Cognitive Biases

CogBias

A practical cognitive-bias site with clear definitions, learning paths, assessments, self-audits, and debiasing tools.

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Check Yourself

Short audits for the moments bias is most likely to slip through

These are not quizzes. They are small procedural checkpoints you can run before a choice, before a forecast, before a people judgment, after a result when memory is already trying to smooth the story, or while you are facilitating a room that is converging too quickly.

Use the checks as a progression

The field guide now mirrors the path ladder: learn the basic moves first, practice them in live decisions, and then use the facilitation checks when the social structure itself needs repair.

Foundational

Start here if you want the core labels, the most reusable distinctions, and the first debiasing moves.

5 checks

Applied

Use these when the real job is forecasting, postmortems, moderation, or other live judgment work.

6 checks

Teaching And Team Use

Best for facilitation, workflow design, coaching, and group decision settings where room structure matters.

2 checks

Foundational

Start here if you want the core labels, the most reusable distinctions, and the first debiasing moves.

Before You Decide

A quick pre-choice audit for defaults, sunk costs, anchors, and false certainty.

Foundational Before a choice 3 min

Question: Am I choosing the best forward-looking option, or the most comfortable inherited one?

  • Write the current default as just one option on the list.
  • Ignore past sunk costs for one clean pass through the decision.
  • Ask whether the first number or frame is still pulling the choice.
  • State what would have to be true for the current favorite to fail.
Anchoring effectStatus quo biasSunk cost effectOverconfidence effect
Start HereDecision Under UncertaintyLoss, Ownership, And Omission

Before You Predict

A forecasting check for base rates, uncertainty ranges, and planning optimism.

Foundational Before a forecast 4 min

Question: What would the outside view say before the inside story takes over?

  • Name the reference class before you describe the special features of the case.
  • Write a range, not just a point estimate.
  • Compare your forecast with historical cycle times or base rates.
  • List one concrete failure path that would widen the range.
Base-rate neglectOverconfidence effectPlanning fallacyAnchoring effectClustering illusionGambler's fallacy
Decision Under UncertaintyConfidence And Understanding

Before You Judge A Person

A social-perception check for trait inflation, first impressions, and hidden asymmetry.

Foundational Before a people judgment 4 min

Question: Am I reacting to the person, to the situation, or to my own first-pass impression of the person?

  • Describe the behavior before you explain it.
  • List three situational pressures that could also account for it.
  • Separate overall impression from the specific trait you think you observed.
  • Ask whether the same behavior would read differently from someone else.
Egocentric biasFundamental attribution errorHalo effectImplicit biasNegativity bias
People JudgmentConflict, Threat, And Tribe

Before You Share The Story

A media and discourse check for salience, repetition, and flattering narrative compression.

Foundational Before sharing a claim 4 min

Question: Is this memorable because it is representative, or because it is dramatic and easy to circulate?

  • Ask what denominator or rate is missing from the anecdote.
  • Check whether repetition has made the story feel truer than the evidence warrants.
  • Look for the missing non-dramatic cases.
  • Separate what is vivid from what is prevalent.
Availability heuristicNegativity biasSurvivorship biasConfirmation biasApopheniaFrequency illusion
Evidence And ExplanationMisinformation, Memory, And Crowds

Before You Explain What Happened

A causation and evidence check for premature stories about why the outcome occurred.

Foundational Before a postmortem story 5 min

Question: What part of this explanation is genuinely shown, and what part merely feels satisfying now that the ending is known?

  • Recover what was known before the result arrived.
  • List at least two rival explanations that still fit the facts.
  • Separate judgment of the process from judgment of the result.
  • Ask which causal links are being assumed rather than demonstrated.
Hindsight biasOutcome biasMotivated reasoningFundamental attribution errorConsistency biasFalse memory
After The OutcomeEvidence And Explanation

Applied

Use these when the real job is forecasting, postmortems, moderation, or other live judgment work.

After You Were Surprised

A short post-surprise drill for protecting calibration when a result feels obvious only afterward.

Applied After a surprise 4 min

Question: What did the surprise reveal about the world, and what did it reveal about my forecasting habits?

  • Write what you actually expected before you revise the story.
  • Note which uncertainty you compressed too aggressively.
  • Identify one missing base rate, missing scenario, or missing situational factor.
  • Turn the surprise into one rule change for the next forecast.
Hindsight biasOverconfidence effectAvailability heuristicPlanning fallacy
After The OutcomeDecision Under Uncertainty

Before You Treat The Default As Neutral

A choice-architecture check for the moments when the preselected option starts feeling invisible, safe, or morally cleaner.

