Cognitive Bias

Cognitive Bias is defined. The ten (10) types are listed with definitions for each.

Cognitive bias is the tendency to make decisions or act when our values, memory, or environment influence us.

There are 10 types of cognitive bias which affect our behaviors and decision-making.

1) Confirmation bias – looking for information that supports your existing beliefs, and rejecting that which doesn’t

2) Anchoring – jump to conclusions; base your judgment on information gained early

3) Overconfidence bias – putting too much faith in your knowledge and opinions

4) Halo effect – the tendency for a person’s positive traits to spill over into another area of their responsibility in others perception of them

- Horn effect – the opposite of halo effect

5) Gambler’s fallacy – expecting past events to influence the future

6) Fundamental attribution error – the tendency to blame others – to place blame on external events - when things go wrong

7) Bandwagon bias – taking action because others have already done so

8) Mere Exposure Effect, aka Familiarity Principle – the repeated exposure to a stimulus object enhances our attitude toward it

9) Hindsight bias – when someone believes they accurately predicted the outcome of a decision before it was made, even when they didn’t

10) Dunning-Kruger Effect – describes our ability to assess our own and other’s competence:

- low-skilled at the behavior tend to over-estimate their own and others’ competence

- highly-skilled at the behavior tend to under-estimate their own and others’ competence

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