Psychology & human behaviour

Why people do what they do.

One checked fact a day. Every claim on this site names the study behind it — the authors, the year, and what the check found. If a finding is contested, it says so.

Today’s fact

You are more likable when you make small mistakes.

The pratfall effect shows that a blunder increases the attractiveness of a high-competence individual, while the same blunder typically reduces the at…

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You are physically unable to see what you ignore.
In a 1999 study, roughly half of the people watching a video of people passing a ball failed to notice a person in a g…
You overestimate your ability to control your impulses.
The restraint bias is the tendency for people to overestimate their ability to show self-control in the face of tempta…
You ignore your own senses to match the group.
Participants conformed on at least one trial 74% of the time, but the average conformity rate across all trials was ap…
Your memory of an experience ignores the average duration.
The peak-end rule states that your evaluation of an experience is determined primarily by its most intense moment and …
A leading question can plant a false memory.
The misinformation effect demonstrates that your memory of an event is altered by the phrasing of subsequent questions…
You are systematically wrong about your own schedule.
The planning fallacy is the tendency to underestimate the time needed to complete a future task.…
You value a service more when you see the work.
The labor illusion suggests that users perceive more value in a service if they observe the effort required to produce…
You remember information best when it relates to you.
The self-reference effect demonstrates that humans have superior recall for information processed in relation to their…
You struggle to remember joyful moments while feeling sad.
Mood-congruent memory is the phenomenon where your current emotional state dictates the accessibility of your past mem…
You align your views to minimize conflict within groups.
Groupthink occurs when the desire for harmony or conformity in a decision-making group results in an irrational or dys…
You judge other people using your own internal state.
The 'False Consensus Effect', an example of egocentric bias, is the tendency to overestimate the extent to which other…
You exert less effort when working in a group.
The Ringelmann effect, or social loafing, shows that individuals contribute less energy to a shared task than they do …
You find it impossible to imagine not knowing something.
The curse of knowledge prevents you from accurately predicting the perspective of someone who lacks your expertise.…
You trust vague descriptions that seem specifically about you.
A 1948 experiment showed that people rate generic personality assessments as highly accurate when they believe they ar…
You believe media affects everyone but you.
The third-person effect describes your tendency to estimate that media influence is significantly stronger on others t…
Your memories ignore the duration of your past experiences.
The study was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (JPSP).…
You prefer things just because they are familiar.
A 1968 study by Robert Zajonc demonstrated that participants rated stimuli more favorably as their exposure frequency …
You take action even when it is useless.
In high-pressure situations, people often prefer any action over doing nothing, even if inaction is safer.…
You see patterns that do not actually exist.
Humans are prone to perceiving relationships between two independent events because they share a superficial similarit…
You overvalue the impact of one life change.
The focusing illusion is a cognitive error where, when prompted to consider a specific factor's impact on life satisfa…
You create obstacles to explain your potential failure.
Self-handicapping is the act of putting barriers in your own way to protect your self-esteem.…
You outsource your memory to a search engine.
The brain is less likely to retain information if it knows that data can be easily retrieved elsewhere.…
You stop loving things when you are paid.
Introducing external rewards for an activity you enjoy can reduce your intrinsic motivation to do it.…
You are blind to things right before your eyes.
When the brain is focused on a specific task, it frequently filters out entirely unrelated, visible stimuli.…
You finish books you hate because you started them.
The sunk cost fallacy predisposes you to continue an endeavor based on past investments.…
Your ability to make good choices erodes by evening.
Decision fatigue suggests that quality of judgment declines after repeated choices, a phenomenon famously illustrated …
You believe you possess more talent than the average.
The better-than-average effect is a widespread cognitive bias where individuals rate their abilities as superior to th…
You value a small reward today over more tomorrow.
Hyperbolic discounting shows that as a reward becomes more distant, its subjective value drops sharply.…
Your brain processes positive concepts faster than negative ones.
The Pollyanna principle describes a systematic human tendency to favor positive information in memory and processing.…
You assume you understand everyday objects better than you do.
The illusion of explanatory depth reveals that people believe they understand complex systems until asked to explain t…
You do not know why you reached that conclusion.
The confabulation effect occurs when you provide a logical reason for an action that was actually caused by a subconsc…
Being asked about a behavior makes you more likely to do it.
Asking someone about their intention to perform a future behavior can influence the likelihood of that behavior, but t…
You judge objects differently based on what they are near.
