Cognitively Biased
The Online Course Exploring the Illusions of the Mind That Make us Unreasonable, Irrational, and Wrong.
Thanks in part to the sponsorship of
The Biased Brain by Bo Bennett, PhD,
this course is made available to you at a substantial discount. Sponsors have a subtle mention under the course title and links in the course resources — there are no intrusive image-based ads or audio ads in the course.
Quick Course Facts
128
Self-paced, Online, Lessons
128
Videos and/or Narrated Presentations
10.5
Approximate Hours of Course Media
About the Cognitively Biased Course
In this course, you will learn a new cognitive bias, effect, or heuristic each day and understand why others (and you) make poor decisions, bad arguments, and hold false beliefs. All cognitive biases in this course are involved in the reasoning process and can lead to accepting bad arguments. The first and most important way to combat the negative effects of cognitive biases is to recognize them. This course will help you do that.
Mitigate the Effects of Cognitive Biases and Become More Reasonable
- Passive microlearning: receive an e-mail a day on a cognitive bias for 125 days
- Become a better debater
- Improve your critical thinking skills
- Ditch your false beliefs
- Become smarter
Become a Cognitive Bias Whiz and Understand Logical Fallacies Better
In the early 1970s, two behavioral researchers, Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky pioneered the field of behavioral economics through their work with cognitive biases and heuristics, which like logical fallacies, deal with errors in reasoning. The main difference, however, is that logical fallacies require an argument whereas cognitive biases and heuristics (mental shortcuts) refer to our default pattern of thinking. Sometimes there is crossover. Logical fallacies can be the result of a cognitive bias, but having biases (which we all do) does not mean that we have to commit logical fallacies. Consider the bandwagon effect, a cognitive bias that demonstrates the tendency to believe things because many other people believe them. This cognitive bias can be found in the logical fallacy, appeal to popularity.
Everybody is doing X. Therefore, X must be the right thing to do.
The cognitive bias is the main reason we commit this fallacy. However, if we just started working at a soup kitchen because all of our friends were working there, this wouldn’t be a logical fallacy, although the bandwagon effect would be behind our behavior. The appeal to popularity is a fallacy because it applies to an argument.
When we understand cognitive biases, we understand the reasons behind countless bad arguments, bad reasoning, and bad ideas.
Course Lessons
Full lesson breakdown
Lessons are organized by topic area and each includes descriptive copy for search visibility and student clarity.
Introduction
1 lesson
Welcome to this online course all about cognitive biases! In researching for this course, I found that about 30% of the covered biases had good explanation videos created by others, so I used those wh…
Cognitive Biases
127 lessons
A tendency to attribute one’s own actions to external causes, while attributing other people’s behaviors to internal causes. Example: “I tripped because of the uneven pavement. You tripped because you…
A bias in decision making where people tend to select options for which the probability of a favorable outcome is known, over an option for which the probability of a favorable outcome is unknown. Exa…
A bias in decision making where one relies too heavily on the first piece of information offered (or the “anchor”). Example: “The guy asking for donations asked me if I wanted to give $100 or even jus…
The tendency for a person’s perception to be affected by his or her recurring thoughts at the time. Example: (As Jimmy is watching Shark Week on television). “Jimmy, you want to go for a swim in the o…
The tendency to attribute greater accuracy to the opinion of a general authority figure (not one specific to the topic at hand) and be more influenced by that opinion. Example: “Leonard Nimoy said on …
The tendency to favor suggestions from automated decision-making systems and to ignore contradictory information made without automation, even if it is correct. Example: “This Facebook online quiz sai…
A self-reinforcing process in which a collective belief gains more and more plausibility through its increasing repetition in public discourse (or “repeat something long enough, and it will become tru…
A mental shortcut that relies on immediate examples that come to mind when evaluating a specific topic, concept, method or decision. Example: Believing that driving across the country is safer than ta…
When one’s beliefs are challenged by contradicting evidence, the belief becomes stronger. Example: “You can give me all the evidence you want, I know what I know! The more evidence you try to give me …
When one does something primarily because others are doing it. Example: “Mom, I am going with Bobby and Jimmy to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge.”
