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Heuris­tics & Biases

TagLast edit: 19 Mar 2023 21:30 UTC by Diabloto96

Heuristics and Biases are the ways human reasoning differs from a theoretical ideal agent, due to reasoning shortcuts that don’t always work (heuristics) and systematic errors (biases).

See also: Affect Heuristic, Confirmation Bias, Fallacies, Predictably Wrong, Rationality, Your Intuitions Are Not Magic, Bias, Heuristic

Basics

“Cognitive biases” are those obstacles to truth which are produced, not by the cost of information, nor by limited computing power, but by the shape of our own mental machinery. For example, our mental processes might be evolutionarily adapted to specifically believe some things that arent true, so that we could win political arguments in a tribal context. Or the mental machinery might be adapted not to particularly care whether something is true, such as when we feel the urge to believe what others believe to get along socially. Or the bias may be a side-effect of a useful reasoning heuristic. The availability heuristic is not itself a bias, but it gives rise to them; the machinery uses an algorithm (give things more evidential weight if they come to mind more readily) that does some good cognitive work but also produces systematic errors.

Our brains are doing something wrong, and after a lot of experimentation and/​or heavy thinking, someone identifies the problem verbally and concretely; then we call it a “(cognitive) bias.” Not to be confused with the colloquial “that person is biased,” which just means “that person has a skewed or prejudiced attitude toward something.”

A bias is an obstacle to our goal of obtaining truth, and thus in our way.

We are here to pursue the great human quest for truth: for we have desperate need of the knowledge, and besides, we’re curious. To this end let us strive to overcome whatever obstacles lie in our way, whether we call them “biases” or not.

It’s also useful to know the kinds of faults human brains are prone to, in the same way it’s useful to know that your car’s brakes are a little gummy (so you don’t sail through a red light and into an 18-wheeler).

The Sequence, Predictably Wrong, offers an excellent introduction to the topic for those who are not familiar.

Wait a minute… fallacies, biases, heuristics… what’s the difference??

While a bias is always wrong, a heuristic is just a shortcut which may or may not give you an accurate answer. Just because you know complex mathematical methods for precisely calculating the flight of objects through space doesn’t mean you should be using them to play volleyball. Which is to say, heuristics are necessary for actually getting anything done. But because they are just approximations they frequently produce biases, which is where the problem lies. “Fallacy” is often used to mean a very similar thing as bias on LessWrong. [Needs better clarification]

A good example of a heuristic is the affect heuristic—people tend to guess unknown traits about people or things based on the perceived goodness of badness of known traits. In some circumstances this is a useful shortcut—you may like to assume, for instance, that people who are good singers are more likely to be good dancers, too. However, it also frequently produces (unconscious) biases—a bias towards believing that people who are tall and good looking have better moral character, for instance.

So if I learn all the biases, I can conquer the world with my superior intellect?

Well, no. If it were that easy we wouldn’t need a community initially dedicated to overcoming bias (the name of the blog which this website grew out of). Unfortunately, learning about a bias alone doesn’t seem to improve your ability to avoid it in real life. There’s also the (major) issue that knowing about biases can hurt people. Instead of being purely focused on removing negative habits, there is now a major focus at LessWrong to implementing positive habits. These are skills such as how to update (change your mind) the correct amount in response to evidence, how to resolve disagreements with others, how to introspect, and many more.

Strong-Misal­ign­ment: Does Yud­kowsky (or Chris­ti­ano, or TurnTrout, or Wolfram, or…etc.) Have an Ele­va­tor Speech I’m Miss­ing?

Benjamin Bourlier15 Mar 2024 23:17 UTC
−2 points
2 comments16 min readLW link

[Question] How do you iden­tify and coun­ter­act your bi­ases in de­ci­sion-mak­ing?

warrenjordan12 Mar 2024 5:01 UTC
2 points
1 comment1 min readLW link

How I in­ter­nal­ized my achieve­ments to bet­ter deal with nega­tive feelings

Raymond Koopmanschap27 Feb 2024 15:10 UTC
41 points
7 comments6 min readLW link

Ide­olog­i­cal Bayesians

Kevin Dorst25 Feb 2024 14:17 UTC
94 points
4 comments10 min readLW link
(kevindorst.substack.com)

In­ves­ti­gat­ing Bias Rep­re­sen­ta­tions in LLMs via Ac­ti­va­tion Steering

DawnLu15 Jan 2024 19:39 UTC
29 points
3 comments5 min readLW link

No­tice When Peo­ple Are Direc­tion­ally Correct

Chris_Leong14 Jan 2024 14:12 UTC
121 points
7 comments2 min readLW link

Com­pen­sat­ing for Life Biases

Jonathan Moregård9 Jan 2024 14:39 UTC
24 points
6 comments3 min readLW link
(honestliving.substack.com)

In Defense of Epistemic Em­pa­thy

Kevin Dorst27 Dec 2023 16:27 UTC
54 points
19 comments6 min readLW link
(kevindorst.substack.com)

