Action bias
The tendency for someone to act when faced with a problem even when inaction would be more effective, or to act when no evident problem exists.
DecisionBaseline
Category
Decision
These biases bend choice, commitment, action, avoidance, and preference under uncertainty.
47 biases
Biases in this category
Use these side by side before deciding which label best fits the judgment failure you are seeing.
Additive bias
The tendency to solve problems through addition, even when subtraction is a better approach.
DecisionBaseline
Ambiguity effect
The tendency to avoid options when their probabilities are unclear, even if the unclear option may not actually be worse than the familiar one.
DecisionAssociationForecasting & planningPersonal decisions
Authority bias
The tendency to give excess weight to the opinion of a high-status or authoritative source independent of whether the source has earned that weight on the specific issue.
DecisionAssociationTeams & managementMedia & politics
Automation bias
The tendency to depend excessively on automated systems which can lead to erroneous automated information overriding correct decisions.
DecisionAssociation
Ballot order effect
The tendency for candidates listed first on a ballot to gain a small voting advantage.
DecisionBaseline
Cheerleader effect
The tendency for people to appear more attractive in a group than in isolation.
DecisionBaseline
Compassion fade
The tendency to behave more compassionately towards a small number of identifiable victims than to a large number of anonymous ones.
DecisionAssociation
Compromise effect
The tendency for an option to seem better when it appears as a middle compromise.
DecisionBaseline
Decoy effect
The tendency for a dominated third option to shift preference toward a nearby target option.
DecisionBaseline
Default effect
The tendency to favor the preselected or default option simply because it is already positioned as the path of least resistance.
DecisionAssociationChoice architecturePersonal decisions
Denomination effect
The tendency to spend more money when it is denominated in small amounts rather than large amounts.
DecisionBaseline
Disposition effect
The tendency to sell an asset that has accumulated in value and resist selling an asset that has declined in value.
DecisionBaseline
Distinction bias
The tendency to view two options as more dissimilar when evaluating them simultaneously than when evaluating them separately.
DecisionBaseline
Doubling-back aversion
The tendency to resist restarting or retracing steps even when doing so would save time or effort.
DecisionInertia
Dread aversion
Just as losses yield double the emotional impact of gains, dread yields double the emotional impact of savouring.
DecisionAssociation
Effort justification
The tendency to attribute greater value to an outcome if they had to put effort into achieving it.
DecisionSelf-Perspective
Endowment effect
The tendency to value something more highly once it is already owned, possessed, or treated as part of the current arrangement.
DecisionInertiaPersonal decisionsMarkets & valuation
Framing effect
The tendency for the same underlying information to produce different judgments depending on how the options or outcomes are described.
DecisionAssociationMedia & politicsPersonal decisions
Functional fixedness
A tendency limiting a person to using an object only in the way it is traditionally used.
DecisionInertia
Hyperbolic discounting
The tendency to prefer smaller immediate rewards over larger later ones, even against one's longer-term interests.
DecisionAssociation
Law of the instrument
An over-reliance on a familiar tool or methods, ignoring or under-valuing alternative approaches.
DecisionSelf-Perspective
Less-is-better effect
The tendency to prefer a smaller set to a larger set judged separately, but not jointly.
DecisionBaseline
Loss aversion
The tendency for losses or giving something up to feel worse than equivalent gains feel good.
DecisionAssociationPersonal decisionsForecasting & planning
Mere exposure effect
The tendency to like, trust, or feel more comfortable with something simply because it has become familiar.
DecisionInertiaMedia & politicsPersonal decisions
Money illusion
The tendency to concentrate on the nominal value of money rather than its value in terms of purchasing power.
DecisionBaseline
Neglect of probability
The tendency to ignore or drastically underuse probability information when making decisions under uncertainty.
DecisionAssociationRisk judgmentPublic policy
Non-adaptive choice switching
The tendency to avoid a previously optimal choice after a bad outcome, even when the situation is unchanged.
DecisionAssociation
Normalcy bias
The tendency to assume that things will keep functioning more or less normally, which leads people to underprepare for unprecedented or fast-moving disruption.
DecisionBaselineRisk judgmentPublic policy
Not invented here
An aversion to contact with or use of products, research, standards, or knowledge developed outside a group.
DecisionSelf-Perspective
Phantom effect
The tendency for unavailable but mentally present options to influence current choices.
DecisionBaseline
Plan continuation bias
Failure to recognize that the original plan of action is no longer appropriate for a changing situation or for a situation that is different from anticipated.
DecisionInertia
Present bias
The tendency to give disproportionate weight to immediate costs and payoffs relative to later ones, even when the later consequences are larger.
DecisionOutcomePersonal decisionsForecasting & planning
Prevention bias
The tendency to overvalue prevention spending relative to equally effective detection or response.
DecisionAssociation
Projection bias
The tendency to overestimate how much your future preferences, values, and reactions will resemble whatever you feel strongly right now.
DecisionBaselinePersonal decisionsForecasting & planning
Pseudocertainty effect
The tendency to make risk-averse choices if the expected outcome is good but risk-seeking choices if it is bad.
DecisionAssociation
Reactance
The tendency to push back against a perceived attempt to limit one's freedom of choice, sometimes by moving toward the very option one was being steered away from.
DecisionOutcomePersonal decisionsConflict & persuasion
Reactive devaluation
Devaluing proposals only because they purportedly originated with an adversary.
DecisionSelf-Perspective
Risk compensation
The tendency to take greater risks when perceived safety increases.
DecisionAssociation
Scope neglect
The tendency to respond weakly to scale, treating small and large harms or benefits as if the difference barely matters.
DecisionBaseline
Semmelweis reflex
The tendency to reject new evidence that contradicts a paradigm.
DecisionInertia
Shared information bias
The tendency for groups to spend too much time discussing shared information and too little on unique information.
DecisionInertia
Social comparison bias
The tendency when making decisions, to favour potential candidates who do not compete with one's own particular strengths.
DecisionSelf-Perspective
Status quo bias
The tendency to prefer the current option, default, or inherited arrangement simply because it is the current option, default, or inherited arrangement.
DecisionInertiaPersonal decisionsTeams & management
Sunk cost effect
The tendency to keep investing in a losing path because of what has already been spent, even when the forward-looking case has weakened.
DecisionInertiaPersonal decisionsTeams & management
Well travelled road effect
The tendency to underestimate the duration taken to traverse oft-travelled routes and overestimate the duration taken to traverse less familiar routes.
DecisionInertia
Zero-risk bias
The preference for reducing a small risk to zero over a greater reduction in a larger risk.
DecisionAssociation