58 cognitive biases that screw up everything we do by Shana Lebowitz on Oct 29, 2015, 11:27 AM Advertisement
 We like to think we're rational human beings. In fact, we are prone to hundreds of proven biases that cause us to think and act irrationally, and even thinking we're rational despite evidence of irrationality in others is known as blind spot bias. The study of how often human beings do irrational things was enough for psychologist Daniel Kahneman to win the Nobel Prize in Economics, and it opened the rapidly expanding field of behavioral economics. Similar insights are also reshaping everything from marketing to criminology. Hoping to clue you — and ourselves — into the biases that frame our decisions, we've collected a long list of the most notable ones. This is an update of an article originally written by Gus Lubin, with additional contributions by Drake Baer. SEE ALSO: 14 Surprising Things That Affect Your Willpower And Decision Making Affect heuristic  The psychologist Paul Slovic coined this term to describe the way people let their emotions color their beliefs about the world. For example, your political affiliation often determines which arguments you find persuasive. Our emotions also affect the way we perceive the risks and benefits of different activities. For example, people tend to dread developing cancer, so they see activities related to cancer as much more dangerous than those linked to less dreaded forms of death, illness, and injury, such as accidents.
Anchoring bias  People are overreliant on the first piece of information they hear. In a salary negotiation, for instance, whoever makes the first offer establishes a range of reasonable possibilities in each person's mind. Any counteroffer will naturally react to or be anchored by that opening offer. "Most people come with the very strong belief they should never make an opening offer," said Leigh Thompson, a professor at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. "Our research and lots of corroborating research shows that's completely backwards. The guy or gal who makes a first offer is better off."
Confirmation bias  We tend to listen only to the information that confirms our preconceptions. Once you've formed an initial opinion about someone, it's hard to change your mind. For example, researchers had participants watch a video of a student taking an academic test. Some participants were told that the student came from a high socioeconomic background; others were told the student came from a low socioeconomic background. Those in the first condition believed the student's performance was above grade level, while those in the second condition believed the student's performance was below. If you know some information about a job candidate's background, you might be inclined to use that information to make false judgments about his or her ability.
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