Heuris­tics for pre­vent­ing ma­jor life mistakes

SK220 Dec 2023 8:01 UTC
28 points
2 comments3 min readLW link

Some bi­ases and se­lec­tion effects in AI risk discourse

Tamsin Leake12 Dec 2023 17:55 UTC
26 points
22 comments4 min readLW link
(carado.moe)

Trust your in­tu­ition—Kah­ne­man’s book misses the for­est for the trees

mnvr29 Nov 2023 4:37 UTC
−2 points
2 comments2 min readLW link

[Bias] Restrict­ing free­dom is more harm­ful than it seems

lsusr22 Nov 2023 9:44 UTC
18 points
15 comments1 min readLW link

The im­pos­si­bil­ity of ra­tio­nally an­a­lyz­ing par­ti­san news

RationalDino16 Nov 2023 16:19 UTC
4 points
4 comments1 min readLW link

The As­sumed In­tent Bias

silentbob5 Nov 2023 16:28 UTC
50 points
13 comments6 min readLW link

Con­tra­dic­tion Ap­peal Bias

onur24 Sep 2023 17:03 UTC
3 points
2 comments1 min readLW link

ChatGPT challenges the case for hu­man irrationality

Kevin Dorst22 Aug 2023 12:46 UTC
4 points
10 comments7 min readLW link
(kevindorst.substack.com)

“Not Ne­c­es­sar­ily”

Benjamin Hendricks31 Jul 2023 15:19 UTC
23 points
2 comments2 min readLW link

Ex­pert trap – Ways out (Part 3 of 3)

Paweł Sysiak22 Jul 2023 13:06 UTC
4 points
0 comments9 min readLW link

What is a cog­ni­tive bias?

Lionel15 Jul 2023 13:01 UTC
1 point
0 comments2 min readLW link
(lionelpage.substack.com)

[Question] Do we au­to­mat­i­cally ac­cept propo­si­tions?

Aaron Graifman11 Jul 2023 17:45 UTC
10 points
5 comments1 min readLW link

We ran a read­ing group on The Scout Mindset

24 Jun 2023 10:10 UTC
7 points
0 comments2 min readLW link

“Nat­u­ral is bet­ter” is a valuable heuristic

Neil 20 Jun 2023 22:25 UTC
35 points
16 comments4 min readLW link

Is the con­fir­ma­tion bias re­ally a bias?

Lionel14 Jun 2023 14:06 UTC
−2 points
6 comments1 min readLW link
(lionelpage.substack.com)

Ex­pert trap: Why is it hap­pen­ing? (Part 2 of 3) – how hind­sight, hi­er­ar­chy, and con­fir­ma­tion bi­ases break con­duc­tivity and ac­cu­racy of knowledge

Paweł Sysiak9 Jun 2023 23:00 UTC
3 points
0 comments7 min readLW link

Ex­pert trap: What is it? (Part 1 of 3) – how hind­sight, hi­er­ar­chy, and con­fir­ma­tion bi­ases break con­duc­tivity and ac­cu­racy of knowledge

Paweł Sysiak9 Jun 2023 23:00 UTC
6 points
2 comments8 min readLW link

Not an­other bias!

Lionel5 Jun 2023 17:50 UTC
3 points
0 comments1 min readLW link
(lionelpage.substack.com)

Self-Ad­ministered Gell-Mann Amnesia

krs7 May 2023 17:44 UTC
1 point
1 comment1 min readLW link

For­mal­iz­ing the “AI x-risk is un­likely be­cause it is ridicu­lous” argument

Christopher King3 May 2023 18:56 UTC
47 points
17 comments3 min readLW link

[Question] How much do per­sonal bi­ases in risk as­sess­ment af­fect as­sess­ment of AI risks?

Gordon Seidoh Worley3 May 2023 6:12 UTC
10 points
8 comments1 min readLW link

[Question] Ac­cu­racy of ar­gu­ments that are seen as ridicu­lous and in­tu­itively false but don’t have good counter-arguments

Christopher King29 Apr 2023 23:58 UTC
30 points
39 comments1 min readLW link

An­chor­ing fo­cal­ism and the Iden­ti­fi­able vic­tim effect: Bias in Eval­u­at­ing AGI X-Risks

Remmelt7 Jan 2023 9:59 UTC
1 point
2 comments1 min readLW link

Illu­sion of truth effect and Am­bi­guity effect: Bias in Eval­u­at­ing AGI X-Risks