The contrast effect describes how stimuli are perceived relative to contextual anchors, but the Kenrick and Gutierres …
Your brain fills in gaps with events that never happened.
A 1996 study found that simply imagining a past event increases the participant's confidence that the event actually o…
You cannot process two rapid events as separate occurrences.
The attentional blink occurs when a second target is missed if it appears within 200 to 500 milliseconds of the first …
Asking yourself why you like something makes you like it less.
A 1993 study showed that analyzing your own preferences can lead to choices that decrease your long-term satisfaction …
You view strangers as more similar than they are.
Outgroup homogeneity is the tendency to perceive members of other groups as uniform.…
Doing a favor for someone makes you like them.
The Ben Franklin effect demonstrates that helping someone actually increases your affection for them.…
You overestimate how your future self will feel.
The projection bias causes you to project your current tastes or preferences onto your future decisions.…
You falsely believe you predicted the outcome.
Hindsight bias causes you to view events as inevitable after they have occurred.…
You assume attractive people possess other positive traits.
The halo effect causes people to perceive physically appealing individuals as more intelligent and honest.…
You value an object more because you own it.
The endowment effect describes a persistent discrepancy between willingness-to-accept (WTA) and willingness-to-pay (WT…
You believe you are more unique than you are.
The false uniqueness effect leads you to overestimate how rare your own positive traits and abilities actually are.…
You judge your actions by intent but others by outcomes.
The actor-observer hypothesis, proposed by Jones and Nisbett in 1971, posits that individuals attribute their own acti…
You think your personal memories are objectively accurate.
Source monitoring errors lead you to misattribute the origin of your memories.…
You stop helping the moment a witness appears.
The bystander effect shows that the presence of other people decreases your likelihood of acting in an emergency.…
You think your happiness depends on one specific circumstance.
Focalism is the tendency to overestimate the extent to which one specific event will impact your long-term emotional s…
You prefer being accurately judged over being falsely praised.
Self-verification theory suggests that people seek feedback that confirms their own existing self-concept.…
You want what you are told you cannot have.
Psychological reactance is a motivational state that occurs when your freedom to choose is threatened or eliminated.…
You claim success for a team you barely know.
Basking in reflected glory (BIRGing) is the tendency to align with successful groups to bolster self-esteem or social …
You feel more attraction when your heart rate is high.
The misattribution of arousal causes you to interpret unrelated physical excitement as romantic interest.…
You change your own behavior when being watched.
The 'Hawthorne effect' is a popular but scientifically contested term used to describe the hypothesis that subjects ch…
People perform better because you expect them to.
Higher performance expectations lead to improved outcomes for the individuals being observed.…
You will always underestimate the time a task takes.
People consistently predict they will complete tasks faster than they actually do.…
You believe bad things only happen to others.
You consistently underestimate the probability that you will experience negative life events.…
Your brain is programmed to ignore the middle.
The serial position effect was first identified and described by Hermann Ebbinghaus in 1885.…
Losing ten dollars feels worse than winning ten feels.
Kahneman and Tversky's 1992 paper established that the pain of losing is approximately 2.25 times more powerful than t…
You are constantly filtering conversations you are not hearing.
A 1953 study by Colin Cherry established the cocktail party problem, demonstrating the brain's strong tendency to filt…
You remember information better when it relates to yourself.
A 1977 study found that words are recalled far more accurately if they are processed in relation to one's own traits.…
You cannot accurately predict your own emotional responses.
A 2005 study showed that people in a calm state consistently underestimate how much intense emotions will drive their …
You like things more simply because you saw them.
A 1968 study demonstrated that participants rated nonsense symbols as more positive after repeated, brief exposures.…
You filter reality to fit what you already know.
Humans systematically favor information that confirms their existing beliefs.…
You can remember events that never actually happened.
Leading questions can bias eyewitness testimony and retrospectively influence how events are reported.…
You choose the middle option to avoid extremes.
A third, inferior option can make the other choices more attractive.…
You perform better at simple tasks when others watch.
The presence of an audience increases your speed on easy tasks.…
You feel less guilty when you choose inaction.
Humans assign more moral weight to active harm than passive neglect.…
You gauge risk by the news, not logic.
You estimate the probability of events based on how easily examples arise.…
You think you knew the outcome all along.
Your memory of your past confidence changes once you learn the truth.…
You assume your private opinions are the majority view.
