Post No.: 0892
Fluffystealthkitten says:
As our spaceship descends onto an alien regolith, the fine dust kicks out and blinds our cameras before settling down.
Furrywisepuppy says:
We then send our robot doggy Rover out to sniff out the surface for any signs of life.
Fluffystealthkitten says:
The informational and statistics-related biases of Post No.: 0877 were an asteroid field, but this exoplanet of social and attributional biases may prove even more treacherous…
Furrywisepuppy says:
Authority bias – the readiness to pay greater heed to the opinions of authority figures, including celebrities, even if they don’t really have any special expertise on a matter.
Fluffystealthkitten says:
Ben Franklin effect – here, a person who has performed a favour for someone is more likely to do another favour for them compared to if they had received a favour from them. So we tend to like someone more after doing a favour for them, possibly due to trying to avert cognitive dissonance i.e. ‘why am I helping them? It must be because I like them’.
Furrywisepuppy says:
Conformity bias – the predilection to follow and copy others in a group, even if doing so goes against one’s own judgement.
Fluffystealthkitten says:
Courtesy bias – the proclivity to give an opinion that’s more socially appropriate than one’s honest opinion, in order to avoid offending anyone.
Furrywisepuppy says:
Critical self-referent attribution bias or rejection sensitivity – automatically internalising and assuming that the reason why someone else has rejected us is because of something about us rather than the possibility that it was merely the neutral circumstances of the other party. Or automatically blaming oneself regarding ambiguous situations or anticipating rejection and thus avoiding situations that may risk rejection; but then by being withdrawn and passive, this can lead to further rejection and in turn deep insecure traits such as constantly demanding social validation of one’s worth from others, and/or depression.
This is why one must always consider all possible alternative explanations regarding ambiguous events and not jump to conclusions.
Fluffystealthkitten says:
Defensive attribution hypothesis – the attribution of more blame to a perpetrator of harm as the outcome becomes more severe, or as one’s personal or situational similarity to the victim increases.
Furrywisepuppy says:
Egocentric bias – occurs when we claim more responsibility for ourselves for the positive results of a joint action than an outside observer would credit us. Or recalling the past in a self-serving manner, such as recalling a past performance of ours as better than it really was. It’s having a higher opinion of oneself and of one’s own perspectives than we should.
Fluffystealthkitten says:
Extrinsic incentives bias – this is an exception to the fundamental attribution error. Here, people view others as having situational/extrinsic motivations, like money, and oneself as having dispositional/intrinsic motivations, like wanting to simply learn something.
Furrywisepuppy says:
False consensus effect or consensus bias – the tendency to overestimate the degree to which others agree with us.
Fluffystealthkitten says:
Fundamental attribution error, correspondence bias or actor-observer bias – the penchant, when explaining the causes of behaviour in oneself when we’re the actors, to over-emphasise the influence of our situation and under-emphasise the influence of our own disposition; yet when explaining the causes of behaviour in others when we’re the observers, to over-emphasise the influence of their disposition and under-emphasise the influence of their situation. This is somewhat malleable though because we can also be ready to, when evaluating the causes of the behaviours of someone we like, attribute their positive behaviours to their disposition and their negative behaviours to their situation.
Furrywisepuppy says:
Fundamental pain bias – how we’re biased to believe that we report our own pain levels accurately but others exaggerate theirs!
Fluffystealthkitten says:
Gender bias – gender-based prejudices and discrimination.
Furrywisepuppy says:
Group attribution error – assuming that the traits of an individual group member are reflective of that group as a whole, or assuming that group decisions necessarily reflect the preferences of every single member of that group, even when available information clearly suggests otherwise.
Fluffystealthkitten says:
Like hardly all Brits supported leaving the EU.
Halo effect – the proclivity for us to assume that someone’s traits spill over from one personality area into another, such as assuming that physically attractive and confident people are also clever, kind, trustworthy and other socially desirable traits, and vice-versa.
Furrywisepuppy says:
Hostile attribution bias – the readiness to interpret other people’s ambiguous behaviours as hostile and deliberate, rather than benign or accidental, like when seeing others whispering things. This can lead to one automatically assuming that these other people don’t appreciate, or even hate, us, which in turn could lead one to behave aggressively or passive-aggressively towards these other people in ‘retaliation’, which then in turn will cause these other people to genuinely dislike us in a self-fulfilling and vicious cycle effect!
This, again, is why one must not jump to conclusions regarding ambiguous behaviours. Woof!
Fluffystealthkitten says:
Illusion of asymmetric insight – we like to believe that our knowledge of our peers surpasses their knowledge of us.
Furrywisepuppy says:
Illusion of explanatory depth – the hubris in believing we understand a topic more than we actually do, especially explanatory knowledge; whereas we tend to make more accurate self-assessments for procedural, narrative or factual knowledge.
Fluffystealthkitten says:
Illusion of external agency – when we view self-generated preferences as being instead granted to us by insightful and benevolent agents.
Furrywisepuppy says:
Illusion of transparency – we’re prone to overestimate how well others know our mental states, as well as overestimate how well we know the mental states of others.
Fluffystealthkitten says:
Illusory superiority, better-than-average effect, superiority bias or Lake Wobegon effect – overestimating one’s desirable qualities or achievements and underestimating one’s undesirable qualities or achievements, relative to other people.
Furrywisepuppy says:
Ingroup bias – the tendency for us to give favouritism or favourable evaluations to others we perceive to be members of our own ingroups.
Fluffystealthkitten says:
Intentionality bias – the proclivity to automatically judge human actions to be deliberate and not accidental.
