Questions tagged [bias]
For questions about systematic patterns of deviation in judgment from normative decision-theoretic expectations.
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Is satisficing conceptualised as being unconscious/automatic, or conscious/volitional?
I haven't found anything that speaks directly to this question, but here is the account Simon (1990) p9 provides of satisficing
If the task domain has little structure or the structure is unknown ...
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Why do children tend to choose the last option in a two-alternative forced choice task?
If I ask my toddler if she wants bananas or apples, she will consistently choose apples. The same goes for colors, other related objects, or even seemingly unrelated items - She always chooses last.
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Are some cognitive bias universal? If yes, which one? [closed]
Many studies show that humans are subject to “cognitive bias” such as the loss aversion or, ingroup vs outgroup, or negativity bias.
These studies often claim that the cognitive biases are universal ...
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Why do some people believe that life is a zero-sum game and that if you harm someone, you will benefit?
I have a strong feeling that many people consider life as a zero-sum game, i.e. they always assume that you'll benefit, if you harm/disadvantage someone. Any research on this?
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Academic Background for Switchtracking Phenomenon
In one recent episode of Hidden Brain podcast, they talk about a pattern in conversation called "Switchtracking". It references to the the "Thanks for the Feedback" book by Douglas Stone and Sheila ...
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When does Just World Theory apply?
Can someone explain how Just World Theory applies in real life? I have learned about it from textbooks but have trouble believing parts of it. Does it always apply? For example does it apply to ...
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Are men subject to optimism bias when it comes to assessing their sexual/romantic appeal?
Intuitively, I imagine that men are strongly subject to optimism bias when dating, and in particular facing rejection. (ie. not believing that she's really not attracted to him).
My question is:
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Does expecting to be in a safe situation elicit unsafe behavior? [closed]
When the traffic light is red you are aware that a car might comes rushing in. So you are extra careful and always check the street before you actual cross the street. But one the other hand if you ...
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Does knowing a word for an emotion cause a person to feel the emotion more frequently?
I am aware of the Frequency Illusion which makes it more likely for us to notice a new word if we just heard about it recently, but I was wondering if this is true for emotions as well.
Logically, I ...
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Name of the bias where someone really needs something after they find out it exists
I'm looking for the name of the cognitive bias that is expressed in the following story.
A fellow coworker was instrumental in getting a 75 gallon fish tank installed in the lobby of the company that ...
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Name the bias when one attributes all group successes to the individual they're in contact with the most
This is the fallacy when one assumes that all successful outcomes were most likely thanks to that one individual that they always communicate with, and fail to recognize (consciously or subconsciously)...
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What's this cognitive bias that relates to misremembering exact stimuli?
Say a participant is shown a reference stimulus of white colour. Afterwards, they are shown a number of test stimuli that range from yellow to blue like this (yellow -> less_yellow -> whitish -> white ...
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Biases in subjective survey
What are the commonly observed biases in survey and are there any statistical or non-statistical methods to avoid it?
I am conducting a survey for automobile seat comfort, I think my current ...
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What cognitive bias prevents you from discarding stuff?
Let's say person is moving homes and has lots of kids toys, suits, shirts, ties and other stuff that he seldom uses.
He is am planning to sell it all in a car boot sale even if he knows that it's ...
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Using Cognitive biases for behavior change?
I'm interested in using cognitive biases as basis for behavior change, similar to what we see in gaminfication (e.g. instant gratification to hook people to continue playing). I'm new to the field and ...
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Links between biases and personality?
I was thinking of how a lot of people are biased against overweight people.
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One of the answers considers how we tend to "take part" with those that remind us of ourselves, and we are biased against ...
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Why are people biased against overweight people?
Several studies have shown that alot of people are biased to underestimate\undervalue overweight people:
http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2013/06/06/188891906/the-fat-shaming-professor-a-twitter-...
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Is there a term for not recognizing that other people think differently, or projecting your thought patterns on others?
For example I might make the argument that 'Women don't face discrimination in the workplace' or that 'There isn't actually any racism anymore'* because I myself don't think in an explicitly racist or ...
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Anonymity creates an environment full of bullies?
The Stack Exchange websites has people anonymously up vote or down vote whether questions and answers are good or bad and everyone builds their reputation based on this alone. I saw a question on the ...
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Is it possible to present/perceive information objectively? [closed]
A recent project has brought an interesting thought to mind. Hopefully this is the correct format to ask this question, as I'm unsure where else I'd receive an educated response. (possibly philosopy? ...
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What differences of opinion led to the Kahneman-Gigerenzer feud?
I have found many allusions to this feud, e.g. from http://nickdunbar.net/2012/05/23/thinking-fast-and-slow-by-daniel-kahneman/ and in Kahneman's trade book "Thinking, Fast and Slow". However, I have ...
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What is the name for the cognitive bias that ignores that extreme symptoms always tend to get less extreme?
There are some long term diseases where the severity of your symptoms tend towards a 'normal'. So imagine plotting out the severity of the symptoms say, every day or every week, then drawing a line of ...
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What cognitive bias is it when an (ideally objective) evaluation is influenced by the prior opinion of another person?
I'm looking for the name of the cognitive bias that describes the following phenomenon:
Person A asks person B to evaluate and give feedback on a certain topic (a student, a manuscript etc), ...
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Are people who have a crush on someone generally delusional with respect to their crush?
This question came up in relationships.SE (still in beta) in this lengthy thread (which I hope you can get access to).
Basically the disagreement goes as follows:
Telling somebody with a crush
It'...
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What are the underlying mechanisms for optimism bias?
