to acquiring equivalent gains: it's better to not lose $5 than to find $5.
- [Masked–man fallacy](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/maskedman-fallacy): An informal fallacy which occurs when one makes an illicit use of Leibniz's law in an argument (substituting identicals).
- [Memory inhibition](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/memory-inhibition): The ability not to remember irrelevant information, or to suppress retrieval of information that is no longer relevant.
- [Mental accounting](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/mental-accounting): The tendency for people to divide their money into separate accounts based on subjective criteria, like the source of the money or its intended use.
- [Mere–exposure effect](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/mereexposure-effect): A psychological phenomenon by which people tend to develop a preference for things merely because they are familiar with them.
- [Misattribution of memory](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/misattribution-of-memory): The ability to remember information correctly, but being wrong about the source of that information.
- [Misinformation effect](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/misinformation-effect): A phenomenon in which exposure to misleading information presented between the encoding of an event and its subsequent recall causes impaired memory for the original event.
- [Modality effect](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/modality-effect): How learner performance depends on the presentation mode of studied items. Often refers to better recall of end-of-list items when presented aurally versus visually.
- [Money illusion](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/money-illusion): The tendency of people to think of currency in nominal, rather than real, terms.
- [Mood–congruent memory bias](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/moodcongruent-memory-bias): The improved recall of information congruent with one's current mood.
- [Moral credential effect](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/moral-credential-effect): (Also Self-licensing) The phenomenon whereby a person's good deeds or ethical behavior in one area can lead them to feel justified in acting less ethically in another.
- [Moral luck](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/moral-luck): The phenomenon whereby an agent is assigned moral blame or praise for an action or its consequences even if it is clear that said agent did not have full control over either the action or its consequences.
- [Murphy's Law](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/murphys-law): The adage that "anything that can go wrong will go wrong." While not strictly a cognitive bias, it reflects a pessimistic expectation that can influence planning.
- [Naïve cynicism](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/naive-cynicism): A cognitive bias and form of psychological egoism that occurs when people expect more egocentric bias in others than is actually the case.
- [Naïve realism](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/naive-realism): The human tendency to believe that we see the world around us objectively, and that people who disagree with us must be uninformed, irrational, or biased.
- [Negativity bias](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/negativity-bias): The psychological phenomenon by which humans have a greater recall of unpleasant memories compared with positive memories. Things of a more negative nature have a greater effect on one's psychological state and processes than neutral or positive things.
- [Neglect of probability](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/neglect-of-probability): The tendency to completely disregard probability when making a decision under uncertainty.
- [Next–in–line effect](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/nextinline-effect): A phenomenon in which a person in a group has diminished recall for the words of the person who spoke immediately before them, due to preoccupation with their own upcoming turn to speak.
- [Normalcy bias](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/normalcy-bias): A cognitive bias which leads people to disbelieve or minimize threat warnings.
- [Not invented here](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/not-invented-here): A stance adopted by social, corporate, or institutional cultures that avoid using or buying already existing products, research, standards, or knowledge because of their external origins and costs.
- [Observer effect](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/observer-effect): (Can refer to Observer-expectancy effect or the effect of being observed changing behavior) - In this context, likely refers to the former due to grouping.
- [Observer–expectancy effect](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/observerexpectancy-effect): A form of reactivity in which a researcher's cognitive bias causes them to subconsciously influence the participants of an experiment. (Also Experimenter's bias, Observer effect, Expectation bias)
- [Occam's razor](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/occams-razor): The problem-solving principle that "entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity" or, more simply, the simplest explanation is usually the right one.
- [Omission bias](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/omission-bias): The tendency to judge harmful actions as worse, or less moral, than equally harmful omissions (inactions).
- [Optimism bias](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/optimism-bias): A cognitive bias that causes someone to believe that they themselves are less likely to experience a negative event.
- [Ostrich effect](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/ostrich-effect): The attempt to avoid negative financial information by ignoring it.
- [Out–group homogeneity bias](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/outgroup-homogeneity-bias): The perception of out-group members as more similar to one another than are in-group members. "They are alike; we are diverse."
- [Outcome bias](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/outcome-bias): 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.
- [Overconfidence effect](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/overconfidence-effect): A well-established bias in which a person's subjective confidence in their judgments is reliably greater than the objective accuracy of those judgments.
- [Pareidolia](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/pareidolia): The tendency to interpret a vague stimulus as something known to the observer, such as seeing shapes in clouds, or hearing hidden messages in music.
