Talk:List of cognitive biases/Archive 2

How to translate this long article with so many terms that have links to their own pages to e.g. french?
This article is huge, it has all these terms that have their own pages. And how do we make it happen that the biases are taken up in the beautiful and interactive brain map in e.g. french? Thy, --SvenAERTS (talk) 15:53, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
 * This page lists those biases the English Wikipedia has articles about. If the French Wikipedia also has articles on all those biases, then you translate the page by, well, starting at the top and keeping translating until you're done. If the French Wikipedia doesn't have articles on some of these biases, omit those list entries. In either case first make sure that the French Wikipedia's policies and guidelines regarding lists are compatible with the English one's so that a translation is actually acceptable to the French Wikipedia. The image is a .svg file which likely has all the text somewhere within its code. You can edit that code and translate the text. See commons:Commons:Translation_possible/Learn more for details on how to translate a .svg. Huon (talk) 21:26, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
 * , Thx, is there no advise like "start a translation on your own personal page, take a break and then continue when you have time again until the whole article is translated?SvenAERTS (talk) 14:24, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
 * There is Help:Sandbox tutorial which covers how to create a sandbox, and there is WP:Drafts on drafts in general. I don't think this kind of advice is needed specifically for translations since it holds for all new pages, translated or not. The French Wikipedia may have its own help pages dealing with translations, drafts and sandboxes; you may want to ask there. Huon (talk) 19:41, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
 * hello! To tag onto what said, you can try a beta feature that sometimes translates wikilinks as well. Click "Beta" in the upper right, scroll all the way down, and check the box left of "Content Translation". Then, you can test the tool out by going to Special:ContentTranslation. The specific section of the image translation page is commons:Switch SVG. Again, please be sure to check French Wikipedia's policies as well as our Translate us guide. Stay well, Rotideypoc41352 (talk · contribs) 21:33, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Several notes
At the moment there is no indication to the general reader that some of the biases listed have weaker claims than others (for instance, there is no mention of the fact that the Backfire effect has not been successfully replicated at all). At the moment this is essentially a list of claimed/theorised cognitive biases, not demonstrated ones. Which is fine, but again, there is no way for the general reader to know this. The list appears more authoritative than it actually is. You could easily read the article and assume that these are all empirically equal insights into human behaviour, when they are not. The description box basically just describes the central claim of the purported biases, but not contextual information such as whether or not there is a consensus that the bias exists, contentions, equivocations etc.

Another quibble of mine, though obviously this can't have any effect on the article since it's purely a private gripe: it seems self-evident to me that the perception of Decline, like the perception of Progress, is an inevitable result when making value judgements about two phenomena which exist relative to one another in time, and not necessarily the product of a bias or predisposition. Just as there is the tendency to view the "good old days" with rose-tinted glasses, there is also a tendency to think of the past as being necessarily worse than the present (e.g. thinking the Middle Ages were more brutal and repressive than they actually were, and so on). I'd argue that, as modern people who generally perceive themselves as living in a society which is an improvement upon older ones, we are more sensitive to claims of decline, since they contrast with the Whig history that we take for granted. This itself probably constitutes a kind of invisible bias. A gay rights activist viewing the intolerance of homosexuality of the Middle Ages as compared with Grecian antiquity is going to perceive it as a moral decline, a Christian conservative as a moral advance. And so on. Ad infinitum. Maskettaman (talk) 06:16, 23 May 2020 (UTC)


 * "no indication to the general reader that some of the biases listed have weaker claims" No problem. Add a sentence to the effect that list entries have varying degrees of empirical support or scientific consensus behind them. Then find reliable sources for the individual entries, finally modify entries with qualifiers like "hypothesized", "disputed", "not universally accepted", "broad consensus for". Easy enough. Happy editing. Paradoctor (talk) 14:29, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

Testing effect
The testing effect is summarized as "The fact that you more easily remember information you have read by rewriting it instead of rereading it.", however, the Testing effect article itself does not mention rewriting or writing at all - it states that the testing effect is the finding that long-term memory is often increased when some of the learning period is devoted to retrieving the to-be-remembered information. In other words, any form of retrieval, not just in written form. --Ateista (talk) 11:36, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

Gynocentrism
I can't access the Hamilton 1991 ref (ref 58 in the current version). Could you reproduce here a couple of sentences from the paper where it mentions gynocentrism? This edit implies the paper describes both androcentrism and gynocentrism. MartinPoulter (talk) 14:18, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

Addition of the column "type" to group similar biases
To help with the categorization of the biases, I have added a column "type". For many biases, the grouping is fairly obvious (such as the social biases that are a subtype of attribution bias), but for others it is more subjective or even unclear to which category they would belong to (some of them are so different that they may deserve a whole category for themselves), hence the many empty cells for the biases that I wasn't able to map. Thus, while it is already useful as it stands, this mapping be considered a work in progress 7804j (talk) 10:24, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

