
Cognitive bias cheat sheet - charlieirish
https://betterhumans.coach.me/cognitive-bias-cheat-sheet-55a472476b18#.9yeyi4qem
======
thaw13579
I find the treatment of psychology on HN to be perplexing. On one hand, there
have been attacks on psychology as a field [1] due to legitimate concerns
related to replication. On the other hand, blog posts such as this come up
every few days that take the same results for granted and frame them in
everyday terms.

I wonder, are there different groups of HN readers with different attitudes
towards psychology? Or does the treatment also depend on the presentation,
e.g. in the form of a scientific publication vs. a brain hacking tips or
cheatsheet.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12643978](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12643978)

~~~
taeric
I actually get the impression that most of the articles that are "liked" by HN
are somewhat grass roots. Take this one. It is a "hacker" that is spending
time to try to improve biases held.

It is somewhat ironic, to me, that I am basically accusing us of having an
anti-intellectual bend. However, it is not unique to psychology. There is a
similar slant against "academic" computer science.

~~~
CWuestefeld
_There is a similar slant against "academic" computer science._

As someone who went to college for CompSci, I see good reason for a slant
against computer _science_. The problem is that it's the wrong topic for
somebody who does software development!

What we do is not _science_ , it's engineering. Much of the time spent
teaching us the science aspect is wasted, at least compared to the opportunity
to use the time on engineering topics like modeling and design, documentation,
etc.

~~~
groovy2shoes
> The problem is that it's the wrong topic for somebody who does software
> development!

For somebody building the next CRUD app, perhaps. In my line of work (EDA
software), I routinely apply concepts from my computation science education on
the job and in my code. Algorithms, data structures, discrete mathematics,
graph theory, set theory, type theory, universal algebra, tractability theory,
automata theory — these are all topics where knowledge has come in handy in my
professional experience at various jobs.

Of course, concepts from other fields — biology, linguistics, and physics, for
example — have also come in handy on occasion. I _almost_ feel like there's no
such thing as a "wrong topic for somebody who does software development",
though some topics are certainly more relevant/useful than others.

~~~
oblio
Well, then you're most likely part of minority. And even in that minority I'm
willing to bet that a lot of the time is spent in things that have little to
do with Computer Science.

Be honest and think of all the time you've spent fiddling with build systems,
various random tools (compilers, scripts, databases, version control, etc.).

~~~
groovy2shoes
Far too often, to be sure. Two things I have yet to encounter in my
(admittedly short, so far) professional career are a sane build system and
version control that isn't a PITA...

------
Goladus
This is cool, although the real trick is knowing when and how to employ
methods that will mitigate the problems caused by cognitive bias to accurately
identify and resolve conflicts and facilitate clear decision-making. This is
the purpose of courts, the purpose of peer review, the purpose of debate.

Generally, it is not necessary to understand every single type of cognitive
bias in a nuanced way to mitigate the problems. Indeed, sometimes cognitive
biases overlap to the extent that trying to mitigate one, you'll wind up
affected by another. What's important is that your behavior and social rules
be oriented towards uncovering truth through dialectic methods.

Jonathan Haidt, a moral psychologist, recently posted a terrific video on the
the issue viewpoint diversity on college campuses-- specifically, the lack of
it. Problems of confirmation bias are exaggerated, especially in social
sciences, when there's a lack of viewpoint diversity on campus. When everyone
likes the conclusions put forth by a paper, no one is motivated to find the
flaws. Thus the flaws are not found, the flawed papers get cited by other
papers, and you wind up with a knowledge base that is increasingly divorced
from reality. Whether you know the name for that bias or not is less relevant
than actually addressing the structural problems.

~~~
the_duck
Can you share a link to the video?

~~~
pugio
He's spoken about it in a number of forums, take your pick:
[http://righteousmind.com/viewpoint-
diversity/](http://righteousmind.com/viewpoint-diversity/) (near the bottom).

------
nojvek
"The world is very confusing, and we end up only seeing a tiny sliver of it,
but we need to make some sense of it in order to survive. Once the reduced
stream of information comes in, we connect the dots, fill in the gaps with
stuff we already think we know, and update our mental models of the world."

So wonderfully said. I wonder what biases AI will develop in its models

~~~
acomar
Likely a lot of the same biases... Look at the categorization, these are
things any general system of intelligence is going to have to do at some
level. Only a system with infinite computational power can afford to be
without bias.

~~~
g4nt1
I even think that this biases could be a base of a good AI. Just code this
biases in and your almost good to go!

------
nekopa
I'm impressed that he managed to figure this out whilst taking care of a baby.

When my son was born, I spent most of the wee hours testing which Star Wars
theme I hummed worked best for getting him back to sleep.

(By the way, The Imperial March worked best, especially slowed down and
rocking him on every 4th beat)

