Cognitive BiasesPublic knowledge library

Practice Lab

Presenting risk & options

Learn to connect a practical check with the evidence-reviewed lens behind it. A real situation can involve several patterns, so each exercise asks for the best first lens among the listed options, not a diagnosis.

How to use this set

Read the check. Choose a lens. Then inspect the evidence.

Use these evidence-reviewed lenses when a report, interface, model, or recommendation is presenting numbers and choices that other people will use to decide.

Read the full decision guide before or after the set.

Exercise 1 of 5

In presenting risk & options, which lens does this check belong to: “Would the choice change if the same outcomes were presented with an equivalent gain, loss, or neutral description?”

  1. Framing Effect
  2. Loss Aversion
  3. Anchoring Effect
Show the best first lens

Framing Effect

Would the choice change if the same outcomes were presented with an equivalent gain, loss, or neutral description?

Evidence note Framing research covers several distinct paradigms. Risky-choice framing, where equivalent outcomes are presented as gains or losses, is a well-established effect with substantial evidence across many studies. A classic meta-analysis found a reliable small-to-moderate average effect with strong variation across designs, and later reviews and metastudies support broad generalizability. Attribute framing also has supporting evidence, while goal or message framing is less consistently established. These should not be treated as one identical effect caused by any change in wording.

Read the evidence review · Open the decision guide

Exercise 2 of 5

In presenting risk & options, which lens does this check belong to: “What is the reference point, and are equivalent losses receiving more weight than comparable gains in this decision?”

  1. Anchoring Effect
  2. Subadditivity Effect
  3. Loss Aversion
Show the best first lens

Loss Aversion

What is the reference point, and are equivalent losses receiving more weight than comparable gains in this decision?

Evidence note Loss aversion is a central component of prospect theory and many studies estimate losses as receiving greater subjective weight than gains around a reference point. However, the effect should not be summarized with one universal coefficient. A 2024 interdisciplinary meta-analysis of 607 estimates reported a mean coefficient near 1.96, while another 2024 meta-analysis of individual risky-choice datasets estimated about 1.31. A 2025 re-analysis of the larger dataset found little evidence of loss aversion in some symmetric, unordered designs, showing that task structure and analysis can materially change the result.

Read the evidence review · Open the decision guide

Exercise 3 of 5

In presenting risk & options, which lens does this check belong to: “Which number is shown first, and is it pulling later estimates toward itself?”

  1. Availability Heuristic
  2. Anchoring Effect
  3. Subadditivity Effect
Show the best first lens

Anchoring Effect

Which number is shown first, and is it pulling later estimates toward itself?

Evidence note Anchoring is a well-supported effect in which an initial numerical value can pull a later estimate toward it. A 2026 meta-analysis covering 2,601 effect sizes found a large overall effect, but also substantial variation across studies. The effect should not be treated as a rule that every number changes every judgment: incidental anchors, anchors from a different dimension, clearly random values, incentives, and some debiasing conditions were associated with smaller or null effects.

Read the evidence review · Open the decision guide

Exercise 4 of 5

In presenting risk & options, which lens does this check belong to: “Does the total risk estimate change when the same outcome is unpacked into explicit possibilities?”

  1. Subadditivity Effect
  2. Availability Heuristic
  3. Framing Effect
Show the best first lens

Subadditivity Effect

Does the total risk estimate change when the same outcome is unpacked into explicit possibilities?

Evidence note People often give a larger total probability when an event is unpacked into separate possibilities than when the same event is judged as one packed category. The effect is not universal: how the possibilities are described and how typical they are can change or even reverse an unpacking effect.

Read the evidence review · Open the decision guide

Exercise 5 of 5

In presenting risk & options, which lens does this check belong to: “Is a vivid example affecting the estimate because it is representative, or mainly because it is easy to recall?”

  1. Framing Effect
  2. Loss Aversion
  3. Availability Heuristic
Show the best first lens

Availability Heuristic

Is a vivid example affecting the estimate because it is representative, or mainly because it is easy to recall?

Evidence note Availability is a judgment heuristic: people can use how easily examples or scenarios come to mind when estimating frequency or probability. That shortcut is not automatically an error because memorable or accessible examples can correlate with real frequency. Bias appears when accessibility is driven by factors that are not diagnostic of the quantity being judged.

Read the evidence review · Open the decision guide