The tendency to judge the strength of arguments based on how plausible their conclusions are rather than how strong the argument itself is. Example: (To a person who already believes in God) “God exis…
If person A has done a favor for person B, person A is more likely to do another favor for person B than if person B did a favor for person A. Example: “Can you take out my garbage on Tuesday?” “Why n…
One’s inability to recognize one’s own biases. Example: “Of course you are voting that way. This is because of the confirmation bias. I, on the other hand, am voting the other way because I am reasona…
The bias that causes us to find individuals more attractive when they are in a group. Example: “Those guys are gorgeous!… Oh, wait. Now that they split up, I am looking at them individually and they r…
The inability to remember anything before age two or three. Example: “My first memory is of me sitting on my father’s lap when he told me about his grandfather. I think I was about three years old the…
The tendency to retroactively ascribe positive attributes to an option one has selected. This is also known as post-purchase rationalization. Example: “That $40 bar of soap I bought at the multi-level…
The tendency to interpret new evidence as confirmation of one’s existing beliefs or theories. Example: “I know my political position is right because all of the media outlets I subscribe to also agree…
A bias in research where one has an over-reliance on direct testing of a hypothesis while ignoring indirect testing. Example: If a researcher wants to know if smoking pot leads to homelessness, she mi…
A concept within cognitive psychology that has to do with how environmental factors affect our perception of stimuli. Example: A joke might be hilarious at a comedy club, but the same joke at a funera…
Adding or subtracting value to subjects or objects based on how we analyze them as compared to what we perceive as a normal case. Example: People who are happy with their salary are later unhappy with…
The tendency to tell people what we think they want to hear. Example: “That tattoo of your mother on your arm really suits you!”
The tendency to more easily recognize and distinguish between faces that match one’s own race (or the race with which one is more familiar). Example: The quasi-racist remark “they all look the same to…
Assuming that others with whom you are communicating have the same background knowledge about the topic(s) as you do. Example: Many bad teachers assume that the students already know what the teacher …
Since choices are often made relative to what is being offered rather than absolute preferences, by introducing an option that is of lesser value but similar to one of the other options, one’s choice …
Refers to a set of beliefs used as a shield for oneself against the fear that one will be the victim or cause of a serious mishap. Example: “I will never get into a drunk driving accident. I know my l…
People are less likely to spend larger bills than their equivalent value in smaller bills. Example: If an item cost $20, and person A has a $20 bill, and person B has 20 $1 bills, all other things bei…
The tendency of investors to sell assets whose price has increased, while keeping assets that have dropped in value. Example: Stocks A and B were both purchased for $10 each. Stock A is now worth $20,…
When people are too ignorant to realize the extent of their own ignorance. Example: Politician X thinks he can easily solve the problems we have in the Middle East. This is because he knows very littl…
The psychological observation that people’s judgments of the unpleasantness of painful experiences depend very little on the duration of those experiences. Example: If person A has his hand in ice-col…
The tendency to rely too heavily on one’s own perspective and/or have a higher opinion of oneself than reality dictates. Example: “The world is full of beautiful women everywhere one goes!” (Says the …
The perceptive difference between attitudes, preferences, and behaviors while in a visceral state versus in a calm state. Example: “I can’t imagine why that woman fainted when seeing the decapitated h…
The hypothesis that people ascribe more value to things merely because they own them. Example: John would never buy a trinket for $5, but if he were given the trinket, he probably wouldn’t sell it for…
This is a research-related bias. This is the tendency for researchers (experimenters) to believe, certify, and publish data that agree with their expectations for the outcome of an experiment, and to …
The tendency to attribute extrinsic motives (e.g. money) rather than intrinsic motives (e.g. education) when weighing the motives of others rather than oneself. Example: When a manager thinks more mon…
The tendency to overestimate the extent to which one’s own opinions, beliefs, preferences, values, and habits are normal and typical of those of others. Example: “Nobody likes going to the movies anym…
An apparent recollection of an event that did not actually occur. Example: Many innocent people were sent to prison based on the false memories of children who “recalled” sexual abuse—thanks to a proc…
The tendency to weigh attributes and factors unevenly, putting more importance on some aspects and less on others. Example: Dating a horrible human being just because she has big boobs.