Remmelt5 Jan 2023 4:05 UTC
−13 points
2 comments1 min readLW link

Nor­malcy bias and Base rate ne­glect: Bias in Eval­u­at­ing AGI X-Risks

Remmelt4 Jan 2023 3:16 UTC
−16 points
0 comments1 min readLW link

Sta­tus quo bias; Sys­tem jus­tifi­ca­tion: Bias in Eval­u­at­ing AGI X-Risks

3 Jan 2023 2:50 UTC
−11 points
0 comments1 min readLW link

Belief Bias: Bias in Eval­u­at­ing AGI X-Risks

2 Jan 2023 8:59 UTC
−10 points
1 comment1 min readLW link

Curse of knowl­edge and Naive re­al­ism: Bias in Eval­u­at­ing AGI X-Risks

31 Dec 2022 13:33 UTC
−7 points
1 comment1 min readLW link
(www.lesswrong.com)

Re­ac­tive de­val­u­a­tion: Bias in Eval­u­at­ing AGI X-Risks

30 Dec 2022 9:02 UTC
−15 points
9 comments1 min readLW link

Band­wagon effect: Bias in Eval­u­at­ing AGI X-Risks

28 Dec 2022 7:54 UTC
−1 points
0 comments1 min readLW link

Mere ex­po­sure effect: Bias in Eval­u­at­ing AGI X-Risks

27 Dec 2022 14:05 UTC
0 points
2 comments1 min readLW link

In­tro­duc­tion: Bias in Eval­u­at­ing AGI X-Risks

27 Dec 2022 10:27 UTC
1 point
0 comments3 min readLW link

Bi­ases are en­g­ines of cognition

30 Nov 2022 16:47 UTC
45 points
7 comments1 min readLW link

When AI solves a game, fo­cus on the game’s me­chan­ics, not its theme.

Cleo Nardo23 Nov 2022 19:16 UTC
82 points
7 comments2 min readLW link

Against a Gen­eral Fac­tor of Doom

Jeffrey Heninger23 Nov 2022 16:50 UTC
61 points
19 comments5 min readLW link1 review
(aiimpacts.org)

[Question] What kind of bias is this?

Daniel Samuel17 Nov 2022 18:44 UTC
3 points
2 comments1 min readLW link

Mo­ral con­ta­gion heuristic

Mvolz14 Nov 2022 21:17 UTC
14 points
3 comments2 min readLW link

Cat­a­logu­ing Pri­ors in The­ory and Practice

Paul Bricman13 Oct 2022 12:36 UTC
13 points
8 comments7 min readLW link

Be more effec­tive by learn­ing im­por­tant prac­ti­cal knowl­edge us­ing flashcards

Stenemo12 Oct 2022 18:05 UTC
5 points
2 comments1 min readLW link

The shard the­ory of hu­man values

4 Sep 2022 4:28 UTC
235 points
66 comments24 min readLW link2 reviews

Bugs or Fea­tures?

qbolec3 Sep 2022 7:04 UTC
72 points
9 comments2 min readLW link

[Question] Is there any writ­ing about prompt en­g­ineer­ing for hu­mans?

Alex Hollow1 Aug 2022 12:52 UTC
18 points
8 comments1 min readLW link

Hu­man val­ues & bi­ases are in­ac­cessible to the genome

TurnTrout7 Jul 2022 17:29 UTC
93 points
54 comments6 min readLW link1 review

Limer­ence Messes Up Your Ra­tion­al­ity Real Bad, Yo

Raemon1 Jul 2022 16:53 UTC
121 points
41 comments3 min readLW link2 reviews

140 Cog­ni­tive Bi­ases You Should Know

André Ferretti9 Apr 2022 17:15 UTC
7 points
7 comments1 min readLW link

Con­vinc­ing Your Brain That Hu­man­ity is Evil is Easy

Johannes C. Mayer7 Apr 2022 21:39 UTC
13 points
4 comments2 min readLW link

Paper is True

Zvi14 Feb 2022 14:10 UTC
35 points
2 comments6 min readLW link
(thezvi.wordpress.com)

Rock is Strong

Zvi14 Feb 2022 14:00 UTC
59 points
13 comments26 min readLW link
(thezvi.wordpress.com)

Us­ing blin­ders to help you see things for what they are

Adam Zerner11 Nov 2021 7:07 UTC
13 points
2 comments2 min readLW link

Mo­ravec’s Para­dox Comes From The Availa­bil­ity Heuristic

james.lucassen20 Oct 2021 6:23 UTC
33 points
2 comments2 min readLW link
(jlucassen.com)

Lies, Damn Lies, and Fabri­cated Options

[DEACTIVATED] Duncan Sabien17 Oct 2021 2:47 UTC
288 points
131 comments14 min readLW link2 reviews

Is an­chor­ing a re­li­able cog­ni­tive bias?

justindomke14 Oct 2021 15:15 UTC
22 points
4 comments8 min readLW link
(justindomke.wordpress.com)

Book Re­view: All I Want To Know Is Where I’m Go­ing To Die So I’ll Never Go There

Anmoljain13 Oct 2021 3:46 UTC
3 points
2 comments46 min readLW link

Blink: The Power of Think­ing Without Think­ing (book re­view)

Andrew Vlahos3 Oct 2021 23:21 UTC
17 points
1 comment9 min readLW link

[Cross­post] On Hreha On Be­hav­ioral Economics

Scott Alexander31 Aug 2021 18:14 UTC
106 points
6 comments22 min readLW link

The Death of Be­hav­ioral Economics

habryka22 Aug 2021 22:39 UTC
151 points
24 comments1 min readLW link2 reviews
(www.thebehavioralscientist.com)

Im­por­tance of Ideas and Peo­ple We Disagree With

Olitness29 Jul 2021 11:50 UTC
−1 points
4 comments7 min readLW link
(olitness.wordpress.com)

Happy paths and the plan­ning fallacy

Adam Zerner18 Jul 2021 23:26 UTC
38 points
10 comments3 min readLW link

[Question] Is it true that most stud­ies in Kah­ne­man’s ‘Think­ing fast and slow’ are not repli­ca­ble and the book is largely not sup­ported by ev­i­dence?

