Anthropocentric thinking
The tendency to use human analogies as a basis for reasoning about other, less familiar, biological phenomena
Opinion ReportingSelf-Perspective
Category
Opinion Reporting
Biases here distort what people say they believe, prefer, remember preferring, or think they observed.
25 biases
Biases in this category
Use these side by side before deciding which label best fits the judgment failure you are seeing.
Anthropomorphism
Characterization of animals, objects, and abstract concepts as possessing human traits, emotions, or intentions. The opposite bias, of not attributing feelings or thoughts to another person, is dehumanised perception, a type of objectification
Opinion ReportingSelf-Perspective
Backfire effect
A tendency to react to disconfirming evidence by strengthening one's previous beliefs
Opinion ReportingInertia
Bandwagon effect
The tendency to do (or believe) things because many other people do (or believe) the same. Related to groupthink and herd behavior
Opinion ReportingOutcome
Ben Franklin effect
Where a person who has performed a favor for someone is more likely to do another favor for that person than they would be if they had received a favor from that person
Opinion ReportingSelf-Perspective
Bias blind spot
The tendency to see oneself as less biased than other people, or to be able to identify more cognitive biases in others than in oneself
Opinion ReportingSelf-Perspective
Courtesy bias
The tendency to give an opinion that is more socially correct than one's true opinion, so as to avoid offending anyone
Opinion ReportingOutcome
End-of-history illusion
The age-independent belief that one will change less in the future than one has in the past
Opinion ReportingInertia
Halo effect
The tendency for one salient positive or negative impression to spill over into unrelated judgments about a person, product, or institution.
Opinion ReportingAssociationTeams & managementPersonal decisions
Illusion of asymmetric insight
Where people perceive their knowledge of their peers to surpass their peers' knowledge of them
Opinion ReportingSelf-Perspective
Illusion of learning
A false belief that if you understand something you learned and acquired a knowledge about it
Opinion ReportingOutcome
Illusory superiority
The tendency to overestimate one's desirable qualities, and underestimate undesirable qualities, relative to other people. (Also known as "Lake Wobegon effect", "better-than-average effect", or "superiority bias".)
Opinion ReportingSelf-Perspective
Impostor Syndrome
A psychological occurrence in which an individual doubts their skills, talents, or accomplishments and has a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as a fraud. Also known as impostor phenomenon
Opinion ReportingSelf-Perspective
Misinterpreted-effort hypothesis
Perceiving effort as a poor learning
Opinion ReportingOutcome
Moral credential
Effect: Occurs when someone who does something good gives themselves permission to be less good in the future
Opinion ReportingAssociation
Moral luck
The tendency for people to ascribe greater or lesser moral standing based on the outcome of an event
Opinion ReportingOutcome
Naïve realism
The tendency to experience one's own perception of reality as the obvious, objective view and to treat disagreement as evidence that others are uninformed, irrational, or biased.
Opinion ReportingSelf-PerspectiveMedia & politicsConflict & dialogue
Negativity bias
The tendency to give bad news, threats, criticism, and losses more psychological weight than equally sized positives.
Opinion ReportingRecallAssociationBaselineMedia & politicsTeams & management
Omission bias
The tendency to judge harmful inaction as more acceptable, or less blameworthy, than equally harmful action.
Opinion ReportingInertiaPersonal decisionsPublic policy
Social desirability bias
The tendency to over-report socially approved attitudes or behaviors and under-report the ones likely to invite embarrassment, judgment, or sanction.
Opinion ReportingOutcomeSurveys & interviewsTeams & management
Stereotyping
Expecting a member of a group to have certain characteristics without having actual information about that individual
Opinion ReportingOutcome
Third-person effect
A tendency to believe that mass-communicated media messages have a greater effect on others than on themselves
Opinion ReportingSelf-Perspective
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
Opinion ReportingSelf-Perspective
Women are wonderful effect
A tendency to associate more good attributes with women than with men
Opinion ReportingOutcome
Zero-sum bias
Where a situation is incorrectly perceived to be like a zero-sum game, in which any gain by one person necessarily comes at the expense of another
Opinion ReportingSelf-Perspective