Mistakes to Avoid
Warning: Hazardous material here. Use responsibly.
(For example, do not use this as a "How to cheat your neighbor" manual).
Confirmation bias. We tend to seek out and interpret information in ways that confirm our pre-existing beliefs, while ignoring or dismissing contrary evidence.
Availability bias. We give more weight to events or examples that are easily remembered or that come to mind quickly, even if they are statistically unlikely.
Anchoring bias. We are influenced by initial information when making judgements or estimates, underestimating or overestimating their importance.
Halo effect. We tend to form an overall positive or negative opinion of a person, object or idea based on an initial characteristic or impression that may have nothing to do with what is of interest.
Groupthink. We are inclined to adopt the opinions or behaviors of the group with which we identify, seeking social harmony rather than individual critical thinking.
Hindsight effect. We tend to see past events as being more predictable than they really were, since we know the final outcome.
Optimism bias. We are inclined to overestimate our own abilities and underestimate the risks involved in certain situations.
Loss aversion. We value losses more than equivalent gains, which can influence our decisions irrationally.
Self-attribution bias. We tend to attribute our successes to internal characteristics (skills, effort) and our failures to external factors (luck, circumstances).
Recency bias. We attach more importance to recent information or events, tending to forget or give less weight to older information.
Framing error. Appearing good or bad just because of the misleading context it is in.
Forgetting the bigger context. For example, a whippersnapper who thinks he's being very clever by cheating at an inspection centre and driving around with a car that sprays the air with nasty particles ...and then one day his daughter dies of lung cancer from exposure to pollution from whippersnappers like him.
Ignoring the invisible. For example, ignoring the importance of parameters that cannot be measured explicitly or have not yet been measured.
Not trying out the "Tricks to Try" (see the other list).