You consistently overestimate how much others agree with your personal beliefs.…
Your brain ignores uniform items but highlights the oddity.
The Von Restorff effect states that an item that stands out from a group of similar items is more likely to be remembe…
You judge your current life against those performing better.
The term 'upward social comparison' emerged from later developments in social comparison theory, building upon but dis…
You reach different conclusions depending on how options are presented.
The framing effect describes how your decision-making shifts based on whether an outcome is described in terms of gain…
Your personal effort drops when you join a group.
The phenomenon of decreased group effort is often termed 'social loafing,' a term coined by Latané et al. in 1979, whi…
You ignore the length of an experience in your memory.
Duration neglect is a heuristic where the duration of an experience is assigned little weight relative to the emotiona…
You are blind to the reasons for your own choices.
Choice blindness is the phenomenon where people fail to notice when their own decisions are manipulated, yet they read…
A final sound can wipe out your last memory.
The suffix effect is the finding that recall of the final items in a list is inhibited if an irrelevant, spoken sound …
Your feelings dictate your risk assessment before logic starts.
The affect heuristic is the process of using current emotions to make rapid decisions instead of evaluating complex da…
You find personal meaning in descriptions written for everyone.
The Barnum effect is the psychological phenomenon where individuals believe that vague, generic personality descriptio…
You naturally remember yourself doing more work than others.
The egocentric bias leads individuals to claim more responsibility for a collective outcome than they objectively cont…
You lose the ability to teach once you learn.
The curse of knowledge describes the inability to imagine that other people do not know what you know.…
Your mind is trapped by the first number you hear.
The anchoring effect causes individuals to rely too heavily on the initial piece of information offered when making su…
You judge the actions of your group more leniently.
When a member of your own group fails, you attribute it to bad luck; when an outsider fails, you attribute it to their…
You are functionally blind for half a second.
The attentional blink is a performance deficit where individuals struggle to identify a second target in a rapid seque…
You retain information better when you create it yourself.
Information generated through your own effort is remembered better than information read or heard passively.…
Simply predicting your behavior makes you more likely to act.
When people are asked to predict whether they will perform a behavior, they are statistically more likely to perform t…
You believe you influenced an outcome that was random.
When individuals are given a choice in a game of chance, they rate their probability of success as higher than those w…
Negative feedback has twice the impact of positive praise.
In studies of social interaction and performance, humans weigh negative information significantly more heavily than eq…
Your brain fills in the edges of your vision.
When shown a photograph, people consistently recall seeing more of the scene than was actually present in the frame.…
You agree to big requests to stay consistent.
A 1966 study found that people are more likely to accept a large favor if they first agreed to a small one.…
You value items more just because they are rare.
A 1975 study showed that participants rated cookies as more desirable when they were presented in a nearly empty jar.…
You trust information more when it is easier read.
A 2008 study found that simple, easy-to-read fonts make statements seem more factual and credible.…
You want to believe that bad things are deserved.
A 1966 study found that people tend to derogate victims of misfortune to preserve the belief that the world is inheren…
You believe you know others better than they you.
A 2001 study showed that people consistently rate their understanding of others as superior to the understanding other…
You sabotage your own work to protect your ego.
A 1978 study showed that students would rather choose a drug that hinders their performance than risk failing without …
You are more likable when you make small mistakes.
The pratfall effect shows that a blunder increases the attractiveness of a high-competence individual, while the same …
You fixate on one detail while ignoring the context.
Focalism is the tendency to focus on a single event when predicting its impact on future well-being while neglecting o…
You are most confident when you know the least.
The 1999 study found that individuals performing in the lowest quartiles of certain tasks significantly overestimate t…
The presence of others decreases your urgency to help.
The bystander effect reduces the probability of any single individual offering assistance in an emergency when others …
You assume your future self will have your current desires.
Projection bias is the tendency to overestimate how much your future preferences will align with your present state.…
You are blind to dramatic changes in your environment.
Change blindness is the failure to notice significant visual alterations during a brief interruption or distraction.…
You remember the intensity of an experience, not duration.
The peak-end rule explains how you evaluate past events based on their most intense moment and their ending.…
You judge a stranger's intelligence by their physical attractiveness.
The halo effect is a cognitive bias where one trait influences the overall perception of a person, which Thorndike fir…
You only remember the very first impression you formed.
Information presented at the beginning of a sequence is retained better than information in the middle.…
You eventually believe the lies you heard before.
