Social Biases

Risky shift is the tendency for groups to make riskier decisions than individuals would make alone, especially when responsibility is diffused across members.

The Abilene paradox is a group decision-making failure where people agree to a course of action that almost no one individually wants, because each assumes others are in favor.

Zero-sum bias is a cognitive bias towards thinking that a situation is a zero-sum game, where one person's gain would be another's loss.

Correspondence bias is the tendency to infer stable personality traits from others' behavior while underestimating situational influences.

Trait ascription bias is the tendency to see others' behavior as reflecting fixed traits, while viewing our own behavior as more flexible and influenced by circumstances.

Hostile attribution bias is the tendency to interpret ambiguous actions of others as intentionally hostile or threatening.

The horn effect is the tendency for a single negative trait or impression to disproportionately color our entire judgment of a person or thing.

The golem effect is when low expectations placed on a person lead to poorer performance, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The Pygmalion effect is the tendency for people to perform better when higher expectations are placed on them, turning others’ beliefs into self-fulfilling prophecies.

The pratfall effect is the tendency for highly competent people to become more likable after committing a small, relatable mistake.

Shared information bias is the tendency for groups to focus discussion on information everyone already knows, while neglecting unique information held by only some members.

The ultimate attribution error is the tendency to explain negative behaviors of outgroup members as due to their character, while excusing similar behavior in ingroup members as situational.

The cross-race effect is the tendency for people to recognize and distinguish faces of their own racial group more accurately than faces of other racial groups.

The cheerleader effect is the tendency to perceive people as more attractive when they are seen in a group than when seen individually.

Selective exposure is the tendency to seek out information that supports our existing views and avoid information that challenges them.

The introspection illusion is a cognitive bias in which people wrongly think they have direct insight into the origins of their mental states, while treating others' introspections as unreliable.

Egocentric bias is the tendency to rely too heavily on one's own perspective and/or have a higher opinion of oneself than reality.

Defensive attribution is a bias where people attribute more blame to a perpetrator as the consequences of an accident become more severe, or if they perceive themselves to be similar to the victim.

Self-handicapping is a cognitive strategy by which people avoid effort in the hopes of keeping potential failure from hurting self-esteem.

Self-enhancement bias is a type of motivation that works to make people feel good about themselves and to maintain self-esteem.

The worse-than-average effect is the tendency for people to underestimate their own abilities relative to others, particularly in difficult tasks.

Illusory superiority is a cognitive bias whereby a person overestimates their own qualities and abilities, in relation to the same qualities and abilities of other people.

Impostor syndrome is a psychological pattern in which an individual doubts their skills, talents, or accomplishments and has a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as a 'fraud'.

The curse of knowledge is a cognitive bias that occurs when an individual, communicating with other individuals, unknowingly assumes that the others have the background to understand.

The Hawthorne effect (also referred to as the observer effect) is a type of reactivity in which individuals modify an aspect of their behavior in response to their awareness of being observed.

The observer-expectancy effect (also called the experimenter-expectancy effect, observer bias, observer effect, or experimenter effect) is a form of reactivity in which a researcher's cognitive bias causes them to subconsciously influence the participants of an experiment.

Wishful thinking is the tendency to overestimate the likelihood of desired outcomes and underestimate the likelihood of undesired ones, letting preferences distort beliefs.

System justification is the tendency to defend and rationalize existing social, economic, and political arrangements, even when they are unfair.

Not-invented-here syndrome is the tendency to reject or undervalue ideas and solutions that come from outside one’s own group or organization.

Psychological reactance is the impulse to resist or do the opposite when we perceive our freedom to choose as being threatened or restricted.

The Semmelweis reflex is the tendency to reject new evidence or ideas that challenge established beliefs, practices, or norms, often without fair consideration.

The backfire effect is the tendency for people to strengthen their existing beliefs when confronted with evidence that directly contradicts them, especially on identity-linked topics.

The moral credential effect is the tendency for prior good deeds or egalitarian choices to give people a sense of license to act in less ethical or more biased ways afterward.

Pluralistic ignorance is a situation where most individuals privately reject a norm or belief but assume (incorrectly) that others accept it, leading everyone to go along with it.

The illusion of transparency is the tendency to overestimate how well others can read our internal states, such as emotions, thoughts, or intentions.

The spotlight effect is the tendency to overestimate how much other people notice, remember, and care about our appearance or behavior.

Diffusion of responsibility is the tendency for individuals to feel less personally responsible for taking action when others are present who could also act.

The bystander effect is the tendency for individuals to be less likely to help in an emergency when other people are present than when they are alone.

Social desirability bias is the tendency to present oneself in a favorable light by over-reporting socially approved behaviors and under-reporting disapproved ones, especially in self-reports.

Groupthink is the tendency for highly cohesive groups to prioritize consensus and harmony over critical evaluation, leading to flawed decisions and suppressed dissent.

The bandwagon effect is the tendency to adopt beliefs or behaviors because many other people seem to hold them, increasing their perceived correctness or desirability.

Authority bias is the tendency to give greater weight and compliance to the opinions or requests of perceived authorities, sometimes at the expense of evidence or ethics.

Beauty bias is the tendency to attribute positive qualities and advantages to people perceived as physically attractive, leading to unequal treatment and opportunities.

Affinity bias is the tendency to favor people who are similar to ourselves in background, interests, or identity, leading to unfair advantages in hiring, promotion, and collaboration.

Implicit bias refers to automatic, unconscious associations and attitudes that influence our judgments and behaviors toward people and groups, often in ways that conflict with our stated values.

Stereotyping is the tendency to apply generalized beliefs about a group to individual members, often oversimplifying and misjudging them.

The just-world hypothesis is the belief that people get what they deserve and deserve what they get, leading observers to blame victims and downplay random or unfair suffering.

Outgroup homogeneity bias is the tendency to see members of groups we do not belong to as more similar to each other than they really are, while perceiving our own group as more diverse.

The halo effect is the tendency to let a single positive trait or impression of a person, product, or organization influence our overall judgment of them.

The fundamental attribution error is the tendency to overestimate the role of personality and underestimate the role of situations when explaining other people’s behavior.

In-group bias is the tendency to favor, trust, and positively evaluate members of our own group more than outsiders, even when the group distinction is minimal or arbitrary.

The false consensus effect is the tendency to overestimate how much other people share our opinions, values, and behaviors.

Actor–observer bias is the tendency to explain our own behavior with situational factors while attributing other people’s similar behavior to their character or disposition.

Self-serving bias is the tendency to attribute our successes to internal qualities and our failures to external factors, protecting self-esteem at the cost of accuracy.