Atlas of cognitive biases

The mind takes a shortcut at every stage: when it picks what to notice, when it supplies meaning, when it has to decide fast, and when it replays a memory. Here are those shortcuts with names, grouped by where they come from.

• Confirmation bias
• Congruence bias
• Selective perception
• Frequency illusion
• Change blindness
• Inattentional blindness
• Salience bias
• Negativity bias
• Mere exposure effect
• Semmelweis reflex
• Ostrich effect
• Bias blind spot
• Naïve realism
• Naïve cynicism
• False consensus effect
• Illusion of complete information
• Illusion of control
• Clustering illusion
• Apophenia and pareidolia
• Gambler's fallacy
• Hot-hand fallacy
• Halo effect
• Horn effect
• Stereotyping
• Outgroup homogeneity
• Psychological essentialism
• Anthropomorphism
• Narrative fallacy
• Illusion of explanatory depth
• Curse of knowledge
• Spotlight effect
• Illusion of transparency
• Just-world hypothesis
• Illusory correlation
• Correlation–causation confusion
• Base rate neglect
• Conjunction fallacy
• Insensitivity to sample size
• Law of small numbers
• Regression neglect
• Survivorship bias
• Selection bias
• Texas sharpshooter fallacy
• Probability neglect
• Certainty effect
• Pseudocertainty effect
• Scope neglect
• Denominator neglect
• Subadditivity effect
• Confusion of the inverse
• Availability heuristic
• Availability cascade
• Representativeness heuristic
• Affect heuristic
• Anchoring
• Primacy effect
• Recency effect
• Processing fluency
• Rhyme-as-reason effect
• Illusory truth effect
• Authority bias
• Recognition heuristic
• Contrast effect
• Framing effect
• Overconfidence effect
• Dunning–Kruger effect
• Illusory superiority
• Self-serving bias
• Egocentric bias
• Self-handicapping
• Optimism bias
• Planning fallacy
• Third-person effect
• Cognitive dissonance reduction
• Post-purchase rationalization
• Choice-supportive bias
• IKEA effect
• Ben Franklin effect
• Endowment effect
• Introspection illusion
• Fundamental attribution error
• Actor–observer asymmetry
• Ultimate attribution error
• Ingroup bias
• Black sheep effect
• Bandwagon effect
• Social proof
• Groupthink
• Group polarization
• Bystander effect
• Reactance
• Backfire effect
• Reactive devaluation
• Illusion of asymmetric insight
• What-is-beautiful-is-good
• Pluralistic ignorance
• Loss aversion
• Sunk cost fallacy
• Escalation of commitment
• Mental accounting
• House money effect
• Decoy effect
• Compromise effect
• Extremeness aversion
• Choice overload
• Status quo bias
• Default effect
• Omission bias
• Action bias
• Ambiguity aversion
• Regret aversion
• Zero price effect
• Opportunity cost neglect
• Money illusion
• Hyperbolic discounting
• Pain of paying
• Hindsight bias
• Misinformation effect
• False memory
• Cryptomnesia
• Source confusion
• Telescoping effect
• Peak-end rule
• Duration neglect
• Zeigarnik effect
• Von Restorff effect
• Serial position effect
• Self-reference effect
• Rosy retrospection
• Mood-congruent memory
• Consistency bias
• Flashbulb memory
• Affective forecasting error
• Impact bias
• Immune neglect
• Hot-cold empathy gap
• Projection bias
• End-of-history illusion
• Normalcy bias
• Declinism
• Present bias
• Restraint bias