Cognitive Bias
A cognitive bias is a systematic pattern of deviation from norm or rationality in judgment, often studied in psychology and behavioral economics. The concept was introduced by Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman in 1972, and biases may arise from heuristics, social pressures, or limitations of the human brain.
Background
- The Wikipedia article on cognitive biases lists systematic patterns of deviation from rational judgment, first systematically studied by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky in the 1970s, who later won a Nobel Prize in Economics for this work.
- Unlike logical fallacies (errors in reasoning), cognitive biases are hardwired mental shortcuts (heuristics) that evolved to help us make quick decisions, but often lead to predictable errors in thinking, memory, and probability estimation.
- Key examples include: confirmation bias (favoring info that supports existing beliefs), anchoring (over-relying on the first piece of info received), availability heuristic (overestimating the likelihood of events that come easily to mind, like plane crashes vs. car crashes), and the Dunning-Kruger effect (incompetent people overestimating their ability).
- This topic is central to behavioral economics, decision science, and applied fields like UX design and public policy — where "nudge theory" uses awareness of these biases to design better choice environments without restricting freedom.