Bias69 canonical entries
A directional tendency in judgment, attention, memory, belief, or choice. The label does not by itself establish how strong, universal, or well-replicated the tendency is.
Taxonomy v2
Not every entry is the same kind of thing.
“Cognitive Biases” is the umbrella project name. The corpus also contains effects, heuristics, fallacies, phenomena, and principles. This vocabulary makes those differences explicit without pretending an unreviewed label is scientifically settled.
Current coverage
166 of 215 canonical entries have a conservative kind assignment.
Assignments come from explicit words in the canonical name or a small reviewed override list. The remaining 49 entries stay unassigned until their type is clear enough to defend.
Effect63 canonical entries
An observed pattern or outcome that appears under particular conditions. An effect name can describe what happens without implying one universal cognitive mechanism.
Examples
- Well-Travelled Road Effect – when familiar routes feel faster
- Ben Franklin Effect – when doing a favor makes you like someone more
- Backfire Effect – when a correction can strengthen a false belief
- Observer-Expectancy Effect – when wanting a result makes it appear
- False Consensus Effect – when you think everyone agrees with you
Heuristic1 canonical entries
A shortcut or rule of thumb used to make judgments efficiently. A heuristic can be useful in many environments and produce bias when the shortcut is poorly matched to the task.
Examples
Fallacy6 canonical entries
A recurring error in reasoning or argument structure. Fallacies are classified by the logic of the inference rather than by a claim about one psychological mechanism.
Examples
- Planning Fallacy – when plans make completion times look too optimistic
- Base Rate Fallacy – when you ignore general statistics for a specific case
- Conjunction Fallacy – when a specific scenario seems more likely than a general one
- G.I. Joe Fallacy – when you think knowing a bias makes you immune to it
- Gambler’s Fallacy – when you think the past changes the future odds
Phenomenon24 canonical entries
A broader named pattern, state, or behavioral observation that does not fit cleanly into bias, effect, heuristic, fallacy, principle, or measurement concept.
Examples
- Clustering Illusion – when randomness looks like a pattern
- Anthropomorphism – when nonhuman systems are read as humanlike
- Frequency Illusion – when something new suddenly appears everywhere
- Illusion of Asymmetric Insight – when you think you understand others better than they understand you
- Illusion of Control – when you think you have more influence than you do
Principle / law2 canonical entries
A named principle, law, or descriptive regularity. These entries may be useful for understanding cognition without being cognitive biases in the narrow sense.
Examples
Measurement concept1 canonical entries
A concept about measurement, estimation, sampling, calibration, or systematic error rather than one psychological tendency in a person.