This document provides an overview of 7 common cognitive biases: - Anchoring bias is when people rely too heavily on the first piece of information when making decisions. - Availability heuristic is when people judge things as more likely or important if they can recall examples more easily. - Confirmation bias is favoring information that confirms preexisting beliefs over information that contradicts them. - Empathy gap is underestimating how influences like emotions impact one's own attitudes and behaviors. - IKEA effect is when people place disproportionately high value on things they partially created themselves. - Sunk cost fallacy is continuing an endeavor due to previous investments despite it no longer being beneficial. - B

1. 7 Cognitive Biases
And How To Spot Them

2. A cognitive bias is a systematic pattern of deviation
from norm or rationality in judgment. Cognitive biases
may sometimes lead to perceptual distortion, inaccurate
judgment, illogical interpretation, or what is broadly
called irrationality.
What are cognitive biases?

3. • Essential for a UX designers and researchers to
understand, as they will influence how a user
behaves at any given time.
Why should I care?
• They explain why we do the things we do, build
empathy towards others and help us come to
terms with any mistakes we may have made in
the past.

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6. Is The Thames longer
than 120 miles?

7. At 215 miles (346 km), it is the
longest river in England and the
second longest in the United
Kingdom, after the River Severn.

8. Anchoring Bias
Anchoring or focalism is a cognitive bias where an
individual relies too heavily on an initial piece of
information offered (considered to be the "anchor")
when making decisions.

9. Anchoring Bias
• Salary negotiations
• Haggling
• Sales or offers

10. Anchoring Bias on Invision

11. I have a friend who worked in a hospital for
a year. She was working in customer
support, so her job consisted of speaking to
patients on the phone all day long.

12. So while she was working there, every
time I or someone else close to her had a
medical issue, she would start thinking it
might be something more serious.
This behaviour stopped a few weeks after
quitting her job and starting work
somewhere else.

13. In the recent years, there has been a lot
more media coverage of young women
being abducted in Spain.

14. As a result, my mother in law is now more
concerned than ever that her 26 year-old
daughter might get abducted.

15. Once upon a time, a couple of years ago, I
won a game of poker against nine other
people. I went back home with £90.

16. I don’t actually play poker that often, and
when I do, I’m just not that good at it. Yet I
remember that night with fondness, and for
some reason I always believe I will win.

17. Availability Heuristic
The availability heuristic is a mental shortcut that relies on
immediate examples that come to a given person's mind
when evaluating a specific topic, concept, method or
decision. The availability heuristic operates on the notion that if
something can be recalled, it must be important, or at least
more important than alternative solutions which are not as
readily recalled.

18. Availability Heuristic
• My friend sees sick people everywhere, and doesn’t think of
all the healthy people that don’t have to go to the hospital.
• My mother in law is worried about her daughter’s wellbeing
and can’t recall the many times Laura has been out and
about and returned home safely.
• I still remember that awesome night, and yet can’t recall the
countless times I’ve lost at the game. Neither can my partner,
who also perceives me as a great poker player.

19. Availability Heuristic
• Do worry about things, but not too much. The media covers
what’s out of the ordinary – those things (terrorist attacks,
abductions, medical negligence) can happen to you, but the
chances are lower than you think.
• Likewise, a lucky strike does not only not guarantee future
success, but it doesn’t even increase your changes of being
lucky in the future.

20. "She is tolerable; but not handsome
enough to tempt me.”

21. Pride and Prejudice’s love story is built upon the prejudice that
Elizabeth has towards Darcy because he didn’t think she was pretty
enough in the beginning of the novel.
After overhearing Darcy’s comment, Elizabeth goes on to
misinterpret every single move Darcy makes towards reconciliation
because she refuses to let go of her belief that Darcy is a terrible
human being.

22. “[In a conversation with Mr. Wickham] Lizzy makes cognitive leaps
to try to justify and accommodate this new information into her
preexisting schema, saying that she does in fact “remember his
boasting one day at the implacability of his resentments, of his
having an unforgiving temper” (243). A prior admission of fault on
Darcy’s part—though seemingly unrelated and uncorroborated by
any other action—is enough to placate Lizzy’s incredulity.
[…]This exchange between Wickham and Lizzy illustrates how
readily one accepts new information when it confirms and reinforces
our previously held beliefs, and Lizzy’s propensity to “willfully
misunderstand” others.”