The tendency to give high accuracy ratings to descriptions of one’s personality that supposedly are tailored specifically to them but that are, in fact, vague and general enough to apply to a wide ran…
The tendency to react to a particular choice in different ways depending on how it is presented. Example: (in universe #1) “We can either go see that awesome movie that got rave reviews, or stay home …
The tendency to notice instances of a particular phenomenon once one starts to look for it, and to, therefore, believe erroneously that the phenomenon occurs more often than it does. Example: You star…
The tendency to limit oneself to using an object only in the way it is traditionally used. Example: Running out to the garage to get a hammer to hammer in a small nail to hang a picture frame, when yo…
The tendency to explain someone’s behavior based on internal factors and to underestimate the influence that external factors have on another person’s behavior. Example: “Billy is ac…
The tendency to better remember information if it is generated from one’s own mind rather than simply read. Example: Stories that are made up are better remembered by the person making up the st…
The tendency to forget information that can easily be found online by using Internet search engines such as Google. Example: “What is the capital of Wyoming?” “Let me see… &ls…
People’s tendency to believe either (1) that the characteristics of an individual group member are reflective of the group as a whole, or (2) that a group’s decision outcome must reflect t…
The tendency for an impression created in one area to influence opinion in another area. Example: “My teacher really knows his stuff when it comes to math. I bet he is also a whiz at chess!&rdqu…
The tendency to be overconfident about the correctness of answers to difficult questions and underconfident about answers to easy questions. Example: This frequently happens with multiple choice quest…
The tendency to see a past event as having been predictable, despite there having been little or no objective basis for predicting it. Example: “I knew that he was going to hit a home run!&rdquo…
The tendency to better remember humorous items than non-humorous ones. Example: Memorize three mental images. Later try to recall them all and see which you remember better. 1) a man walking by a lake…
The tendency for one to increasingly choose a smaller, sooner reward over a larger, later reward as the delay occurs sooner rather than later in time. Example: People would rather have $10 now than $2…
The tendency of individuals to offer greater aid when a specific, identifiable person (or “victim”) is observed under hardship, as compared to a large, vaguely defined group with the same …
The tendency to place a disproportionately high value on products one partially creates. Example: “Do you like this table? It is my favorite piece of furniture.” “It looks like an or…
The tendency to perceive one’s knowledge of others to surpass other people’s knowledge of them. Example: We think we know our spouse better than he or she knows us.
A set of attributional biases consisting of illusions of influence, insight, and benevolence. Example: “I just managed not to fall off that cliff! There must be a guardian angel looking out for …
The tendency for people to overestimate how well they understand others’ personal mental states. Example: “Timmy is fine. He’s just upset because he didn’t win.” Actually…
The tendency to believe information to be correct the more it is repeated. Example: One of the ways the Russians influenced the 2016 presidential election was to flood the Internet with false informat…
The tendency for one to overestimate his or her ability to interpret and predict accurately the outcome when analyzing a set of data that appears to show a consistent pattern. Example: Wine connoisseu…
The tendency to perceive a relationship between variables (typically people, events, or behaviors) even when no such relationship exists. Example: Good luck is frequently associated with rituals or &l…
The tendency for one to overestimate his or her own qualities and abilities, relative to others. Example: In several studies, a vast majority of those interviewed believe that they are better than ave…
The tendency for people to overestimate the length or the intensity of future feeling states. Example: Sandy thinks she would be miserable for months if she was dumped by Troy. Troy dumped Sandy. Sand…
The tendency to favor one’s own group. Example: Choosing to sit next to a person roughly your same age, same gender, and same race rather than someone in one of these different groups.
The tendency to judge the probability of obtaining a sample statistic without respect to the sample size. Example: Willie thinks that because he played roulette three times and won twice, that if he p…
The tendency to make irrational decisions based upon rational decisions in the past or to justify actions already taken. Example: It was rational to threaten violence as a last resort if country X did…
The tendency to believe one will get what one deserves that often leads to a rationalization of an inexplicable injustice by suggesting things the victim might have done to deserve it. Example: The id…
The tendency to over rely on a familiar tool. Example: A Freudian psychotherapist might think that most problems are a result of oppressed feelings from childhood.
A type of preference reversal that occurs when the lesser or smaller alternative of a proposition is preferred when evaluated separately, but not evaluated together. Example: Choosing an expensive $45…
The tendency to prefer avoiding losses to acquiring equivalent gains. Example: One would theoretically do more to protect from losing $100 then he or she would for gaining $100.
The tendency to develop a preference for things merely because of familiarity with them. Example: One might prefer an old car to a much better new car, simply because one is familiar with the old car.
When a person’s recall of episodic memories becomes less accurate because of post-event information. Example: After the riot had broken out, a group of people started the false narrative that an…
The tendency to ascribe moral praise or condemnation to a moral agent when they have no control of the factors that brought about the moral judgment. Example: Carl and Jason go out for a night of drin…
The tendency for negative things to have a greater effect on one’s psychological state and processes than neutral or positive things of equal intensity. Example: People are more affected emotionally b…
The tendency to believe that things will always function the way things normally function. Example: Many people don’t take proper precautions for a potential disaster because of this bias.
The tendency for a researcher’s cognitive bias(es) To cause them to subconsciously influence the participants of an experiment. Example: If a researcher is investigating ESP, and is determined t…
The tendency to believe that one is at less at risk of experiencing a negative event compared to others. Example: “Car accidents are horrible, but I am very careful and that won’t happen t…
The tendency to ignore a dangerous or risky situation. Example: Sometimes people will rationalize or make excuses for why they don’t want to do something when the real reason has to do with this…
An error made in evaluating the quality of a decision when the outcome of that decision is already known. Example: When our leaders take a military action, we might support the decision initially. How…
The tendency for one’s confidence in his or her judgments is reliably greater than the objective accuracy of those judgments, especially when confidence is relatively high. Example: “I kno…
A psychological phenomenon in which the mind responds to a stimulus by perceiving a familiar pattern where none exists. Example: Seeing Jesus in toast.
