Aesthetic–usability effect
A tendency for people to perceive attractive things as more usable
EstimationAssociation
Category
Estimation
Biases here distort numerical judgment, probability, calibration, and first-pass estimation.
40 biases
Biases in this category
Use these side by side before deciding which label best fits the judgment failure you are seeing.
Anchoring effect
The tendency for the first salient number, frame, or option to pull later estimates toward itself even when it is arbitrary or weakly relevant.
EstimationBaselineForecasting & planningPersonal decisions
Attribute substitution
When a judgment has to be made (of a target attribute) that is computationally complex, and instead a more easily calculated heuristic attribute is substituted. This substitution is thought of as taking place in the automatic intuitive judgment system, rather than the more self-aware reflective system
EstimationAssociation
Availability heuristic
The tendency to judge frequency, risk, or importance by how easily examples come to mind.
EstimationAssociationMedia & politicsPersonal decisions
Base-rate neglect
The tendency to underweight general prevalence information when vivid case-specific details are available.
EstimationBaselineResearch & evidenceForecasting & planning
Conjunction fallacy
The tendency to assume that specific conditions are more probable than a more general version of those same conditions
EstimationAssociation
Conservatism bias
The tendency to insufficiently revise one's belief when presented with new evidence
EstimationInertia
Conservatism or regressive bias
Tendency to remember high values and high likelihoods/probabilities/frequencies as lower than they actually were and low ones as higher than they actually were. Based on the evidence, memories are not extreme enough
EstimationBaseline
Curse of knowledge
The tendency for informed people to underestimate how hard it is for less-informed people to follow, predict, or reconstruct the same material.
EstimationSelf-PerspectiveLearning & expertiseTeams & management
Dunning-Kruger effect
The tendency for low skill or shallow understanding to produce overestimation of one's own competence, while higher-skill people may underestimate how unusual their competence really is.
EstimationBaselineLearning & expertiseTeams & management
Exaggerated expectation
The tendency to expect or predict more extreme outcomes than those outcomes that actually happen
EstimationOutcome
Extrinsic incentives bias
An exception to the fundamental attribution error, where people view others as having (situational) extrinsic motivations, while viewing themselves as having (dispositional) intrinsic motivations
EstimationSelf-Perspective
False consensus effect
The tendency to overestimate how many other people share one's own beliefs, preferences, habits, or reactions.
EstimationSelf-PerspectiveMedia & politicsTeams & management
Gambler's fallacy
The tendency to think that future probabilities are altered by past events, when in reality they are unchanged. The fallacy arises from an erroneous conceptualization of the law of large numbers . For example, "I've flipped heads with this coin five times consecutively, so the chance of tails coming out on the sixth flip is much greater than heads."
EstimationBaseline
Hard–easy effect
The tendency to overestimate one's ability to accomplish hard tasks, and underestimate one's ability to accomplish easy tasks
EstimationBaseline
Hedonic recall bias
The tendency for people who are satisfied with their wage to overestimate how much they earn, and conversely, for people who are unsatisfied with their wage to underestimate it
EstimationOutcome
Hot-cold empathy gap
The tendency to underestimate the influence of visceral drives on one's attitudes, preferences, and behaviors
EstimationAssociation
Hot-hand fallacy
The belief that a person who has experienced success with a random event has a greater chance of further success in additional attempts
EstimationBaseline
Illusion of transparency
The tendency for people to overestimate the degree to which their personal mental state is known by others, and to overestimate how well they understand others' personal mental states
EstimationSelf-Perspective
Illusion of validity
The tendency to overestimate the accuracy of one's judgments, especially when available information is consistent or inter-correlated
EstimationOutcome
Impact bias
The tendency to overestimate the length or the intensity of the impact of future feeling states
EstimationOutcome
Insensitivity to sample size
The tendency to under-expect variation in small samples
EstimationBaseline
Interoceptive bias
(As for example, in parole judges who are more lenient when fed and rested.)
EstimationBaseline
Naïve cynicism
Expecting more egocentric bias in others than in oneself
EstimationSelf-Perspective
Optimism bias
The tendency to overestimate favorable outcomes and underestimate the probability or impact of unfavorable ones, especially for oneself or one's own plans.
EstimationSelf-PerspectiveForecasting & planningPersonal decisions
Outcome bias
The tendency to judge the quality of a decision mainly by how things turned out rather than by the quality of the reasoning under the uncertainty that existed at the time.
EstimationOutcomePostmortems & learningTeams & management
Outgroup homogeneity bias
Where individuals see members of other groups as being relatively less varied than members of their own group
EstimationSelf-Perspective
Pessimism bias
The tendency to overestimate the likelihood that bad things will happen. (compare optimism bias )
EstimationSelf-Perspective
Planning fallacy
The tendency for people to underestimate the time it will take them to complete a given task
EstimationOutcome
Restraint bias
The tendency to overestimate one's ability to show restraint in the face of temptation
EstimationOutcome
Sexual overperception bias
The tendency to overestimate sexual interest of another person in oneself, and sexual underperception bias, the tendency to underestimate it
EstimationOutcome
Spotlight effect
The tendency to overestimate how much other people notice, remember, or care about one's appearance, mistakes, or behavior.
EstimationSelf-PerspectivePersonal decisionsConflict & dialogue
Subadditivity effect
The tendency to estimate that the likelihood of a remembered event is less than the sum of its (more than two) mutually exclusive components
EstimationHypothesis AssessmentAssociationBaseline
Systematic bias
Judgement that arises when targets of differentiating judgement become subject to effects of regression that are not equivalent
EstimationBaseline
Tachypsychia
When time perceived by the individual either lengthens, making events appear to slow down, or contracts
EstimationAssociation
Time-saving bias
A tendency to underestimate the time that could be saved (or lost) when increasing (or decreasing) from a relatively low speed, and to overestimate the time that could be saved (or lost) when increasing (or decreasing) from a relatively high speed
EstimationAssociation
Travis syndrome
Overestimating the significance of the present. It is related to chronological snobbery with possibly an appeal to novelty logical fallacy being part of the bias
EstimationAssociation
Unit bias
The standard suggested amount of consumption (e.g., food serving size) is perceived to be appropriate, and a person would consume it all even if it is too much for this particular person
EstimationBaseline
Weber–Fechner law
Difficulty in perceiving and comparing small differences in large quantities
EstimationBaseline
Worse-than-average effect
A tendency to believe ourselves to be worse than others at tasks which are difficult
EstimationSelf-Perspective