why brain is not brainin'
cognitive biases that mess with your head on a daily basis. knowin' 'em doesn't make you immune (that would be too easy). but at least you can nod wisely when someone falls for one and pretend you never do.
- cognitive dissonance - the mental discomfort when holdin' conflictin' beliefs or when your actions don't align with your beliefs, often leadin' you to rationalize a new, incompatible belief (like the 'sour grapes' fable).
- spotlight effect - the tendency to overestimate how much other people are observin' or judgin' you.
- anchorin' effect - relyin' too heavily on the first piece of information offered when makin' decisions, even if it's irrelevant or random.
- halo effect - when a single trait or impression influences your overall perception of someone, often causin' you to overlook negative aspects.
- gambler's fallacy - the mistaken belief that if somethin' happens more frequently than normal, it's less likely to happen in the future, despite the events bein' independent.
- contrast effect - the tendency to enhance or diminish the intensity of a stimulus because of a recently perceived comparison.
- confirmation bias - searchin' for, interpretin', and recallin' information that confirms your pre-existin' beliefs while filterin' out disconfirmin' evidence.
- baader-meinhof phenomenon - after noticin' somethin' for the first time, you suddenly see it everywhere, leadin' you to believe it's appearin' more frequently.
- zeigarnik effect - incomplete tasks are remembered better than completed ones.
- paradox of choice - havin' too many options can lead to paralysis, decision fatigue, and regret, rather than increased satisfaction.
- survivorship bias - focusin' only on survivors while ignorin' failures, leadin' to an overestimation of success chances.
- self-servin' bias - attributin' successes to internal factors and failures to external forces.
- fundamental attribution error - judgin' others' behaviors based on their character while attributin' your own similar behaviors to situational factors.
- hindsight bias - believin' after an event that it was predictable all along. the "i told you so" phenomenon.
- availability bias - estimatin' the likelihood of events based on how easily examples come to mind.
- availability cascade - a self-sustainin' chain reaction where public panic grows over a relatively minor risk, often inflated by media.
- sunk cost fallacy - continuin' a behavior because of previously invested resources, even when it's no longer rational.
- framin' effect - drawin' different conclusions from the same information based on how it's presented.
- clusterin' illusion - the tendency to see patterns in completely random data.
- exponential growth - the human inability to intuitively grasp how quickly somethin' grows when it doubles at regular intervals.
- barnum effect - acceptin' vague, generalized personality descriptions as uniquely accurate to yourself (common in horoscopes).