Welcome to the Big List of Biases on SourcesOfInsight.com!
Recognizing and managing biases is an important part of critical thinking and effective decision making.
Biases are systematic and often unconscious deviations from rational judgment or decision making, resulting in errors or distortions in the processing of information, often due to psychological or social factors.
In the past, I bumped into a bias and learned about it the hard way. With this list, I want to familiarize myself with the types of biases there are, and learn the specific biases, so I can improve my thinking and decision making.
Types of Biases
These are the types of biases I used to group my lists of biases to make them more meaningful and more actionable:
- Attention biases
- Attitude and belief biases
- Communication biases
- Cultural biases
- Decision-making biases
- Developmental biases
- Emotional biases
- Evaluation and comparison biases
- Investment and commitment biases
- Language biases
- Motivational biases
- Perception and memory biases
- Probability and randomness biases
- Research and writing biases
- Self-Control biases
- Social influence and conformity biases
- Time and resource estimation biases
The Big List of Biases
I originally created descriptions for each bias, but then the list was too heavy. So I split the problem. On this page, I provide a “map” in the form of biases organized by types of biases.
Separately, I will create overviews of the types of biases, the specific biases, and descriptions and potentially examples.
The reason for keeping the long list of biases all together is that by scanning a full list, you will start to see things and recognize patterns in ways that you just can’t do when information is pieced together.
Becoming aware of these biases can help you make more informed and rational choices, both in your personal life and in your interactions with others.
Attention Biases
- Attentional blink bias
- Availability cascade
- Change blindness
- Confirmation bias
- Egocentric bias
- Framing effect
- Inattentional blindness
- Negativity bias
- Neglect of probability
- Novelty bias
- Omission bias
- Primacy effect
- Processing fluency bias
- Recency effect
- Salience bias
- Selective attention bias
- Self-serving bias
- Sunk cost fallacy
- Trait ascription bias
- WYSIATI bias
See Attention Biases for definitions and examples.
Attitude and Belief Biases
- Anchoring bias
- Authority bias
- Availability heuristic
- Bandwagon effect
- Belief bias
- Confirmation bias
- False consensus effect
- False uniqueness effect
- Halo effect
- Hindsight bias
- Illusory superiority bias
- In-group bias
- Negativity bias
- Optimism bias
- Out-group bias
- Pessimism bias
- Self-serving bias
- Stereotyping
See Attitude and Belief Biases for definitions and examples.
Communication Biases
- Bystander effect
- False consensus effect
- False uniqueness effect
- Halo effect
- Horn effect
- Illusion of transparency
- Illusory superiority bias
- Information bias
- Mere exposure effect
- Naive realism
- Narrative fallacy
- Self-verification bias
- Social desirability bias
- Stereotyping
- Third-person effect
- Ultimate attribution error
- Verbal overshadowing effect
- Weber–Fechner law
See Communication Biases for definition and examples.
Cultural Biases
- Age bias
- Cultural bias
- Gender bias
- Generational bias
- Life experience bias
- Linguistic bias
- Memory bias
- Perception bias
- Socialization bias
- Stereotyping bias
See Cultural Biases for definitions and examples.
Decision Making Biases
- Actor-Observer Bias
- Anchoring Bias
- Availability Heuristic
- Backfire Effect
- Bandwagon Effect
- Barnum Effect
- Base Rate Fallacy
- Bystander Effect
- Clustering Illusion
- Confirmation Bias
- Dunning-Kruger Effect
- Endowment Effect
- Escalation of Commitment
- False Consensus Effect
- False Uniqueness Effect
- Framing Effect
- Fundamental Attribution Error
- Fundamental Frequency Illusion
- Gamblers Fallacy
- Halo Effect
- Hindsight Bias
- Illusory Superiority Bias
- Just-World Bias
- Law of Unintended Consequences
- Loss Aversion Bias
- Mental Accounting Bias
- Mental Time Travel Bias
- Negativity Bias
- Normalcy Bias
- Optimism Bias
- Overconfidence Effect
- Planning Fallacy
- Recency Bias
- Regression to the Mean
- Representativeness Heuristic
- Self-Serving Bias
- Status Quo Bias
- Survivorship Bias
- Sunk Cost Fallacy
- Von Restorff Effect
See Decision-Making Biases for definitions and examaples.
Emotional Biases
- Anchoring bias
- Confirmation bias
- Empathy gap bias
- Endowment effect
- Focusing effect
- Framing effect
- Negativity bias
- Positivity bias
- Emotional contagion bias
- Halo effect
- Ingroup bias
- Just-world bias
- Mood-congruent bias
- Outgroup bias
- Projection bias
- Reactance bias
- Self-serving bias
- Status quo bias
- Stereotyping bias
- Sunk cost fallacy
See Emotional Biases for definitions and examples.
Evaluation and Comparision Biases
- Anchoring bias
- Endowment effect
- False uniqueness effect
- Halo effect
- Social comparison bias
- Status quo bias
- Telescoping effect
- Von Restorff effect
See Evaluation and Comparison Biases for definitions and examples.
Investment and Commitment Biases
- Anchoring bias
- Blind spot bias
- Confirmation bias
- Curse of knowledge bias
- Endowment effect
- Escalation of commitment
- Framing effect
- Gambler’s fallacy
- Groupthink
- Halo effect
- Hindsight bias
- Hot hand fallacy
- Just-world bias
- Loss aversion bias
- Negativity bias
- Overconfidence bias
- Post-purchase rationalization
- Sunk cost fallacy
- Status quo bias
- Self-justification bias
See Investment and Commitment Biases for definitions and examples.
