Cognitive Bias
Systematic patterns of deviation from rationality in judgment, where inferences about people and situations may be drawn in an illogical fashion.
Your brain has over 180 documented cognitive biases — mental shortcuts that evolved for speed but sacrifice accuracy. Confirmation bias makes you favor information that confirms what you already believe. Anchoring makes you rely too heavily on the first number you hear (why car dealers always start high). The availability heuristic makes you judge probability by how easily examples come to mind (why people fear plane crashes more than car accidents despite car crashes being 100x more common). These biases aren't bugs — they're features that evolved for fast decision-making in simpler environments. But in modern contexts, they lead to predictably poor judgments. The first step toward better thinking: knowing which biases are running in the background.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can you eliminate cognitive biases?
You can't eliminate them — they're hardwired into how your brain processes information. But you can mitigate them through awareness (metacognition), structured decision-making frameworks, seeking disconfirming evidence, and practicing logical reasoning. Knowing your biases doesn't make them disappear, but it does make you less likely to act on them uncritically.
What are the most common cognitive biases?
The big three: confirmation bias (seeking information that confirms existing beliefs), anchoring bias (over-relying on the first piece of information), and availability heuristic (judging probability by how easily examples come to mind). Others include the Dunning-Kruger effect, sunk cost fallacy, and hindsight bias. Logic and reasoning puzzles directly exercise the neural circuits that counteract biased thinking.