18 cognitive biases with behavioral descriptions
Cognitive biases are systematic errors in thinking that arise from mental shortcuts the brain uses to process information quickly. The person affected rarely recognizes it is happening, which is what makes biases so persistent. Confirmation bias, for example, causes people to seek out and favor information that supports what they already believe while ignoring or discounting evidence that contradicts it. The fundamental attribution error leads people to explain others' behavior as a reflection of their character ("he's lazy") while explaining their own identical behavior as a product of circumstances ("I was tired"). The spotlight effect makes people overestimate how much others notice and judge them. Anchoring causes decisions to be disproportionately influenced by the first piece of information encountered, even when that information is irrelevant. These are not occasional lapses in judgment; they are built into how human cognition works, operating constantly and shaping perception, memory, and decision-making in ways that feel perfectly rational to the person experiencing them.