Opinion Formation
Psychological Biases
💭 Opinion Formation
16 biases in this category
Biases that shape how we form, maintain, and change our opinions and beliefs.
Bandwagon Effect
The tendency to adopt beliefs, ideas, or trends because many others have done so—the probability of any individual adopting it increases with the proportion who have already done so.
Herd Mentality
The tendency for individuals to follow and copy what a majority or trend is doing, suppressing individual judgment and independent thought.
Authority Bias
The tendency to attribute greater accuracy to the opinion of an authority figure and be more influenced by that opinion, independent of its actual content.
Halo Effect
The tendency for an overall positive impression of a person, company, or product to positively influence judgment about their specific traits.
In-Group Bias
The tendency to favor members of one's own group over members of other groups, giving them more trust, more resources, and more favorable evaluations.
Out-Group Homogeneity Bias
The perception that members of an out-group are more similar to each other than members of the in-group, seeing "them" as all alike while "we" are diverse individuals.
Not Invented Here Syndrome
The tendency to avoid using or accepting ideas, products, or solutions developed outside of one's own group or organization, favoring internal development even when external options are superior.
Cross-Race Effect
The tendency to more easily recognize faces of one's own racial group than faces of other racial groups—"they all look alike" applied to face perception.
Cheerleader Effect
The cognitive bias whereby people appear more attractive in a group than in isolation, as individual faces are perceived as closer to the group's "average" face.
Ben Franklin Effect
The psychological phenomenon whereby a person who does a favor for someone is more likely to do another favor for that person than if they had received a favor from that person.
Reactive Devaluation
The tendency to devalue proposals or ideas coming from an adversary or out-group, dismissing proposals that would be accepted if they came from a neutral or in-group source.
Naïve Realism
The belief that we see the world objectively and that people who disagree with us must be uninformed, irrational, or biased—while we perceive reality as it is.
Bias Blind Spot
The cognitive bias of recognizing the impact of biases on the judgment of others, while failing to see the impact of biases on one's own judgment.
Third-Person Effect
The tendency to believe that mass media messages have a greater effect on others than on oneself, that others are more susceptible to media influence.
Curse of Knowledge (Communication)
The difficulty of imagining what it's like not to know something you know, leading to poor communication because you assume knowledge you shouldn't assume.
Illusory Truth Effect
The tendency to believe information to be correct after repeated exposure—repetition increases perceived truth, regardless of actual accuracy.