Cogbias

Confirmation bias is the tendency to selectively seek, interpret, and remember information that confirms pre-existing beliefs while ignoring contradictory evidence. For example, a person who supports a particular political party may read only news sources that align with their views and dismiss opposing perspectives as biased. It is one of the most pervasive cognitive biases, affecting everything from scientific research to everyday decision-making.

The anchoring effect occurs when the first piece of information encountered (the anchor) disproportionately influences subsequent judgments — for example, if a product is first shown at $100, a $70 price feels cheap. The framing effect occurs when the same information presented differently leads to different decisions — for example, "90% survival rate" sounds more positive than "10% mortality rate" even though both convey identical information. Anchoring is about the reference point; framing is about presentation.

Loss aversion, a key concept in Kahneman and Tversky's prospect theory, is the tendency to feel the pain of losses more intensely than the pleasure of equivalent gains. Research shows the loss-to-gain ratio is approximately 2:1, meaning losing $100 feels about twice as painful as gaining $100 feels pleasant. This bias explains why people hold losing investments too long, why they resist beneficial changes, and why "limited time offers" are effective marketing tactics.

The availability heuristic is a mental shortcut where people estimate the probability or frequency of events based on how easily examples come to mind. After watching news about plane crashes, people tend to overestimate the danger of flying relative to driving, even though driving is statistically far more dangerous. The bias is amplified by media coverage, personal experience, and emotional vividness of recalled events.

The sunk cost fallacy is the tendency to continue investing time, money, or effort into something because of what has already been invested, rather than evaluating future value objectively. Classic examples include watching a boring movie to the end because you paid for the ticket, or continuing a failing project because of the budget already spent. Rational decision-making should only consider future costs and benefits, ignoring irrecoverable past investments.

The fundamental attribution error is the tendency to attribute other people's behavior to their character or personality (internal factors) while underestimating the role of situational or external factors. For example, when a colleague arrives late, we tend to think they are lazy or irresponsible, while ignoring possible external causes like traffic congestion or a family emergency. Interestingly, we tend to attribute our own behavior more to external circumstances.

The gambler's fallacy is the mistaken belief that past outcomes affect the probability of future independent events. For example, after flipping heads five times in a row, people believe tails is "due" and more likely on the next flip — but each coin flip has an independent 50/50 probability regardless of previous results. This bias also manifests in investing, sports predictions, and lottery number selection.

Understanding cognitive biases does not eliminate them, but awareness enables several strategies: (1) Use structured decision frameworks (pros/cons lists, decision matrices) to reduce reliance on intuition, (2) Actively seek disconfirming evidence to counter confirmation bias, (3) Consider base rates and statistical data before making probability judgments, (4) Implement "cooling off" periods for important decisions to reduce emotional bias, (5) Seek diverse perspectives to counter in-group bias and conformity. These biases are particularly relevant in UX design, marketing, negotiation, hiring, and investment contexts.