The tendency for people to exaggerate the likelihood that negative things will happen to them. Example: “Society is collapsing!”
The tendency for pictures and images to be more likely remembered than words. Example: Most marketing includes images for this reason.
The tendency for predictions about how much time will be needed to complete a future task to display an optimism bias and underestimate the time needed. Example: “I can be ready in 10 minutes.&r…
The assumption that one’s tastes or preferences will remain the same over time. Example: “I can’t imagine life without you!” Earnestly says the guy who just met the girl and ha…
The tendency to perceive an outcome as certain while in fact it is uncertain. Example: “Are you sure you can stop at the store on the way home?” “I’m positive!” Actually,…
The tendency to do something different from what someone wants you to do in reaction to a perceived attempt to constrain your freedom of choice. Example: An employee is asked by his boss to file a rep…
The tendency to devalue a proposal if it originates from an antagonist (i.e., some source that the person does not like). Example: A politician makes an excellent decision that will be of great benefi…
A category of cognitive biases that influence the responses of participants away from an accurate or truthful response. Example: Most people (non-professionals) who conduct surveys are not well-aware …
The tendency for people to overestimate their ability to control impulsive behavior. Example: This is a huge problem in dieting, being a faithful spouse, getting work done, and just about every other …
The bias introduced by the selection of individuals, groups or data for analysis where the necessary randomization is not achieved. Example: If a researcher is conducting a survey on how much money th…
The tendency to select, categorize, and analyze stimuli from our environment to create meaningful experiences while blocking out stimuli that contradict our beliefs or expectations. Example: “Cl…
In statistics, the self-selection bias arises in any situation in which individuals select themselves into a group, causing a biased sample with nonprobability sampling. Example: If you are wondering …
The tendency for people to attribute positive events to their own character but attribute negative events to external factors, generally used to protect one’s self-esteem. Example: Tracy broke up with…
A metaphor for the reflex-like tendency to reject new evidence or new knowledge because it contradicts established norms, beliefs or paradigms. Example: Throughout the centuries, scientific facts have…
The tendency to believe that others are less sexually interested in you than they actually are. Example: “He is so sweet! He is really loves listening to all my stories about my cats!” No,…
The tendency to dislike and compete with someone who is seen as physically, or mentally better than yourself. Example: Rod meets Carl for the first time. Carl is good-looking, well-built, and holds a …
The tendency of survey respondents to answer questions in a manner that will be viewed favorably by others. Example: In the survey question that asks, “How often do you have racist thoughts?&rdq…
The misattribution of the source of a memory. Example: Sandy thinks she was abducted by aliens, when in fact, she is confusing actual events and scenes from Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
The tendency to prefer the current state of affairs. Example: The idea that people generally resist change, is true due to this bias. We pass up good opportunities because we prefer the status quo.
The tendency to judge the probability of the whole to be less than the probabilities of the parts. Example: If we are asked to estimate the chance that we will die from natural causes, we might guess …
The tendency for a person to consider a statement or another piece of information to be correct if it has any personal meaning or significance to them. Example: A fortune cookie reads “You will …
The tendency to believe that what someone says is true or may be true. Example: Highly suggestible people require very little evidence or good reasons to accept information as true. This explains in p…
The tendency to defend and bolster the status quo, that is, to see it as good, fair, legitimate, and desirable. Example: “I know the poor appear disadvantaged, but they are not victims of the sy…
The tendency for one to perceive recent events as being more remote than they are and distant events as being more recent than they are. Example: “I just went to the doctor no more than a year a…
The tendency to perceive that mass media messages have a greater effect on others than on oneself. Example: “People are such suckers when it comes to what they believe in the media!”
The argument that members of an organization give disproportionate weight to trivial issues. Example: When discussing how the AIDS drug will be distributed in Africa, the committee spent 80% of their …
The tendency to attribute negative outgroup and positive ingroup behavior to internal causes and to attribute positive outgroup and negative ingroup behavior to external causes. Example: “Liberals lik…
The tendency to think that a unit of some entity (with certain constraints) is the appropriate and optimal amount. Example: Americans are getting fatter partly because the portion “small” has increase…
The tendency to underestimate one’s achievements and capabilities in relation to others. Example: If someone is really good at tennis, they might think that others are just as good.
The tendency to prefer the complete elimination of a risk even when alternative options produce a greater reduction in risk (overall). Example: Travis is offered two bets: 1) he could wager $10 for a …
The tendency to intuitively judge a situation to be zero-sum (i.e., resources gained by one party are matched by corresponding losses to another party) when it is actually non-zero-sum. Example: Peopl…
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