Apophenia
The tendency to perceive meaningful connections between unrelated things
Causal AttributionOutcome
Category
Causal Attribution
These biases bend explanations about why events happened and who or what caused them.
35 biases
Biases in this category
Use these side by side before deciding which label best fits the judgment failure you are seeing.
Assumed similarity bias
Where an individual assumes that others have more traits in common with them than those others actually do
Causal AttributionOutcome
Context neglect bias
The tendency to neglect the human context of technological challenges
Causal AttributionOutcome
Defensive attribution hypothesis
A tendency to attribute more blame for a mishap to the person or persons involved if they are perceived as dissimilar to the person making that judgment
Causal AttributionSelf-Perspective
Domain neglect
Bias, the tendency to neglect relevant domain knowledge while solving interdisciplinary problems
Causal AttributionOutcome
Egocentric bias
Recalling the past in a self-serving manner, e.g., remembering one's exam grades as being better than they were, or remembering a caught fish as bigger than it really was. Also the tendency to rely too heavily on one's own perspective and/or have a different perception of oneself relative to others
Causal AttributionSelf-Perspective
Embodiment bias
Biases in attribution of meaning and perceived properties to objects or events based on the physical capacities and properties of the body, such as sex and temperament
Causal AttributionOutcome
Experimenter's bias
The tendency for experimenters to believe, certify, and publish data that agree with their expectations for the outcome of an experiment, and to disbelieve, discard, or downgrade the corresponding weightings for data that appear to conflict with those expectations
Causal AttributionSelf-Perspective
False uniqueness bias
The tendency of people to see their projects and themselves as more singular than they actually are
Causal AttributionSelf-Perspective
Form function attribution bias
In human–robot interaction, the tendency of people to make systematic errors when interacting with a robot. People may base their expectations and perceptions of a robot on its appearance (form) and attribute functions which do not necessarily mirror the true functions of the robot
Causal AttributionOutcome
Fundamental attribution error
The tendency to explain other people's behavior too quickly in terms of character while underweighting situational pressures and constraints.
Causal AttributionSelf-PerspectiveTeams & managementMedia & politics
G. I. Joe fallacy
The tendency to think that knowing about cognitive bias is enough to overcome it
Causal AttributionOutcome
Group attribution error
The biased belief that the characteristics of an individual group member are reflective of the group as a whole or the tendency to assume that group decision outcomes reflect the preferences of group members, even when information is available that clearly suggests otherwise
Causal AttributionOutcome
Hostile attribution bias
The tendency to read ambiguous behavior as hostile, threatening, or intentionally disrespectful even when the evidence is underdetermined.
Causal AttributionOutcomeConflict & dialogueTeams & management
Illusion of control
The tendency to overestimate one's degree of influence over other external events
Causal AttributionOutcome
Illusory correlation
Inaccurately seeing a relationship between two events related by coincidence
Causal AttributionHypothesis AssessmentOutcome
Ingroup bias
The tendency to favor, trust, defend, or positively interpret people and claims associated with one's own group more readily than comparable outsiders.
Causal AttributionSelf-PerspectiveMedia & politicsTeams & management
Intentionality bias
The tendency to judge human action to be intentional rather than accidental
Causal AttributionOutcome
Just-world fallacy
The tendency to assume that people usually get what they deserve, which encourages reinterpretation of suffering, injustice, or bad luck as somehow earned.
Causal AttributionOutcomeMedia & politicsConflict & dialogue
Motonormativity
The assumption that motor vehicle use is an unremarkable social norm, causing people to discount harms caused by motor vehicle use compared to similar harms caused by other behaviors
Causal AttributionOutcome
Objectivity illusion
The phenomena where people tend to believe that they are more objective and unbiased than others. This bias can apply to itself – where people are able to see when others are affected by the objectivity illusion, but unable to see it in themselves. See also bias blind spot
Causal AttributionSelf-Perspective
Ostrich effect
The tendency to avoid acknowledgment of an obviously bad situation to avoid the bad feelings that may come with acknowledgment of the situation
Causal AttributionSelf-Perspective
Outgroup favoritism
When some socially disadvantaged groups will express favorable attitudes (and even preferences) toward social, cultural, or ethnic groups other than their own
Causal AttributionSelf-Perspective
Plant blindness
The tendency to ignore plants in their environment and a failure to recognize and appreciate the utility of plants to life on earth
Causal AttributionOutcome
Pro-innovation bias
The tendency to have an excessive optimism towards an invention or innovation's usefulness throughout society, while often failing to identify its limitations and weaknesses
Causal AttributionOutcome
Proportionality bias
Our innate tendency to assume that big events have big causes, may also explain our tendency to accept conspiracy theories
Causal AttributionOutcome
Puritanical bias
The tendency to attribute cause of an undesirable outcome or wrongdoing by an individual to a moral deficiency or lack of self-control rather than taking into account the impact of broader societal determinants
Causal AttributionOutcome
Pygmalion effect
The phenomenon whereby others' expectations of a target person affect the target person's performance
Causal AttributionSelf-Perspective
Selective perception
The tendency for expectations to affect perception
Causal AttributionSelf-Perspective
Self-serving bias
The tendency to take disproportionate credit for successes while locating failures in bad luck, unfair circumstances, or other people.
Causal AttributionSelf-PerspectiveTeams & managementConflict & dialogue
Surrogation
Losing sight of the strategic construct that a measure is intended to represent, and subsequently acting as though the measure is the construct of interest
Causal AttributionOutcome
System justification
The tendency to defend and bolster the status quo. Existing social, economic, and political arrangements tend to be preferred, and alternatives disparaged, sometimes even at the expense of individual and collective self-interest
Causal AttributionOutcome
Teleological bias
The tendency to engage in overgeneralized ascriptions of purpose to entities and events that did not arise from goal-directed action, design, or selection based on functional effects
Causal AttributionOutcome
Turkey illusion
Absence of expectation of sudden trend breaks in continuous developments
Causal AttributionOutcome
Ultimate attribution error
Similar to the fundamental attribution error, in this error a person is likely to make an internal attribution to an entire group instead of the individuals within the group
Causal AttributionSelf-Perspective