~~~
cwingrav
My kid loves the Imperial March too for some reason. I thought I was a bad
parent. Strange we came to the same conclusion. There must be something to
this. /s (n=2)

~~~
LeifCarrotson
No, you're not a bad parent, your son is just going to grow up to be a Sith
Lord.

------
cm2012
In politics, I find gambling is the best way to resolve disputes among friends
stemming from cognitive bias. Put a bit of money on various results and
someone will be right and someone will be wrong.

~~~
savanaly
I've heard it said that wagering on real life events (presidential election
outcome, climate change, etc) is "a tax on bullshit."

~~~
beefield
Not sure if this is the original source, but at least the first where I saw
this calim:

[http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2012/11/a-b...](http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2012/11/a-bet-
is-a-tax-on-bullshit.html)

And another view:

[http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.fi/2013/05/bets-do-not-
necess...](http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.fi/2013/05/bets-do-not-necessarily-
reveal-beliefs.html)

------
dimman
Quite funny when hearing yourself think "Yeah this is confirming my own
thoughts" and then you stop and think about what you just read.

~~~
RandomInteger4
Confirmation biasception?

------
danieltillett
How can any list of cognitive biases be complete without the end-of-history
illusion [1]. Given the number of young people I see with tattoos it would
have to be the most common illusion.

1\. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/End-of-
history_illusion](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/End-of-history_illusion)

------
dredmorbius
I'm fascinated by the graph Manoogian created. Does anyone know what specific
tools were used to create it, or which could be used to create similar
ontologies?

[https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/2000/1*71TzKnr7bzXU_l_pU...](https://cdn-
images-1.medium.com/max/2000/1*71TzKnr7bzXU_l_pU6DCNA.jpeg)

I'm working with a largish ontology of my own I'd like to present to 2-3 and
possibly more levels of depth. GraphViz isn't cutting it.

(I'd asked Manoogian himself, he vaguely pointed at some R graphics tools,
which was as far as I've gotten.)

------
anton_tarasenko
To summarize biases further, in one word: Incompetence.

Lab results confirming cognitive biases come from testing small groups of
students (up to 200). Among other things, it means: (1) respondents with
similar background, so we can't generalize (2) respondents don't care about
outcomes, (3) tests are synthetic. Plus publication bias and other standard
issues.

These results are themselves a sort of confirmation bias.

Mistakes in real life happen when we don't know what we're doing. If a person
can learn, he'll discover systematic mistakes. But that comes with domain
experience, not cognitive science.

~~~
adamweld
It's not that simple. Some cognitive biases, especially related to shortcuts
in decision making, are more prevalent in smarter people.

Here's a good jumping off point: [http://www.newyorker.com/tech/frontal-
cortex/why-smart-peopl...](http://www.newyorker.com/tech/frontal-cortex/why-
smart-people-are-stupid)

I highly recommend reading more of Daniel Kahneman's work if you find the
above interesting.

~~~
not_that_noob
Great find! Doctors are famous for lousy financial decisions, which I think
proves the point.

------
curiousgal
Granted this might be useful but I believe the ability to recognize these
biases and fallacies can only be improved by experience. You can read or
memorize what each bias is but you might not be that quick to recognize it in
a discussion, it takes practice not just a cheat sheet[0].

0.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases)

~~~
igravious
First line of article: I’ve spent many years referencing _Wikipedia’s list of
cognitive biases_ [0] whenever I have a hunch that a certain type of thinking
is an official bias but I can’t recall the name or details.

I don't think there's anything the article author mentioned that argues
against improvement through experience, critical thinking, and sensitivity to
the limitations of the human mind.

[0] actually links to
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases)

------
bahjoite
This is excellent. It could be improved by adding a very short summary of each
bias. This would help the reader to drill-down to a specific bias of interest.

~~~
randcraw
If a one-sentence tooltip for each bias were added to the codex graphic
fielded on a webpage, and each bias was linked to its own page, that would
make the graphic more sensible and accessible.