Davy Jones30 Jun 2021 7:14 UTC
17 points
13 comments1 min readLW link

Some peo­ple just won’t get it

Amir Bolous12 Jun 2021 15:10 UTC
3 points
5 comments2 min readLW link

Mind­ful­ness as debugging

pchvykov30 Apr 2021 16:59 UTC
19 points
4 comments2 min readLW link

How & when to write a busi­ness plan

bfinn15 Apr 2021 15:45 UTC
13 points
5 comments5 min readLW link

Our com­pressed perception

pchvykov6 Apr 2021 11:01 UTC
12 points
0 comments2 min readLW link

An ex­plo­ra­tion of ex­ploita­tion bias

Eric Neyman3 Apr 2021 23:03 UTC
14 points
0 comments10 min readLW link
(ericneyman.wordpress.com)

[Question] Peo­ple are gath­er­ing 2 mil­lion USD to save a kid with a rare dis­ease. I feel weird about it. Why?

hookdump2 Apr 2021 23:00 UTC
9 points
7 comments1 min readLW link

Write a busi­ness plan already

bfinn25 Mar 2021 0:13 UTC
17 points
14 comments7 min readLW link

Notic­ing and Over­com­ing Bias

Neel Nanda6 Mar 2021 21:06 UTC
14 points
1 comment7 min readLW link

Met­ric se­lec­tion bias: why Moore’s law is less im­por­tant than you think

Aaron Bergman8 Feb 2021 0:21 UTC
18 points
10 comments6 min readLW link
(aaronbergman.substack.com)

AXRP Epi­sode 2 - Learn­ing Hu­man Bi­ases with Ro­hin Shah

DanielFilan29 Dec 2020 20:43 UTC
13 points
0 comments35 min readLW link

Vac­ci­na­tion with the EMH

DirectedEvolution29 Dec 2020 3:05 UTC
17 points
16 comments8 min readLW link

Great minds might not think alike

Eric Neyman26 Dec 2020 19:51 UTC
300 points
45 comments11 min readLW link
(ericneyman.wordpress.com)

The In­com­pre­hen­si­bil­ity Bluff

SocratesDissatisfied6 Dec 2020 18:26 UTC
41 points
22 comments6 min readLW link

Straight-edge Warn­ing Against Phys­i­cal Intimacy

Raphaëll23 Nov 2020 21:35 UTC
17 points
42 comments5 min readLW link

[Question] Is Stu­pidity Ex­pand­ing? Some Hy­pothe­ses.

David Gross15 Oct 2020 3:28 UTC
71 points
42 comments5 min readLW link

Linkpost: Choice Ex­plains Pos­i­tivity and Con­fir­ma­tion Bias

Gunnar_Zarncke1 Oct 2020 21:46 UTC
8 points
0 comments1 min readLW link

Why You Might Want a New Way to Vi­su­al­ize Biases

dtm27 Jul 2020 17:30 UTC
18 points
2 comments3 min readLW link

A New Way to Vi­su­al­ize Biases

dtm22 Jul 2020 17:57 UTC
6 points
16 comments1 min readLW link

Book Re­view: Fooled by Randomness

Sherrinford13 Jul 2020 21:02 UTC
33 points
10 comments5 min readLW link

Old-world Poli­tics Fallacy

Rudi C23 Jun 2020 12:32 UTC
7 points
0 comments2 min readLW link

Con­fir­ma­tion Bias As Mis­fire Of Nor­mal Bayesian Reasoning

Scott Alexander13 Feb 2020 7:20 UTC
43 points
9 comments2 min readLW link
(slatestarcodex.com)

What cog­ni­tive bi­ases feel like from the inside

chaosmage3 Jan 2020 14:24 UTC
249 points
32 comments4 min readLW link

Rev­er­sal Tests in Ar­gu­ment and Debate

Davis_Kingsley13 Sep 2019 9:18 UTC
32 points
2 comments1 min readLW link

In­spec­tion Para­dox as a Driver of Group Separation

shminux17 Aug 2019 21:47 UTC
29 points
0 comments1 min readLW link

Pro­posed al­gorithm to fight an­chor­ing bias

John_Maxwell3 Aug 2019 4:07 UTC
10 points
2 comments1 min readLW link

Scope Insen­si­tivity Judo

Gordon Seidoh Worley19 Jul 2019 17:33 UTC
22 points
3 comments6 min readLW link

Why ar­tifi­cial op­ti­mism?

jessicata15 Jul 2019 21:41 UTC
66 points
29 comments4 min readLW link
(unstableontology.com)

