An important concept in psychology is cognitive bias. In this page, we will provide a high level overview of cognitive bias and explain several types of cognitive biases that can affect one’s thoughts and judgments.
What is cognitive bias?
Summary: Cognitive biases can be described as faulty ways of thinking as people process and interpret information that they encounter in the world. The human brain is wonderful but certainly has limitations. Naturally, humans have developed shortcuts (or heuristics) that can save a lot of time and energy and allow people to make decisions more easily and quickly.
Sometimes these cognitive biases can be problematic, leading to narrow-minded or poor decisions or incomplete, inaccurate or distorted viewpoints.
Types of cognitive bias
Here is a list of several types of cognitive bias and related terms:
- Confirmation bias
- Dunning-Kruger effect
- Recency bias
- Selection bias
- Hindsight bias
References
Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1974). Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases. Science. 18}, 1124-1131