23. Confirmation Bias
Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor,
and recall information in a way that confirms one's preexisting
beliefs or hypotheses. People display this bias when they
gather or remember information selectively, or when they
interpret it in a biased way. The effect is stronger
for emotionally charged issues and for deeply entrenched
beliefs.

24. Confirmation Bias
• Any type of research
• Political and/or religious views
• Emotional connection with other people or institutions

25. “I would never do that”

26. What if it was to save your
children’s lives?

27. What if you were hungry?

28. What if you were in love?

29. What if you were afraid?

30. What if you were really,
really, really mad?

31. Would you do it, then?

32. Empathy gap
A hot-cold empathy gap is a cognitive bias in which people
underestimate the influences of visceral drives on their own
attitudes, preferences, and behaviours.

33. Human understanding is "state-dependent".
For example, when one is angry, it is difficult to understand
what it is like for one to be calm, and vice versa; when one is
blindly in love with someone, it is difficult to understand what it
is like for one not to be
An inability to minimise one's gap in empathy can lead to
negative outcomes in medical settings (e.g., when a doctor
needs to accurately diagnose the physical pain of a patient),
and in workplace settings (e.g., when an employer needs to
assess the need for an employee's bereavement leave).[3]

34. Empathy gap
• In product building, it helps us understand how and why
users might make certain choices.
• On a personal level, it helps us understand the sometimes
irrational behaviour of our friends, family and acquaintances.
• And, of course, it also helps us understand ourselves.

36. My friend has recently moved in with her partner.
They are renting an empty flat, so they had to furnish
it themselves. Because they are young don’t make
plenty of money, they went to IKEA.

37. When I went to visit her flat, I complimented her on the
design of the interior. Her response was the following:
“Well, we had to go to IKEA for the furniture
because we didn’t want to spend a lot of money,
and I know it’s not very original… but we built it
ourselves, and we made it ours.”

38. The IKEA effect is a cognitive bias in which consumers place a
disproportionately high value on products they partially created.
"The price is low for IKEA products largely because they take labor out
of the equation. […] customers can very literally build an entire home's
worth of furniture on a very tight budget. Even when there are parts
missing and the items are incorrectly built, customers in the IKEA study
still loved the fruits of their labours."
The IKEA effect

39. • People become attached to the things they make or build because
there’s the element of pride thrown into the mix. This can be seen in
homemade food, DIY projects or handmade gifts.
• Dan Ariely argues that the IKEA effect is the reason why many
people will choose a more fulfilling job regardless of remuneration –
because they value the craft they get to perform every day.
The IKEA effect

40. • The IKEA effect can become problematic when someone
attaches too much value to something they produced and
therefore is unable to spot a better option when available.
The IKEA effect

41. Who owns something (a piece of
clothing, a kitchen appliance, an
encyclopaedia) they never use?

42. Who has stayed in a relationship that
wasn’t working out, finished a degree they
weren’t into or completed a personal
project they didn’t care about?

43. “But, like, we’ve been working on this for two
months, we’re almost there, and now they say
it’s not a priority anymore?”

44. “But, like, we’ve been working on this for two
months, we’re almost there, and now they say
it’s not a priority anymore?”

45. The sunk cost effect is the general tendency for people to continue
an endeavour, or continue consuming or pursuing an option, if
they’ve invested time or money or some resource in it. That effect
becomes a fallacy if it’s pushing you to do things that are making
you unhappy or worse off.
The Sunk Cost Fallacy or
Loss Aversion bias

46. • You will go to a concert you’ve bought tickets for even if you are ill
and will be having a terrible time there.
• You will hang onto an expensive piece of clothing you never wear
(because it doesn’t fit you or you don’t have an occasion to wear it
to), and you will feel guilty every time you see it accumulating dust
in your wardrobe.
• If a degree is 5 years long and you are on year 3, you push
through another two years of painful studying in order to finish it.
The Sunk Cost Fallacy or
Loss Aversion bias

47. Who has seen people fall into
these cognitive biases?

48. Who thinks they fall into
these cognitive biases?

49. The bias blind spot is the cognitive
bias of recognising the impact of
biases on the judgment of others,
while failing to see the impact of
biases on one's own judgment.
The Bias Blind Spot

50. When I came up with the thesis that
Pride & Prejudice was built upon the
confirmation bias, I googled it up and
found an article about that same idea,
which confirmed my thesis.
The Bias Blind Spot

51. How many cognitive
biases are out there?
Many cognitive biases can be merged or
are closely related to one another, but
the Wikipedia lists about 104 of them.

52. How do I learn more about
cognitive biases?