- [Part–set cueing effect](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/partset-cueing-effect): The phenomenon where being cued with a subset of a list of items to be recalled impairs recall of the remaining items compared to a free recall condition.
- [Peak–end rule](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/peakend-rule): A psychological heuristic in which people judge an experience largely based on how they felt at its peak (i.e., its most intense point) and at its end, rather than based on the total sum or average of every moment of the experience.
- [Peltzman effect](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/peltzman-effect): (A specific type of Risk Compensation) The hypothesized tendency of people to react to a safety measure by increasing risky behavior.
- [Pessimism bias](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/pessimism-bias): The tendency for some people, especially those suffering from depression, to overestimate the likelihood of negative things happening to them.
- [Picture superiority effect](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/picture-superiority-effect): The phenomenon in which pictures and images are more likely to be remembered than words.
- [Placebo effect](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/placebo-effect): A phenomenon in which a sham or simulated medical intervention can sometimes improve a patient's condition simply because the person has the expectation that it will be helpful.
- [Planning fallacy](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/planning-fallacy): The tendency to underestimate the time, costs, and risks of future actions and at the same time overestimate the benefits of the same actions.
- [Positivity effect](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/positivity-effect): An age-related trend that favors positive over negative stimuli in cognitive processing. Older adults tend to recall more positive than negative information.
- [Post–purchase rationalization](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/postpurchase-rationalization): (Also known as Choice-supportive bias) The tendency to retroactively ascribe positive attributes to an option one has chosen.
- [Prejudice](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/prejudice): An affective feeling towards a person based on their perceived group membership.
- [Primacy effect](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/primacy-effect): The tendency to recall the first few items in a list better than middle items.
- [Pro–innovation bias](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/proinnovation-bias): The tendency to have an excessive optimism towards an invention or innovation's usefulness and a disregard for its limitations and weaknesses.
- [Processing difficulty effect](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/processing-difficulty-effect): Information that takes longer to read and is thought to be more difficult to process is more easily remembered.
- [Projection bias](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/projection-bias): The tendency to falsely project current preferences onto a future event.
- [Pseudocertainty effect](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/pseudocertainty-effect): The tendency for people to perceive an outcome as certain when it is actually uncertain in multi-stage decision making.
- [Reactance](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/reactance): An unpleasant motivational arousal (reaction) to offers, persons, rules, or regulations that threaten or eliminate specific behavioral freedoms. Reactance occurs when a person feels that someone or something is taking away their choices or limiting the range of alternatives.
- [Reactive devaluation](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/reactive-devaluation): A cognitive bias that occurs when a proposal is devalued if it appears to originate from an antagonist.
- [Recency effect](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/recency-effect): The tendency to recall the last few items in a list better than middle items.
- [Recency illusion](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/recency-illusion): The belief that things one has noticed only recently are recent innovations or developments.
- [Restraint bias](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/restraint-bias): The tendency to overestimate one's ability to show restraint in the face of temptation.
- [Reverse psychology](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/reverse-psychology): A technique involving the assertion of a belief or behavior that is opposite to the one desired, with the expectation that this approach will encourage the subject of the persuasion to do what actually is desired.
- [Rhyme–as–reason effect](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/rhymeasreason-effect): A cognitive bias whereupon a saying or aphorism is judged as more accurate or truthful when it is rewritten to rhyme.
- [Risk compensation](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/risk-compensation): A theory which suggests that people typically adjust their behavior in response to the perceived level of risk, becoming more careful where they sense greater risk and less careful if they feel more protected.
- [Rosy retrospection](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/rosy-retrospection): The tendency to remember past events as being more positive than they were in reality.
- [Selective perception](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/selective-perception): The tendency not to notice and more quickly forget stimuli that cause emotional discomfort and contradict our prior beliefs.
- [Self–consistency bias](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/selfconsistency-bias): The incorrect remembrance of one's past attitudes and behavior as resembling present attitudes and behavior.
- [Self–relevance effect](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/selfrelevance-effect): Memory is better for information that relates to oneself.
- [Self–serving bias](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/selfserving-bias): The tendency to attribute successes to internal factors and failures to external factors.
- [Semmelweis reflex](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/semmelweis-reflex): The reflex-like tendency to reject new evidence or new knowledge because it contradicts established norms, beliefs, or paradigms.
- [Serial recall effect](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/serial-recall-effect): The tendency to recall items or events in the order in which they occurred.
- [Serial–position effect](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/serialposition-effect): The tendency of a person to recall the first and last items in a series best, and the middle items worst.