Know­ing I’m Be­ing Tricked is Barely Enough

Elizabeth26 Feb 2019 17:50 UTC
37 points
10 comments2 min readLW link
(acesounderglass.com)

Prob­a­bil­ity space has 2 metrics

Donald Hobson10 Feb 2019 0:28 UTC
88 points
11 comments1 min readLW link

You can be wrong about what you like, and you of­ten are

Adam Zerner17 Dec 2018 23:49 UTC
30 points
21 comments4 min readLW link

Dou­ble-Dip­ping in Dun­ning—Kruger

isovector28 Nov 2018 3:40 UTC
88 points
31 comments3 min readLW link

In praise of heuristics

Bucky24 Oct 2018 15:44 UTC
39 points
27 comments7 min readLW link

Bayes’ Law is About Mul­ti­ple Hy­poth­e­sis Testing

abramdemski4 May 2018 5:31 UTC
36 points
5 comments5 min readLW link

Chart­ing Deaths: Real­ity vs Reported

lifelonglearner30 Mar 2018 0:50 UTC
13 points
1 comment1 min readLW link
(owenshen24.github.io)

Beyond al­gorith­mic equiv­alence: self-modelling

Stuart_Armstrong28 Feb 2018 16:55 UTC
10 points
3 comments1 min readLW link

Beyond al­gorith­mic equiv­alence: al­gorith­mic noise

Stuart_Armstrong28 Feb 2018 16:55 UTC
10 points
4 comments2 min readLW link

A sim­pler way to think about pos­i­tive test bias

cousin_it22 Jan 2018 9:38 UTC
16 points
10 comments1 min readLW link

Choice begets regret

bryjnar4 Jan 2018 20:28 UTC
12 points
5 comments4 min readLW link

Bias in ra­tio­nal­ity is much worse than noise

Stuart_Armstrong31 Oct 2017 11:57 UTC
11 points
0 comments2 min readLW link

De-Cen­ter­ing Bias

Chris_Leong18 Oct 2017 23:24 UTC
14 points
10 comments2 min readLW link

In­stru­men­tal Ra­tion­al­ity 2: Plan­ning 101

lifelonglearner6 Oct 2017 14:23 UTC
17 points
4 comments14 min readLW link

Why is the sur­pris­ingly pop­u­lar an­swer cor­rect?

Stuart_Armstrong3 Feb 2017 16:24 UTC
43 points
13 comments3 min readLW link

If we can’t lie to oth­ers, we will lie to ourselves

paulfchristiano26 Nov 2016 22:29 UTC
45 points
24 comments1 min readLW link
(sideways-view.com)

Sleep­walk bias, self-defeat­ing pre­dic­tions and ex­is­ten­tial risk

Stefan_Schubert22 Apr 2016 18:31 UTC
39 points
11 comments3 min readLW link

Si­mul­ta­neous Over­con­fi­dence and Underconfidence

abramdemski3 Jun 2015 21:04 UTC
37 points
6 comments5 min readLW link

The File Drawer Effect and Con­for­mity Bias (Elec­tion Edi­tion)

Salemicus8 May 2015 16:51 UTC
48 points
25 comments1 min readLW link

Feel­ing Moral

Eliezer Yudkowsky11 Mar 2015 19:00 UTC
40 points
8 comments3 min readLW link

Bi­ases: An Introduction

Rob Bensinger11 Mar 2015 19:00 UTC
245 points
14 comments5 min readLW link

Ra­tion­al­ity: An Introduction

Rob Bensinger11 Mar 2015 19:00 UTC
38 points
7 comments8 min readLW link

A List of Nuances

abramdemski10 Nov 2014 5:02 UTC
64 points
24 comments10 min readLW link

“Fol­low your dreams” as a case study in in­cor­rect thinking

cousin_it20 Aug 2014 13:18 UTC
43 points
53 comments2 min readLW link

The silos of ex­per­tise: be­yond heuris­tics and biases

Stuart_Armstrong26 Jun 2014 13:13 UTC
48 points
16 comments9 min readLW link

The Ra­tion­al­ity Wars

Stefan_Schubert27 Feb 2014 17:08 UTC
30 points
43 comments3 min readLW link

The Anti-Placebo Effect

ShannonFriedman28 Sep 2013 5:44 UTC
65 points
39 comments3 min readLW link

In­stinc­tive Fre­quen­tists, the Out­side View, and de-Biasing

Stuart_Armstrong20 Sep 2013 20:19 UTC
63 points
23 comments2 min readLW link

Book Re­view: Heuris­tics and Bi­ases (MIRI course list)

So8res2 Sep 2013 15:37 UTC
49 points
22 comments20 min readLW link

Bi­ases of In­tu­itive and Log­i­cal Thinkers

pwno13 Aug 2013 3:50 UTC
32 points
84 comments7 min readLW link

Priv­ileg­ing the Question

Qiaochu_Yuan29 Apr 2013 18:30 UTC
222 points
312 comments2 min readLW link

Why Don’t Peo­ple Help Others More?