Language Biases
- Anchoring bias
- Barnum effect
- Euphemism
- Framing effect
- Generational bias
- Illusory truth effect
- Jargon
- Nominalization
- Overconfidence effect
- Political correctness
- Precision bias
- Present tense bias
- Primacy effect
- Red herring
- Sarcasm
- Semantics
- Stereotyping
- Technobabble
- Tone policing
- Weasel words
See Language Biases for definitions and examples.
Motivational Biases
- Effort justification bias
- Ego depletion bias
- Endowment effect
- Extrinsic incentive bias
- False uniqueness bias
- Foot-in-the-door effect
- Goal gradient effect
- Goal setting bias
- Hedonic adaptation bias
- Hyperbolic discounting bias
- Incentive salience bias
- Loss aversion bias
- Overjustification effect
- Self-efficacy bias
- Self-serving bias
- Social comparison bias
- System justification bias
- Vicarious goal fulfillment
See Motivational Biases for definitions and examples.
Perception and Memory Biases
- Bias blind spot
- Context effect
- Egocentric bias
- False consensus effect
- False memory bias
- False uniqueness effect
- Frequency illusion
- Halo effect
- Hindsight bias
- Illusion of control
- Illusory correlation
- Illusory superiority bias
- Naturalness bias
- Next-in-line effect
- Primacy effect
- Recency effect
- Reminiscence bump
- Self-serving bias
- Serial position effect
- Source monitoring bias
- Suggestibility bias
- Tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon
- Von Restorff effect
See Perception and Memory Biases for definitions and examples.
Probability and Randomness Biases
- Anchoring bias
- Availability heuristic
- Base rate fallacy
- Conjunction fallacy
- Gambler’s fallacy
- Hindsight bias
- Illusion of control
- Illusory correlation
- Insensitivity to sample size
- Neglect of prior probabilities
- Overconfidence effect
- Positive bias
- Regression fallacy
- Scope neglect
- Selection bias
- Stereotyping
- The clustering illusion
- The hot hand fallacy
- The law of small numbers
- The Monte Carlo fallacy
See Probability and Randomness Biases for definitions and examples.
Psychological Biases
- Actor-Observer Bias
- Anchoring Bias
- Availability Heuristic
- Backfire Effect
- Bandwagon Effect
- Base Rate Fallacy
- Clustering Illusion
- Confirmation Bias
- Dunning-Kruger Effect
- Endowment Effect
- Escalation of Commitment
- False Consensus Effect
- False Uniqueness Effect
- Framing Effect
- Fundamental Attribution Error
- Gambler’s Fallacy
- Halo Effect
- Illusory Superiority Bias
- Just-World Bias
- Law of Unintended Consequences
- Mental Accounting Bias
- Mental Time Travel Bias
- Negativity Bias
- Optimism Bias
- Planning Fallacy
- Recency Bias
- Representativeness Heuristic
- Self-Serving Bias
- Status Quo Bias
- Sunk Cost Fallacy
- Survivorship Bias
- Von Restorff Effect
See Psychological Biases for definitions and examples.
Research and Writing Biases
- Anchoring bias
- Confirmation bias
- Framing effect
- Halo effect
- Horn effect
- Linguistic relativity bias
- Observer-expectancy bias
- Publication bias
- Sampling bias
- Selection bias
- Stereotyping
- Survivorship bias
See Research and Writing Biases for definitions and examples.
Self-Control Biases
- Delay discounting bias
- Ego depletion bias
- Emotional reasoning bias
- Hyperbolic discounting bias
- Impulsivity bias
- Intertemporal choice bias
- Present bias
- Procrastination bias
- Self-justification bias
- Self-serving bias
- Temptation bundling bias
- Willpower depletion bias
See Self-Control Biases for definitions and examples.
Social Influence and Conformity Biases
- Authority bias
- Availability heuristic bias
- Backfire effect
- Bandwagon effect
- Bystander effect
- Bystander apathy effect
- Clustering illusion
- Conformity bias
- Door-in-the-face technique
- Escalation of commitment
- False consensus effect
- Foot-in-the-door technique
- Framing effect
- Groupthink effect
- Halo effect
- Herd mentality
- In-group bias
- Information cascade
- Law of unintended consequences
- Negativity bias
- Normative social influence
- Obedience bias
- Out-group homogeneity bias
- Reactance effect
- Representativeness heuristic bias
- Social comparison bias
- Social desirability bias
- Social proof phenomenon
- Status quo bias
- Stockholm syndrome
- Survivorship bias
- Ultimatum game effect
See Social Influence and Conformity Biases for definitions and examples.
Time and Resource Estimation Biases
- Anchoring Bias
- Bandwagon Effect
- Belief Bias
- Clustering Illusion
- Confirmation Bias
- Endowment Effect
- Focusing Effect
- Hindsight Bias
- Illusory Superiority
- Information Bias
- Normalcy Bias
- Omission Bias
- Optimism Bias
- Outcome Bias
- Planning Fallacy
- Pro-innovation Bias
- Pseudocertainty Effect
- Sunk Cost Fallacy
- Zero-risk Bias
See Time and Resource Estimation Biases for definitions and examples.