And if each quartile of the codex had a color coded mouse target, you could
popup a menu of just that cluster of biases sorted into whatever spectrum
makes the most sense.

~~~
kitd
Though, if the article is to be believed, 'a one-sentence tooltip for each
bias' would itself be highly incomplete and therefore subject to all sorts of
biases in its interpretation and application ;)

------
inanutshellus
The article starts off by complaining about the wikipedia article, but as I
was reading his post I kept thinking "But this is exactly what was in the
Wikipedia infographic!" .... aaand then I realize the infographic is a side-
effect of his blog post!

A little ah-hah moment for me. :)

------
pkinsky
Thanks for putting this together! As someone interested in cognitive biases, I
wonder: how many of these effects have survived the recent replication crisis
intact?

------
ensiferum
I learned a long time ago already not to trust my memory. For example I'm
trying to find a piece of text in a book, or a specific story in a newspaper
my memory might give me a clue, which would be something like "it's on _that_
page next to that "red thing" or "there's a story on the opposite page about
xyz". I never trust this anymore it's a wild goose chase.

A good thing to think about how biased your brain is, is to think of that time
when you were witnessing that wonderful sunset and you decided to take a
photo. Later you look at the photo and it doesn't look at all like you
remember. Why? Because it's your brain playing tricks on you. You have a built
in image filter in your brain that adjusts the image and your memory of it
whereas the camera sees it "objectively."

Once you become aware of all the cognitive biases you just get tired of
listening to people talk (about anything really), when it's full of logical
holes and anecdotes. In fact it becomes painful especially when listening to
some electoral candidate / politician talk about stuff that might actually
matter. _sigh_

------
DINKDINK
>We notice flaws in others more easily than flaws in ourselves. Yes, before
you see this entire article as a list of quirks that compromise how other
people think, realize that you are also subject to these biases.

I found this section was written very pourly. /s ;]

------
dfsegoat
This exact title/link has been posted a number of times (>5) in the past 1-2
months [1].

I'd be interested to know which cognitive bias is at work when the instance of
the post today gets 480+ points -- but no instances of this post (same title,
same url) in the past 1 month garnered more than 26 pts.

I am both new to HN, and legitimately curious. Perhaps the content of the site
was improved dramatically?

edit: clarity.

[0]
[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=cognitive%20bias%20cheat%20she...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=cognitive%20bias%20cheat%20sheet&sort=byPopularity&prefix=false&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story)

------
madenine
Great article, but what on earth is the point of the huge wheel chart? Its
pretty, but I'm not sure what conclusions it helps me draw, other than sorting
sources of bias by group/subgroup in a difficult to read manner.

~~~
CPLX
The point is to put it on the wall of your office so that when people come in
they will understand that you are an expert on human biases and be on notice
not to try anything funny.

~~~
chestervonwinch
> they will understand that you are an expert on human biases

unless they correctly identify your hanging of the image (and implied
expertise therefrom) as a fallacious appeal to internet-blog-authority!

------
idlewords
I got tired reading this, but had gotten too far not to finish.

~~~
notduncansmith
If you had really been tired, you wouldn't have kept reading.

------
carsongross
One has to make a distinction between dialectic situations, where you are
trying to get at the truth, vs. rhetorical situations, where the attempt is to
convince others (often not the person you are speaking with) of the truth.

For example, trotting out cognitive biases in a rhetorical situation is often
very effective, particularly when your opponent is operating in a dialectic
mindset.

Know thyself, but also know thy situation.

------
zoom6628
Useful resource to review. There is always time to think about how we think. I
know from experience that always underestimate by 30% the time it takes to do
things - being it gardening or coding. I measure it to find out. Cognitive
bias is something that we all need to be aware of. Just give yourself a 30sec
"CB Check" before any decision and see what happens.

------
gog
This is the third article on the front page that is running on medium.com
infrastructure with that annoying banner in the footer.

Is that the new standard?

~~~
dredmorbius
Which banner are you talking about? The persistent footer w/ SocMed link
litter in it? Which I find annoying, frankly.

~~~
gog
Yes, that one. It links to Medium so I think of it as a banner.

------
4h53n
4.3 "We reduce events and lists to their key elements." I liked how this one
relates to cheat sheet itself.

------
sudoelefant
Is there a dataset somewhere with sentences/paragraphs labeled with cognitive
biases? The idea of a machine learning program auto labeling college essays
with faulty deductive logic is enticing. Then run the system backward to
generate logically sound arguments like the yahoo Nsfw detector post recently.

------
jmorrison
I highly recommend "Charlie Munger On the Psychology of Human Misjudgement."