Peter Wildeford13 Aug 2012 23:34 UTC
54 points
85 comments10 min readLW link

What are the op­ti­mal bi­ases to over­come?

aaronsw4 Aug 2012 15:04 UTC
103 points
70 comments2 min readLW link

Ex­ploit­ing the Typ­i­cal Mind Fal­lacy for more ac­cu­rate ques­tion­ing?

Xachariah17 Jul 2012 0:46 UTC
47 points
73 comments1 min readLW link

Punc­tu­al­ity—Ar­riv­ing on Time and Math

Xachariah3 May 2012 1:35 UTC
135 points
40 comments5 min readLW link

Bi­ased Pandemic

freyley13 Mar 2012 23:32 UTC
82 points
36 comments4 min readLW link

New cog­ni­tive bias ar­ti­cles on wikipe­dia (up­date)

nerfhammer9 Mar 2012 20:13 UTC
108 points
19 comments1 min readLW link

I Was Not Al­most Wrong But I Was Al­most Right: Close-Call Coun­ter­fac­tu­als and Bias

Kaj_Sotala8 Mar 2012 5:39 UTC
86 points
40 comments9 min readLW link

Heuris­tics and Bi­ases in Charity

Kaj_Sotala2 Mar 2012 15:20 UTC
30 points
57 comments7 min readLW link

Am­bi­guity in cog­ni­tive bias names; a refresher

nerfhammer21 Feb 2012 4:37 UTC
39 points
8 comments3 min readLW link

Ter­mi­nal Bias

[deleted]30 Jan 2012 21:03 UTC
24 points
125 comments6 min readLW link

The Sub­sti­tu­tion Principle

Kaj_Sotala28 Jan 2012 4:20 UTC
108 points
65 comments4 min readLW link

Some po­ten­tial dan­gers of ra­tio­nal­ity training

lukeprog21 Jan 2012 4:50 UTC
28 points
48 comments1 min readLW link

The bias shield

PhilGoetz31 Dec 2011 17:44 UTC
29 points
65 comments6 min readLW link

[Link] How to Dispel Your Illu­sions

[deleted]6 Dec 2011 14:46 UTC
37 points
17 comments6 min readLW link

Prac­ti­cal debiasing

crazy8820 Nov 2011 9:45 UTC
40 points
13 comments5 min readLW link

Re­view of Kah­ne­man, ‘Think­ing, Fast and Slow’ (2011)

lukeprog28 Oct 2011 1:59 UTC
40 points
10 comments3 min readLW link

[LINK] Cog­ni­tive Bi­ases in Sports: The Ir­ra­tional­ity of Coaches, Com­men­ta­tors and Fans

[deleted]23 Sep 2011 0:14 UTC
5 points
29 comments1 min readLW link

Ra­tional Home Buying

Scott Alexander27 Aug 2011 0:15 UTC
165 points
138 comments7 min readLW link

Judg­ment Un­der Uncer­tainty sum­maries, Part 1: Representativeness

Tesseract15 Aug 2011 0:05 UTC
42 points
2 comments6 min readLW link

Ten­den­cies in re­flec­tive equilibrium

Scott Alexander20 Jul 2011 10:38 UTC
53 points
70 comments4 min readLW link

Ra­tion­al­ist Judo, or Us­ing the Availa­bil­ity Heuris­tic to Win

jschulter15 Jul 2011 8:39 UTC
33 points
27 comments3 min readLW link

Prospect The­ory: A Frame­work for Un­der­stand­ing Cog­ni­tive Biases

Scott Alexander10 Jul 2011 5:20 UTC
99 points
50 comments4 min readLW link

“I know I’m bi­ased, but...”

[deleted]10 May 2011 20:03 UTC
32 points
21 comments3 min readLW link

Book Re­view: Pre­dictably Ir­ra­tional by Dan Ariely

erratio8 May 2011 8:13 UTC
47 points
9 comments4 min readLW link

Your Evolved Intuitions

lukeprog5 May 2011 16:21 UTC
21 points
106 comments10 min readLW link

How You Make Judg­ments: The Elephant and its Rider

lukeprog15 Apr 2011 1:02 UTC
62 points
19 comments13 min readLW link

The Bias You Didn’t Expect

Psychohistorian14 Apr 2011 16:20 UTC
131 points
91 comments2 min readLW link

The Good News of Si­tu­a­tion­ist Psychology

lukeprog1 Apr 2011 19:28 UTC
79 points
48 comments3 min readLW link

Some Heuris­tics for Eval­u­at­ing the Sound­ness of the Aca­demic Main­stream in Un­fa­mil­iar Fields

Vladimir_M15 Feb 2011 9:17 UTC
101 points
276 comments9 min readLW link

Fight Zero-Sum Bias

multifoliaterose18 Jul 2010 5:57 UTC
28 points
164 comments2 min readLW link

So You Think You’re a Bayesian? The Nat­u­ral Mode of Prob­a­bil­is­tic Reasoning