Applied Before accepting the current path 3 min

Question: Is the default genuinely best, or just easiest to leave in place?

  • Rewrite the default as one explicit option on the list.
  • Name the friction or emotional cost attached to changing it.
  • Compare the cost of acting with the cost of preserving the current path.
  • Ask what you would choose if no option had been preselected.
Default effectOmission biasLoss aversionStatus quo bias
Loss, Ownership, And OmissionComparison Traps And Choice Architecture

Before You Read Hostility Into It

A conflict check for ambiguous behavior that is starting to look more malicious than the evidence actually shows.

Applied Before assigning hostile intent 4 min

Question: What else could explain this besides threat, contempt, or bad faith?

  • Describe the behavior first without mind-reading intent into it.
  • List at least two non-hostile explanations that still fit the facts.
  • Notice whether group identity is shaping whose motives you trust.
  • Ask what additional observation would really justify the hostile interpretation.
Hostile attribution biasNegativity biasNaïve realismIngroup bias
Conflict, Threat, And TribePeople Judgment

Before You Call It Obvious

A confidence and explanation check for moments when familiarity starts masquerading as mastery.

Applied Before mistaking fluency for mastery 4 min

Question: Do I really understand this, or has fluency outrun competence?

  • Explain the mechanism in plain language without leaning on jargon.
  • Name the specific task that would test whether you actually understand it.
  • Ask what a novice would still find confusing that you may no longer notice.
  • Distinguish recognition, explanation, and performance instead of treating them as the same.
Dunning-Kruger effectIllusion of explanatory depthCurse of knowledgeOverconfidence effect
Confidence And UnderstandingSelf-Justification And Meta-Bias

Before You Trust The Repeat

A quick information check for claims that feel increasingly true because they are circulating smoothly, not because they have been freshly verified.

Applied Before treating circulation as proof 4 min

Question: What part of this claim's plausibility is coming from repetition, correction failure, or visible uptake rather than from direct support?

  • Trace the claim back to its earliest evidential source rather than its most repeated retelling.
  • Ask whether the correction, if one exists, offered a real replacement explanation or only a retraction.
  • Separate source count from repetition count and from popularity count.
  • Name what would still support the claim if the social circulation signal were hidden.
Availability cascadeContinued influence effectBandwagon effectAvailability heuristicFrequency illusion
Misinformation, Memory, And CrowdsEvidence And Explanation

Before You Let The Menu Decide

A choice-architecture check for decisions that may be getting bent by the comparison set, the proxy being used, or the pressure to act visibly.

Applied Before a framed comparison 4 min

Question: Am I choosing the best option, or the option the current frame is making easiest to endorse?

  • Rewrite the target question so the real decision criterion is explicit.
  • Compare the core options pairwise without the decoy, preselection, or prestige cue if possible.
  • Ask whether action is being preferred because it is action rather than because it is fit.
  • Check what your judgment would be before the system recommendation or crowd signal is shown.
Attribute substitutionDecoy effectContrast effectAction biasAutomation bias
Comparison Traps And Choice ArchitectureDecision Under Uncertainty

Teaching And Team Use

Best for facilitation, workflow design, coaching, and group decision settings where room structure matters.

Before You Go With The Room

A meeting and conformity check for consensus that may be social before it is evidential.

Teaching And Team Use Before group convergence 5 min

Question: Would I still hold this view if I had to write it down alone before hearing the room?

  • Write your own initial judgment before the most senior or confident person speaks.
  • Ask which live objection has not yet been given equal airtime.
  • Separate agreement pressure from evidence pressure.
  • Check whether silence is being mistaken for support.
GroupthinkAuthority biasSocial desirability biasFalse consensus effect
Social Pressure And BelongingSelf-Justification And Meta-Bias

Before You Tidy The Story

A self-justification check for the moments when memory, standards, or self-description are being rearranged to make a choice or contradiction easier to live with.

Teaching And Team Use Before self-justifying a choice 5 min

Question: What tension, tradeoff, or contradiction am I trying to make disappear too cheaply?

  • State the conflict or tradeoff in plain language before you defend either side.
  • Recover what you actually thought of the alternatives before the final choice hardened into memory.
  • Ask which bias you are most tempted to diagnose in others but exempt in yourself.
  • Write what a less flattering but more honest account of the situation would still have to include.
Cognitive dissonanceChoice-supportive biasBias blind spotSelf-serving biasConsistency biasEgocentric bias
Self-Justification And Meta-BiasAfter The Outcome