PDF transcription here
[http://www.rbcpa.com/mungerspeech_june_95.pdf](http://www.rbcpa.com/mungerspeech_june_95.pdf)

Explains a lot (he says, during Presidential Election season in the US)

------
devy
This reminds me of master persuader Scott Adams mentioned about "cognitive
dissonance"[1] on some of his recent tweets.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance)

~~~
sergiotapia
His book is really interesting and an easy read. I guess it pays off to write
things as simple as possible.

[https://www.amazon.com/How-Fail-Almost-Everything-Still-
eboo...](https://www.amazon.com/How-Fail-Almost-Everything-Still-
ebook/dp/B00COOFBA4)

The one thing to take away from this election is that persuasion trumps
everything else. It's scary and crazy!

~~~
CPLX
Another thing to take away from this election is that Scott Adams turns out to
be somewhat of a moron when discussing the topic of presidential politics.

I followed his arguments in the primaries and found them somewhat compelling,
the idea that Trump was in better shape than people thought. But he's lately
gone of the rails totally and completely.

And more to the point of this post, he completely misuses the phrase cognitive
dissonance, having apparently defined it to mean something like "a way to tell
people who disagree with me they don't know what they're talking about" rather
than an actual psychological characteristic.

------
mrcactu5
there are so many cognitive bias we see them on the street, in popular music,
homeless people, university professors, alcoholics, politicians... everyone
exhibits more than a few of these.

So many in fact, I just look at the list overwhelmed and curl in bed and suck
my thumb

------
hairy_man674
Related to biases are fallacies in argument as illustrated (in a less serious
but instructive manner) here:
[http://existentialcomics.com/comic/9](http://existentialcomics.com/comic/9)

------
known
Insulate yourself from Machiavellianism (willingness to manipulate and deceive
others), Narcissism (egotism and self-obsession), Psychopathy (the lack of
remorse and empathy), Sadism (pleasure in the suffering of others)

------
peterwwillis
And of course the biggest cognitive bias: that knowing about cognitive biases
will make you less of a monkey in a baseball cap. Just remember that at all
times you are probably wrong, and you'll do okay.

------
l0ner
For those interested in the topic, there's a really good book (also available
as audiobook) that covers this in some depth, "Thinking, Fast and Slow" by
Daniel Kahneman.

------
bluetwo
Nicely done.

I like to refer to it as "short-cut thinking" rather than cognitive bias,
because people that might not know the term immediately understand what I'm
getting at.

------
lor3nzo
20 cognitive biases that screw up your decisions

[http://i.imgur.com/czyJsjO.png](http://i.imgur.com/czyJsjO.png)

~~~
the_other
I like that "anchoring bias" only has one example.

------
pomber
Off topic: I'm developing a resistance for scrolling up. It became common to
significantly reduce the size of the view-port every time you go up.

------
tonystubblebine
Hurray Buster! Cool to see this article doing so well!

------
callesgg
Can one get that graph in a non renderd format. Is it only available as that
blury jpg?

Looked for myself, but i cant find anything.

------
PaulHoule
My suspicion is that cognitive biases have a lot of what it means to be human.
In particular I think the "language instinct" is a derangement of the ability
to reason about uncertainty in a consistent way that makes language learning
possible.

------
wfeui3
This is 'cheat sheet'; short and handy reference for making a quick decision.
Full reference is probably a few tons of books.

I feel that someone who just uses instinct, will make faster and better
decision, even with all the biases and cognitive illusions.

~~~
mamadrood
All these cognitives biases actually tell you that your instincts are not
working properly, they are biased. Sure it will be faster (your biases, your
prejudices will guide your decision), but not necessarily better.

If you see a spider, your instinct is to kill it, it's not necessarily the
better solution.

------
gcb0
it talks about suken cost falacy but links to the entry on actual sunken cost,
which at most has an argument about fixed vs recurring sunken costs.

------
rdiddly
Looks like the wheel chart has already been added to the Wikipedia page...
talk about circularity...

------
fatdog
Want a poster of this in every meeting room, maybe sans brain picture in favor
of Rodin's Thinker sculpture.

------
zobzu
I think its a slur of excuses we tell ourselves. We just don't care all that
much.

It's all about filling your brain with the latest instant fad. People get
bored if they don't get their fix of fake news or cat pictures. How would they
even spend a few hours doing real research and actually trying to think?

Way too hard. The internet only exacerbates these issues. This blog is even a
prime example. It's telling you what to think so you don't have to, and it
matches the popular bias so its easy to just praise it and move on to the next
insta-fad.

~~~
tunap
It does appear to be classic conditioning, despite the downvotes. I am
concerned for the future of concentration & independent thought as I observe
people of all ages around me who cannot stop fiddling with their gadgets...
especially unnerving when they are operating 2000+lbs of plastic & steel and
drifting into my lane.

