Base rate neglect is the tendency to ignore base general information, in favor of specific (new, novel, attention grabbing) information. The base rate neglect is also known as the base rate fallacy. This bias ties into the previous biases I have covered. Please see the bottom of the post for previous biases. If something is generally understood, novel new information […]
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Something might happen, possibly happen, or even be likely or probable to happen, but that doesn’t mean it will happen. When we assume something will inevitably happen because it could happen, we are engaging in the appeal to possibility or probability fallacy. Something being probable doesn’t prove it as a fact. However, this doesn’t prevent us from making decisions based […]
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The anecdotal fallacy is to use a particular personal or isolated example to attempt to prove a generalized universal conclusion. The anecdotal fallacy is also known as misleading vividness. What is most vivid in our environment and most available (availability heuristic) to us, is what is first used to draw conclusions. This vivid availability of information in our memory affects […]
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The bandwagon effect represents the phenomena of the increasing adoption of beliefs, ideas, fads, trends, fashions, styles, and behaviors as more people accept it. The more something becomes popularized by others, the more likely even more people will adopt it into their own lives. The term “bandwagon” is used because of the political success of one campaigner in 1848 American […]
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The backfire effect is the tendency to reject evidence, facts or information that goes against the beliefs we are attached to. Normally we tend to give ourselves and others more credit, that our perceptions of reality can change given more accurate or new information. But often that isn’t the case. Information we first absorb and use has an anchoring effect […]
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Automation bias is an over-reliance on automated aids and decision support systems. Trust and complacency develops. Erroneous automated information is favored even when accurate contradictory non-automated information is presented. A person becomes complacent of their own ability to discern reality because they rely too much on an automated system. Instead of being aware and vigilant to seek and process information, […]
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The availability heuristic works like it sounds: whatever is most available is most easily used to make judgments and come to decisions. Judgments are based on memory recall. Recent information is imprinted on memory more vividly, and also primes us towards focusing on that information. The less something is vivid or available, the less likely it is to be used. […]
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A central component in life that many people ignore, is the importance of facing the negative. There is negative, falsity, wrong, immorality and evil in our world. If not perceivable directly in our immediate personal lives, there are negative manifestations in our society and the world. Seeing reality with rosy-colored glasses and a positivity mask is to live in denial […]
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To know the true meaning of a word, is to be master of the word, master of the name, and have the power of that symbol to represent reality. Those who can manipulate the meaning of words, will be able to manipulate it’s representation of reality, and therefore manipulate the perception of reality by those who use that word. Reality […]
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When inquiring into aspects of truth and reality, there are limits to the degree of verification we can employ to trace something back to its roots in the grounding of reality. You can only regress back so far to trace something and know it as a valid truth. These root foundations of understanding are called axioms. You can’t infinitely regress […]
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