Matt_Simpson14 Jul 2010 16:51 UTC
66 points
80 comments10 min readLW link

A Tax­on­omy of Bias: The Cog­ni­tive Miser

Kaj_Sotala2 Jul 2010 18:38 UTC
67 points
38 comments5 min readLW link

Your in­tu­itions are not magic

Kaj_Sotala10 Jun 2010 0:11 UTC
161 points
42 comments4 min readLW link

On En­joy­ing Disagree­able Company

Alicorn26 May 2010 1:47 UTC
67 points
254 comments7 min readLW link

Blue- and Yel­low-Tinted Choices

Scott Alexander13 May 2010 22:35 UTC
74 points
57 comments4 min readLW link

Only hu­mans can have hu­man values

PhilGoetz26 Apr 2010 18:57 UTC
50 points
161 comments17 min readLW link

The Red Bias

Jack20 Apr 2010 11:42 UTC
40 points
62 comments4 min readLW link

Are these cog­ni­tive bi­ases, bi­ases?

Kaj_Sotala23 Dec 2009 17:27 UTC
46 points
24 comments6 min readLW link

Fun­da­men­tally Flawed, or Fast and Fru­gal?

Kaj_Sotala20 Dec 2009 15:10 UTC
49 points
86 comments6 min readLW link

Do­ing your good deed for the day

Scott Alexander27 Oct 2009 0:45 UTC
152 points
57 comments3 min readLW link

I’m Not Say­ing Peo­ple Are Stupid

Eliezer Yudkowsky9 Oct 2009 16:23 UTC
50 points
101 comments1 min readLW link

Evolved Bayesi­ans will be biased

taw20 Aug 2009 14:54 UTC
28 points
14 comments2 min readLW link

Why You’re Stuck in a Narrative

[deleted]4 Aug 2009 0:31 UTC
45 points
32 comments5 min readLW link

Shut Up And Guess

Scott Alexander21 Jul 2009 4:04 UTC
123 points
110 comments5 min readLW link

Zwicky’s Trifecta of Illusions

thomblake17 Jul 2009 16:59 UTC
23 points
27 comments1 min readLW link

The Fixed Sum Fallacy

cousin_it3 Jul 2009 13:01 UTC
5 points
4 comments1 min readLW link

What’s In A Name?

Scott Alexander29 Jun 2009 12:54 UTC
47 points
138 comments3 min readLW link

Don’t Count Your Chick­ens...

thomblake17 Jun 2009 15:21 UTC
4 points
9 comments1 min readLW link

Readi­ness Heuristics

jimrandomh15 Jun 2009 1:53 UTC
22 points
7 comments4 min readLW link

Pos­i­tive Bias Test (C++ pro­gram)

MBlume19 May 2009 21:32 UTC
30 points
79 comments4 min readLW link

You Are A Brain

Liron9 May 2009 21:53 UTC
131 points
64 comments1 min readLW link

Con­sider Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Data Sets

Vladimir_Nesov6 May 2009 1:49 UTC
12 points
15 comments5 min readLW link

Ver­bal Over­shad­ow­ing and The Art of Rationality

pangloss27 Apr 2009 23:39 UTC
69 points
24 comments3 min readLW link

Should we be bi­ased?

James_Miller27 Apr 2009 15:42 UTC
−12 points
23 comments1 min readLW link

The Trou­ble With “Good”

Scott Alexander17 Apr 2009 2:07 UTC
99 points
137 comments6 min readLW link

By­s­tan­der Apathy

Eliezer Yudkowsky13 Apr 2009 1:26 UTC
45 points
20 comments3 min readLW link

Sunk Cost Fallacy

Z_M_Davis12 Apr 2009 17:30 UTC
40 points
44 comments2 min readLW link

How Much Thought

jimrandomh12 Apr 2009 4:56 UTC
49 points
26 comments4 min readLW link

Heuris­tic is not a bad word

HughRistik6 Apr 2009 6:55 UTC
12 points
13 comments3 min readLW link

Why Sup­port the Un­der­dog?

Scott Alexander5 Apr 2009 0:01 UTC
42 points
102 comments3 min readLW link

Proverbs and Cached Judg­ments: the Rol­ling Stone

Annoyance1 Apr 2009 15:40 UTC
18 points
30 comments2 min readLW link

Fight Bi­ases, or Route Around Them?

Scott Alexander25 Mar 2009 22:23 UTC
29 points
9 comments5 min readLW link

The Im­plicit As­so­ci­a­tion Test

Scott Alexander25 Mar 2009 0:11 UTC
30 points
31 comments7 min readLW link

Bo­gus Pipeline, Bona Fide Pipeline

Scott Alexander24 Mar 2009 0:10 UTC
30 points
16 comments3 min readLW link

Never Leave Your Room

Scott Alexander18 Mar 2009 0:30 UTC
82 points
65 comments3 min readLW link

The Wrath of Kahneman

steven04619 Mar 2009 12:52 UTC
30 points
20 comments1 min readLW link

It’s the Same Five Dol­lars!

