All of us are biased in numerous ways. It is inescapable. According to scientists, many of these biases originated to help us understand our world and survive in dangerous environments. In this list, however, we are going to go over only a few of the many biases that psychologists have identified. These are 25 ways your biased and you didn’t even realize.
Gambler's Fallacy
This is the tendency to believe that future events are affected by past events. For example, you may think that because you flipped heads 5 times in a row you are more likely to flip tales when in reality the odds haven’t changed.
Irrational Escalation
This is the belief that because you have already invested 1 million you might as well invest more, even if it was a bad decision.
Moral Credential Effect
This curious effect describes the influence of a record of non-prejudice in creating subsequent prejudice. For example, if you do something that you consider morally egalitarian then you are more likely to be prejudiced in the future.
Omission Bias
You tend to judge harmful actions as worse, or less moral, than harmful omissions.
Outcome Bias
You tend to judge past decisions based on their outcome rather than on the quality of the decision during the time at which it was made.
Social Comparison Bias
You tend not to hire people that would compete with your skill set.
Rhyme As Reason Effect
You have a tendency to perceive rhyming statements as being more truthful.
Reactive Devaluation
You tend to devalue proposals because they originated with an adversary.
Reactance
This is the urge to do the opposite of what someone asks you to do in order to resist against a perceived attempt to limit your freedom.
Negativity Effect
This is your tendency to attribute the negative behavior of people you don’t like to their character and the positive behavior of people you don’t like to the environment.
Information Bias
You tend to want as much information as possible before making a decision even if that information is irrelevant to making the decision.
Illusion of Control
This is your tendency to believe that you have more control over external factors than you really do.
IKEA Effect
People tend to place disproportionally high levels of preference toward objects that they have partially assembled themselves.
Hindsight Bias
You have a tendency to see past events as being predictable at the time they happened.
Functional Fixedness
We tend to only use objects the way they are traditionally used.
False Consensus Effect
You tend to overestimate the degree to which people agree with you.
Outgroup Homogeneity Bias
People tend to see members of their own group as being more varied than members of other groups.
Naive Realism
This is our tendency to think that we see reality the way that it really is and that rational people would agree with us. People who don’t are either ignorant or uninformed.
Spotlight Effect
This is our tendency to overestimate the amount to which other people notice our actions and behaviors.
Suggestibility
We tend to confuse ideas that were suggested to us as actually being events in our memory.
Zeigarnik Effect
You remember uncompleted or interrupted tasks more easily than completed ones.
Projection Bias
You tend to assume that others share your emotions, moods, and thoughts.
Well Traveled Road Effect
You tend to underestimate the time it will take you to get somewhere if you know the route well and overestimate if the route is unfamiliar.
Zero Risk Bias
You would rather reduce a small risk to zero rather than reduce a large risk by a significant amount.
Bias Blind Spot
You tend to see yourself as less biased than others.