Furrywisepuppy says:
Just-world hypothesis – the assumption that the world is fundamentally fair and just, which causes us to rationalise an otherwise inexplicable injustice as deserved by the victim(s). It’s believing that good things only happen to good people and bad things only happen to bad people.
This belief does somewhat help societies to function because doing good is encouraged and doing bad is deterred. The alternative is believing that randomness and thus meaningless rules. But this hypothesis is hardly always correct – bad things do evidently happen to good people, and bad isn’t always punished. One could believe that all crimes get punished because one doesn’t personally know of any criminals that don’t get caught, but that logic is as poor as believing that the only spiders in your bedroom have been the ones that you’ve seen (they’re likely not and, in this case, if you haven’t noticed any problems about that then you’ve been safe with them lurking there!)
There must therefore be an adaptable view of how justice works so that we don’t emulate or venerate, or forsake or denigrate, the wrong people or acts.
Fluffystealthkitten says:
Moral luck – the tendency to ascribe greater/lesser moral standing to an event depending on its outcome more than the agent’s intention, even if the agent didn’t have full control over either the action or its consequences.
Furrywisepuppy says:
Naïve cynicism – presuming that others are more egocentric than oneself. Related to the bias blind spot.
Fluffystealthkitten says:
Nepotism and cronyism – favouring your own kin, or friends, despite their relative credentials to other candidates. Or automatically siding with members of our own family, or circles, if the evidence is ambiguous or unknown.
But it’s difficult sometimes. Wouldn’t you want to help your own children first? Or wouldn’t you betray your neighbours if you had to do so to save your own blood? It’s easy to say we shouldn’t or wouldn’t unless we’re in a testing situation.
Furrywisepuppy says:
Not invented here syndrome – the aversion to use any ideas, research, standards, etc. that where developed outside of our group.
Fluffystealthkitten says:
Outgroup homogeneity bias – when we see members of other groups as being relatively less diverse than members of our own groups.
Furrywisepuppy says:
Pluralistic ignorance – this happens when we all mistakenly believe that everybody else holds a different opinion than our own.
Fluffystealthkitten says:
Pratfall effect – the tendency for those perceived as highly competent to become more likeable after making a minor mistake, whilst those perceived as averagely competent tend to become less likeable despite them making the exact same mistake.
Furrywisepuppy says:
Prestige bias – the inclination to pay attention to those in a group who appear to be successful or popularly paid attention to.
Fluffystealthkitten says:
Puritanical bias – the predilection to assume that if someone does something wrong, it’s because of their individual moral deficiency or lack of self-control, rather than because of any environmental factors like their socio-economic circumstances.
Furrywisepuppy says:
Pygmalion and Golem effects – when the high expectations we place on someone can actually improve that person’s performances, and vice-versa, respectively. It’s a form of self-fulfilling prophecy.
Fluffystealthkitten says:
Self-fulfilling prophecy – when expecting something to come true will make it more likely come true because of how our own words and actions will subsequently consciously or subconsciously be driven to help make it come true in order to confirm our expectations.
Furrywisepuppy says:
Self-positivity bias – when we hold onto positive views of ourselves in comparison to others. This could lead to us wanting to put others down to make ourselves look good. For instance, assuming that our boss’s critique of our workgroup’s project has nothing to do with us personally.
Fluffystealthkitten says:
Self-serving bias – the susceptibility to personally claim more responsibility for successes than failures, to reject the validity of negative feedback against us, and to focus on one’s strengths and achievements whilst overlooking one’s faults and failures. (Depression can produce the opposite effect though, hence we need a balance between arrogance and being too harsh on ourselves.) Or the penchant to evaluate ambiguous information in a way that’s beneficial to one’s own interests. It’s all about protecting one’s ego from threats.
Furrywisepuppy says:
Sexual over-perception and under-perception bias – how people can overestimate or underestimate how someone else is sexually interested in them.
Fluffystealthkitten says:
Third-person effect – the proneness to believe that mass-communicated media messages influence others more than us i.e. ‘others are sheeple but not me!’
Furrywisepuppy says:
Trait ascription bias – the tendency to view ourselves as relatively variable in terms of personality, behaviour and mood, whilst viewing others as much more one-dimensional and predictable.
Fluffystealthkitten says:
Truth bias – the inclination towards believing that others are generally normally telling the truth. This does help societies to function though.
Furrywisepuppy says:
Ultimate attribution error – similar to the group attribution error, whereby we’re prone to explain an outgroup member’s positive behaviour as coming from a result of chance or circumstance, and their negative behaviour as coming from flaws in their personality; along with ascribing an internal attribution to an entire group instead of just a subset of individuals within that group i.e. they all get tarred with the same brush by mere association. Meanwhile, our own positive behaviours or outcomes are believed to be deliberate and earned, whilst our own negative behaviours (which we’ll perceive to be rare) or outcomes are believed to be down to luck or circumstance and thus undeserved.
Fluffystealthkitten says:
Unconscious bias or implicit bias – how our unconscious prejudices and stereotypes of members of other groups lead us to discriminate against them, all without us being consciously aware of this bias.
Furrywisepuppy says:
Women are wonderful effect – a tendency to associate more positive, caring traits with women than men.
Fluffystealthkitten says:
Worse-than-average effect – the propensity to believe we’ll be worse than others at tasks that are difficult.
Furrywisepuppy says:
…This rocky planet was extremely interesting but there are many more to see.
Fluffystealthkitten says:
I hope you’ll continue to join us on our peregrination through the cosmos…
Meow!
Furrywisepuppy says:
Woof!
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