Mind & Self
Human Psychology
Why people do what they do
Novice
Mastery0%
Novice
Mind & Self
Why people do what they do
Novice
Subdomain
The recurring mental shortcuts your brain uses, and the predictable ways they steer you wrong. Knowing the names lets you spot them in real time.
Confirmation bias
The tendency to seek, interpret, and remember information in ways that confirm existing beliefs while discounting evidence that contradicts them.
Open
Anchoring
A cognitive bias in which an initial numerical reference point disproportionately influences subsequent estimates or judgments.
Open
Loss aversion
The tendency for the psychological pain of losing something to exceed the pleasure of gaining an equivalent amount.
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Fundamental attribution error
The tendency to over-attribute other people's behaviour to stable character traits while attributing one's own behaviour to situational factors.
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Dunning-Kruger effect
A cognitive bias where people with low ability in a task tend to overestimate their ability.
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Availability heuristic
A mental shortcut where the ease of recalling examples drives the perceived probability of an event.
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Sunk cost fallacy
The tendency to continue an endeavour once an investment in money, effort, or time has been made, even when continuing is irrational.
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Hyperbolic discounting
A pattern in which people prefer smaller immediate rewards over larger delayed ones, with the preference reversing as the delay shortens.
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Affect heuristic
A mental shortcut where people make judgments and decisions based on their immediate emotional reaction to a stimulus rather than a deliberate analysis.
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Spotlight effect
The tendency to overestimate how much other people notice or remember one's appearance, mistakes, or behaviour.
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Negativity bias
The tendency for negative events, emotions, or information to have a stronger effect on psychological state and memory than equally intense positive events.
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Heuristic
Mental shortcut that's fast but sometimes wrong.
Bias
Systematic error in thinking, not random noise.
Prospect theory
Kahneman/Tversky model: losses loom larger than gains.
Steelman
The strongest possible version of an opposing argument.
Replication
Re-running a study to see if the result holds up.
Conformity
Adjusting behaviour to match a group, even against private judgment.
Attribution
How we explain causes of behaviour, to character or to circumstance.
Anchoring
First-number effect on subsequent estimates.
Default Mode Network
Brain regions active during self-referential thought and mind-wandering, tied to rumination and creativity.
Affect heuristic
Leaning on immediate emotion to judge a probability or value.
Status games
Ranking by prestige (competence-based) vs dominance (fear-based) in any social group.
Attachment style
Secure, anxious, or avoidant relational patterns shaped by early caregiving.