I have asked a question before about how does smoker's decision react to new personal health information. Link here.
How do people estimate smoking's impact on their mortality?
Now I have a ...
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Name of cognitive bias when you diminish one's competency based on someone else's for the same function?
Let's say you have a REALLY good manager, and he leaves. So you tend to underestimate/judge the next manager's competencies because the previous one was really good.
How you call the cognitive bias ...
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Has anyone ever conducted a psychological experiment to test whether an arbitrator appointed by one party tends to judge in favour of that party?
I am interested in the case where the arbitrator has been unilaterally appointed by one of the parties in a conflict. Assume that economic rewards are not involved. I am only interested in knowing if ...
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How can I structure this question to check for availability bias?
I'm preparing a survey right now and one of the questions I'm looking to answer is: How much does availability bias effect the decision making process for [given behaviour]?
My question is: What's ...
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What is the bias/thought process that results in distrust of "formal" knowledge in favor of "folk" knowledge?
An interesting effect I've noticed is that certain groups of people seem to accept "folk knowledge" and value it over significantly better founded "formal" or scientific knowledge. In particular this ...
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Do depressed people think that they always thought in such a negative way?
I feel like I may have read or heard a finding that depressed people may get the delusion that they always used to think in such a negative way as has begun since getting depression. Is it so?
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Confirmation vs peak-end bias - when does it make sense to "save the best for last"?
This question is inspired by Should I give the interviewers surprise?
on Academia.SE.
The strategy of "save the best for last" seems to be affected in conflicting ways by two cognitive biases:
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What is the name of a cognitive bias by which existing facts are tailored to fit a personal hypothesis?
What is the name of a cognitive bias where a person takes all of their knowledge of a particular subject (at a point in time) and arranges it in a hypothesis or world model that makes sense to that ...
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Are cognitive biases hardwired in the brain or they are acquired during lifetime?
The Kahneman–Tversky interpretation of biases as deviation from rationality was challenged by Gigerenzer on the basis that heuristics help making decisions and, thus, rational from the evolutionary ...
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Can a person be able to objectively identify when and how their thinking process is being affected by cognitive biases?
or years, I've always thought I can do a pretty good job of identifying when I have committed a bias, fallacy or some other heuristic. I'm not saying I avoid them, but at least can admit to myself I ...
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Cognitive bias - Confirming the attitudes of your peers
Is there a well-studied cognitive bias that describes a situation in which a person expresses a positive attitude towards something because his or her's friends have a positive attitude about that ...
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Why is it easier to search memory for words starting with a particular letter than for words with that letter in a later position?
Tversky & Kahneman (1974) asserts that it is so, and some scrabble-playing experience convinces me that it's true. However, I've never seen an explanation of why it is true. I assume it has ...
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Is there a name for a scientist's resistance to disconfirmation of his or her theories?
Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one's beliefs or hypotheses. And some results illustrate that people set higher standards of evidence ...
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Most common cognitive biases? [closed]
I'm an amateur student of cognitive biases and psychological traps and have been reading some of the work of Kahneman, Tversky, Gilovich et al. along with more popular books like Cialdini's "Influence....
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Why can't people solve a riddle if you tell them irrelevant information?
Suppose you tell a riddle to your friend, e.g. a situation puzzle:
A man walks into a bar, and asks the bartender for a drink of water. The bartender pulls out a gun, points it at the man, and ...
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Is there a bias where long statements, books, articles, etc. are seen as more truthful?
Is there a cognitive biasing effect that makes people believe that long statements / expressions / articles / books are more truthful than short ones (assuming that they are equal semantically)?
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Binary classification as a cognitive strategy?
Is there any research investigating whether the human cognitive system has a tendency to reduce complex systems or spectra of data in terms of binary contrast?
There are many common-sense dual ...
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Prevalence of psychological "problems"
Giulio Cesare Giacobbe is an expert of psychosynthesis. In one of his books (Alla Ricerca delle Coccole Perdute) he speaks of childish, neurotic people. He says most people are childish and neurotic.
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How to refer to the phenomenon of people only absorbing evidence which confirms their beliefs?
I knew a psychologist who was calling it self-referentiality.
People are always trying to see only the sentence which confirm their beliefs.
What's the correct name for this?
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In measuring preferences, is the magnitude of the question wording effect topic-dependent?
I just read that in a survey on legalizing abortions:
Responses depended strongly on the question wording.
But I have also seen cases where question wording is largely irrelevant. As long as ...
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Bias in which you judge others by what you are good at?
Motivated by this question about programming and intelligence, I've noticed that people often judge other people's competence in terms of how well they perform on the domains that they have more ...
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Is there some effect that forces humans to judge things and people according to the conception of their own image?
I remember of having read that such effects do exist, but I don't remember where.
If that is true or if the hypothesis exist, I'd like to have references about it.
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Minimizing Halo Error
I'm working with a dataset wherein participants rate five different attributes of six device variants; the attribute ratings different variants are very tightly correlated, suggesting that this ...
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Quantify degree to which non-diagnostic features bias category-present response
I need a measure of the degree to which each of several features biases participants to respond "yes" in a category present / absent task for each of several categories.
I have stimuli defined along ...
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Bias by which we tend to accept vague descriptions of ourselves
There's an effective strategy employed by horoscopes and "psychics" where they say vague statements like "You like being with friends but you value your time alone"; statements that basically "cover ...
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Can people alleviate a negative halo effect about them?
According to Wikipedia:
"The halo effect or halo error is a cognitive bias in which one's
judgments of a person’s character can be influenced by one's overall
impression of him or her."
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