Insight fallacy
We need an article about the insight fallacy, a confusion between understanding what causes a problem, and solving the problem. There are many web hits about it. Noting it here so that I don't forget, and in case anyone wants to try it. I'll put it on my own todo list but don't wait up for me. ;-) 2601:648:8202:96B0:0:0:0:DDAF (talk) 08:36, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

False attribution to parts of the definition of personhood; on impersonal religions
Projected personhood (fragmented or whole/personalized) unto/to anything (any event or object; object used hypernymously including all biological animals)

On impersonal/atheistic (rare) religions, the adherents falsely attribute everything (including perceived by them intentions) to a fragmented personhood. The believers project their own personhood. fragmented (field or autistic agents like magic stones and magical trees unable to express the full criteria of personhood but DO fulfil some personocratically/personocentrically purposeful ones) or as a whole (god) to everything (actions, interactions, interpreted intentions even on natural and physical phenomena and events, etc).


 * There do not seem to be any reliable sources even using the term, let alone discussing it. Paradoctor (talk) 15:21, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Reorganize the article according to Buster Benson's work?
Buster Benson worked to summarize and categorize all of the cognitive biases on this page some years ago and it seems some people find great value in his work. Maybe this article could incorporate his work as well? Karland90 (talk) 10:33, 20 November 2020 (UTC)


 * Is Benson a WP:RS? Paradoctor (talk) 12:08, 20 November 2020 (UTC)
 * P. S.: Relevant previous discussion can be found at . Paradoctor (talk) 12:12, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

"Extraordinarity bias" listed at Redirects for discussion
A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Extraordinarity bias. The discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 January 20 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. (t &#183; c)  buidhe  01:31, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

Fallacious example on gender bias should be removed
I tried to remove a fallacious example under Gender bias but for some reason it was rolled back. The example: "Or the assumption that academia discriminates against women even as they outnumber men in college and graduate school in the US,[55][56] and earn the majority of undergraduate and graduate degrees.[57]" need to be removed. It's not an example of a gender bias, which has just been defined as "A widely held[52] set of implicit biases that discriminate against a gender." Where exactly does "the assumption that academia discriminates against women" fulfil the definition of being a set of implicit biases? It doesn't, so it should be removed. //Hobbsansak (talk) 12:14, 12 February 2021 (UTC)
 * , I agree with your position, and the sources (which appear to be blogs anyway) don't support the assertion that this is a cognitive bias. I've removed it again. Girth Summit  (blether)  12:26, 12 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you, . Your phrasing of the reason for the removal was better than mine so hopefully it won't be rolled back again. :) //Hobbsansak (talk) 12:47, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
 * , to be honest, you shouldn't have been reverted in the first place. However, we have thousands of edits every day where try to change articles articles to reflect their own particular point of view without reference to sources, using edit summaries similar to your one. If you mention the sources in your edit summary, people ought to at least check before reverting you. Cheers Girth Summit  (blether)  18:41, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

Selection Bias description is different from the linked article
The selection bias's description does not match with the description in the linked article.

The description on this page is: "The tendency to notice something more when something causes us to be more aware of it, such as when we buy a car, we tend to notice similar cars more often than we did before. They are not suddenly more common – we just are noticing them more. Also called the Observational Selection Bias."

The select bias page however describes it as: "Selection bias is the bias introduced by the selection of individuals, groups or data for analysis in such a way that proper randomization is not achieved, thereby ensuring that the sample obtained is not representative of the population intended to be analyzed."

Maybe they do agree and I am misunderstanding it. The description sounds more like the Frequency Illusion, which is mentioned as a form of selection bias. Maybe the Selection Bias should be updated to the Observational Selection Bias and be linked to this paragraph on the linked page? Either the description or the link seems to need updating.


 * Agree, that's the frequency illusion. Made a bold update. Let me know what you think. Paradoctor (talk) 15:27, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

What does "type" mean?
The article should define what is meant by "type" in the tables. Otherwise, it's hard for editors to understand what goes in that column, and for readers to get any real meaning from the column. --Xurizuri (talk) 02:26, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

Hungry judge effect vs. Interoceptive bias
Should the entries "Hungry judge effect" and "Interoceptive bias" be merged? Interoceptive bias sounds more general and uses the same citation that is used in the article that Hungry Judge links to. Or would it be more appropriate to make "Interoceptive bias" a type in the list? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shawsa7 (talk • contribs) 17:24, 6 December 2021 (UTC)


 * Support merge. A type only when other biases of the type become sourced. Paradoctor (talk) 18:25, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Agreed. I added the name to the Interoceptive entry so we retain the link to the wiki article.  Squatch347 (talk) 20:38, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 8 January 2020 and 25 April 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Sierra827.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 02:41, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Single-action bias

 * single-action bias - relying on only one action to reduce a threat.
 * http://blogs.edf.org/markets/2011/08/09/single-action-bias

Not sure where this fits in. --evrik (talk) 04:37, 11 April 2022 (UTC)


 * Related: Action_bias
 * Maybe it can be mentioned under the action bias section? IrrationalBeing (talk) 20:54, 6 September 2022 (UTC)