Cognitive biases

Predictable patterns in how the mind distorts judgment. Useful to name, hard to avoid.

Letting an initial number or reference point pull later judgments toward it, even when that starting point is arbitrary.

Judging how likely something is by how easily examples come to mind.

The tendency to notice, remember, and trust evidence that supports what you already believe.

A pattern where people with limited competence in a domain tend to overestimate their ability in that domain.

Explaining other people's behaviour by their character while explaining your own by circumstances.

Believing that past random outcomes change the odds of future independent ones.

Once an outcome is known, it feels like it was predictable all along, and earlier uncertainty gets remembered as confidence.

Continuing a course of action because of what has already been spent on it, rather than what it still offers.

Drawing conclusions from the things that made it through while ignoring the ones that didn't.