Z_M_Davis8 Mar 2009 7:23 UTC
27 points
32 comments1 min readLW link

Lawful Uncertainty

Eliezer Yudkowsky10 Nov 2008 21:06 UTC
100 points
57 comments4 min readLW link

Try­ing to Try

Eliezer Yudkowsky1 Oct 2008 8:58 UTC
206 points
58 comments3 min readLW link

Scarcity

Eliezer Yudkowsky27 Mar 2008 8:07 UTC
69 points
20 comments3 min readLW link

Allais Malaise

Eliezer Yudkowsky21 Jan 2008 0:40 UTC
40 points
38 comments2 min readLW link

Zut Allais!

Eliezer Yudkowsky20 Jan 2008 3:18 UTC
53 points
51 comments6 min readLW link

The Allais Paradox

Eliezer Yudkowsky19 Jan 2008 3:05 UTC
57 points
145 comments3 min readLW link

But There’s Still A Chance, Right?

Eliezer Yudkowsky6 Jan 2008 1:56 UTC
101 points
59 comments2 min readLW link

Asch’s Con­for­mity Experiment

Eliezer Yudkowsky26 Dec 2007 7:03 UTC
59 points
67 comments4 min readLW link

Su­per­hero Bias

Eliezer Yudkowsky1 Dec 2007 3:14 UTC
110 points
43 comments3 min readLW link

The Halo Effect

Eliezer Yudkowsky30 Nov 2007 0:58 UTC
66 points
56 comments3 min readLW link

Un­bounded Scales, Huge Jury Awards, & Futurism

Eliezer Yudkowsky29 Nov 2007 7:45 UTC
69 points
10 comments3 min readLW link

Evalua­bil­ity (And Cheap Holi­day Shop­ping)

Eliezer Yudkowsky28 Nov 2007 0:37 UTC
69 points
62 comments4 min readLW link

The Affect Heuristic

Eliezer Yudkowsky27 Nov 2007 7:58 UTC
69 points
70 comments3 min readLW link

Self-Anchoring

Eliezer Yudkowsky22 Oct 2007 6:11 UTC
45 points
10 comments2 min readLW link

Do We Believe Every­thing We’re Told?

Eliezer Yudkowsky10 Oct 2007 23:52 UTC
88 points
40 comments2 min readLW link

Prim­ing and Contamination

Eliezer Yudkowsky10 Oct 2007 2:23 UTC
54 points
27 comments3 min readLW link

We Change Our Minds Less Often Than We Think

Eliezer Yudkowsky3 Oct 2007 18:14 UTC
96 points
119 comments1 min readLW link

Bur­den­some Details

Eliezer Yudkowsky20 Sep 2007 23:46 UTC
212 points
44 comments4 min readLW link

Con­junc­tion Con­tro­versy (Or, How They Nail It Down)

Eliezer Yudkowsky20 Sep 2007 2:41 UTC
58 points
25 comments8 min readLW link

Con­junc­tion Fallacy

Eliezer Yudkowsky19 Sep 2007 1:54 UTC
48 points
46 comments3 min readLW link

Plan­ning Fallacy

Eliezer Yudkowsky17 Sep 2007 7:06 UTC
169 points
43 comments3 min readLW link

An­chor­ing and Adjustment

Eliezer Yudkowsky7 Sep 2007 21:33 UTC
71 points
22 comments2 min readLW link

Why is the Fu­ture So Ab­surd?

Eliezer Yudkowsky7 Sep 2007 8:42 UTC
51 points
17 comments3 min readLW link

Availability

Eliezer Yudkowsky6 Sep 2007 6:55 UTC
150 points
23 comments2 min readLW link

Ab­sur­dity Heuris­tic, Ab­sur­dity Bias

Eliezer Yudkowsky5 Sep 2007 3:20 UTC
53 points
10 comments2 min readLW link

Stranger Than History

Eliezer Yudkowsky1 Sep 2007 18:57 UTC
125 points
335 comments1 min readLW link

Hind­sight De­val­ues Science

Eliezer Yudkowsky17 Aug 2007 19:39 UTC
227 points
43 comments2 min readLW link

Hind­sight bias

Eliezer Yudkowsky16 Aug 2007 21:58 UTC
73 points
25 comments2 min readLW link

Cor­re­spon­dence Bias

Eliezer Yudkowsky25 Jun 2007 0:58 UTC
91 points
49 comments3 min readLW link

Scope Insensitivity

Eliezer Yudkowsky14 May 2007 2:53 UTC
276 points
68 comments2 min readLW link

“In­duc­tive Bias”

Eliezer Yudkowsky8 Apr 2007 19:52 UTC
39 points
24 comments3 min readLW link

De­bi­as­ing as Non-Self-Destruction

Eliezer Yudkowsky7 Apr 2007 20:20 UTC
46 points
21 comments2 min readLW link

Know­ing About Bi­ases Can Hurt People

Eliezer Yudkowsky4 Apr 2007 18:01 UTC
193 points
82 comments2 min readLW link

Archimedes’s Chronophone

Eliezer Yudkowsky23 Mar 2007 17:43 UTC
59 points
94 comments4 min readLW link

What’s a Bias?

Eliezer Yudkowsky27 Nov 2006 1:50 UTC
158 points
16 comments2 min readLW link
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