- [Social comparison effect](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/social-comparison-effect): The tendency to have a distorted perception of one's own or others' abilities, opinions, or emotions as a result of comparing oneself to others.
- [Social desirability bias](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/social-desirability-bias): The tendency of survey respondents to answer questions in a manner that will be viewed favorably by others.
- [Source confusion](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/source-confusion): (A type of Misattribution of memory) An inability to distinguish the source of a specific memory.
- [Spacing effect](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/spacing-effect): The phenomenon whereby learning is greater when studying is spread out over time, as opposed to studying the same amount of content in a single session.
- [Spotlight effect](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/spotlight-effect): The tendency to overestimate how much other people notice your appearance or behavior.
- [Status quo bias](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/status-quo-bias): A preference for the current state of affairs. The current baseline (or status quo) is taken as a reference point, and any change from that baseline is perceived as a loss.
- [Stereotypical bias](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/stereotypical-bias): (Often used interchangeably with implicit stereotype) Acting on stereotypical beliefs, often unconsciously.
- [Stereotyping](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/stereotyping): A generalized belief about a particular category of people.
- [Subadditivity effect](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/subadditivity-effect): The tendency to judge the probability of the whole to be less than the probabilities of the parts.
- [Subjective validation](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/subjective-validation): A cognitive bias by which a person will consider a statement or another piece of information to be correct if it has any personal meaning or significance to them.
- [Suffix effect](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/suffix-effect): The weakening of the recency effect if an irrelevant item is appended to the list that the subject is not required to recall.
- [Suggestibility](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/suggestibility): The quality of being inclined to accept and act on the suggestions of others. Where false but plausible information is given and one fills in the gaps using this information.
- [Sunk cost fallacy](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/sunk-cost-fallacy): Continuing a behavior or endeavor as a result of previously invested resources (time, money or effort), even if current costs outweigh the benefits.
- [Survivorship bias](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/survivorship-bias): The logical error of concentrating on the people or things that "survived" some process and inadvertently overlooking those that did not because of their lack of visibility.
- [System justification](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/system-justification): A social psychology theory that proposes that people have a motivation to defend and bolster the status quo, i.e., to see it as good, fair, legitimate, and desirable.
- [Telescoping effect](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/telescoping-effect): The tendency to displace recent events backward in time and remote events forward in time.
- [Testing effect](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/testing-effect): The finding that long-term memory is often increased when some of the learning period is devoted to retrieving the to-be-remembered information through testing.
- [The magical number 7 ± 2](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/the-magical-number-7-2): George A. Miller's observation that the number of objects an average human can hold in working memory is 7 ± 2.
- [Third–person effect](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/thirdperson-effect): The hypothesis that people tend to overestimate the influence that mass communications have on the attitudes and behavior of others.
- [Time–saving bias](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/timesaving-bias): People's tendency to misestimate the time that could be saved (or lost) when increasing or decreasing speed.
- [Tip of the tongue phenomenon](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/tip-of-the-tongue-phenomenon): The phenomenon of failing to retrieve a word from memory, combined with partial recall and the feeling that retrieval is imminent.
- [Trait ascription bias](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/trait-ascription-bias): The tendency for people to view themselves as relatively variable in terms of personality, behavior, and mood while viewing others as much more predictable.
- [Ultimate attribution error](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/ultimate-attribution-error): An in-group member's tendency to make internal attributions for their group's successes and external attributions for their group's failures, and the opposite for out-groups.
- [Unit bias](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/unit-bias): The tendency to want to finish a given unit of a task or item. Strong effects on the consumption of food in particular.
- [Von Restorff effect](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/von-restorff-effect): Predicts that an item that "stands out like a sore thumb" (called the isolation effect) is more likely to be remembered than other items.
- [Weber–Fechner law](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/weberfechner-law): Two related psychophysical laws quantifying the perception of change in a given stimulus. The law states that the change in a stimulus that will be just noticeable is a constant ratio of the original stimulus.
- [Well–traveled road effect](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/welltraveled-road-effect): The tendency to underestimate the time it takes to traverse a familiar route and overestimate the time it takes to traverse an unfamiliar route.
- [Zero sum bias](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/zero-sum-bias): A cognitive bias which describes a person's tendency to view a situation as zero-sum (i.e., one person's gain is another's loss).
- [Zero–risk bias](https://cognitivebiases.net/bias/zerorisk-bias): The tendency to prefer the complete elimination of a risk even when alternative options provide a greater reduction in overall risk.