The persuasive power of a message can increase over time, even if the source was initially discredited.…
You like the people you encounter most frequently.
Physical proximity is a stronger predictor of friendship than shared interests.…
You spend 47% of your day thinking about nothing.
A 2010 study found that nearly half of our waking hours are spent thinking about something other than the present task…
You value your possessions simply because you own them.
People demand more money to give up an item than they would have paid to acquire it.…
Your performance drops when you fear confirming a stereotype.
The awareness of a negative stereotype regarding your group can cause an involuntary decline in performance.…
You keep finishing the book you dislike reading.
The tendency to follow through on an investment is often driven by the cost already incurred.…
Rewards can turn your favorite hobby into a chore.
Extrinsic incentives often reduce the intrinsic motivation you initially felt for an activity.…
You think your nerves are obvious to everyone around.
Research shows people overestimate how effectively others read their internal states, a phenomenon known as the illusi…
You rate an object higher because you built it.
The IKEA effect suggests that individuals place a disproportionately high value on products they partially created.…
You ignore information that contradicts your existing world view.
Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, and recall information in a way that aligns with your pre-…
You believe you see the world exactly as it is.
Naive realism is the human tendency to believe that we see the world objectively while others, who disagree, are biase…
You value a small reward today over a larger one.
Hyperbolic discounting is the tendency for people to choose smaller, immediate rewards over larger, later rewards as t…
You choose the option based on how it is described.
The framing effect describes how the presentation of information influences your perception of the risks and rewards i…
You accept illogical arguments if the conclusion feels true.
Belief bias is the tendency to judge the strength of an argument based on the believability of its conclusion rather t…
You are blind to obvious changes in your environment.
Inattentional blindness occurs when you fail to perceive an unexpected stimulus due to focused attention on another ta…
You claim your successes but blame the environment for failures.
The self-serving bias describes the pattern of attributing success to internal causes and failure to external causes, …
You remember information best when you connect it to yourself.
The self-reference effect is the tendency for people to encode information differently when it is related to themselve…
You judge how common a risk is by how easily you recall it.
The availability heuristic is a mental shortcut that relies on immediate examples that come to mind when evaluating a …
You remember the core meaning but lose the exact words.
The verbatim effect states that you are much more likely to remember the meaning of a sentence than the specific words…
People perform better when you expect them to succeed.
The Pygmalion effect is a psychological phenomenon where high expectations lead to improved performance in a given are…
You only remember the item that stands out.
The Von Restorff effect describes a mnemonic advantage where unique or distinctive items within a series of similar it…
You focus on one problem and ignore the broader reality.
The focusing illusion causes you to overestimate the importance of a single factor on your overall well-being.…
You stick to the status quo to avoid making a choice.
The default effect is your tendency to accept a pre-set option because it requires no active decision-making.…
You confuse your current opinion with your past beliefs.
The hindsight bias creates the illusion that you knew something would happen, even when you had no evidence for it.…
You expect patterns where there is only randomness.
The gambler's fallacy is a well-established cognitive bias defined as the belief that past independent events influenc…
You feel an ownership for groups you did not join.
Basking in reflected glory is the tendency to associate yourself with successful groups or individuals to bolster your…
You interpret early information as a fixed anchor.
The anchoring bias describes how the first number or piece of data you receive heavily influences all subsequent estim…
You believe you are safer than the average person.
Optimism bias is the tendency to rate your own risk of negative life events as significantly lower than that of your p…
You cannot imagine a world where you do not know this.
Once you possess information, you find it nearly impossible to simulate the mindset of someone who lacks it.…
You become blind to your own bad decisions.
In a 2005 experiment, participants were asked to choose between two faces, then asked to explain why they preferred th…
You judge your own actions by intent, but others' by outcomes.
The actor-observer asymmetry was a widely cited hypothesis, but it has failed to replicate in broad meta-analyses.…
You are more troubled by almost winning than losing.
Counterfactual thinking explains why a bronze medalist is often happier than a silver medalist.…
You rate your own work better than the same work.
A 2012 study demonstrated that people value their own creations significantly higher than neutral observers do, often …
You automatically assume that fluent speech equals high intelligence.
A 2006 study found that writers who use complex, unnecessary words are perceived as less intelligent.…
You unconsciously prefer items that share your own initials.
In a 2002 study, researchers proposed that people are disproportionately likely to live in cities or pursue careers th…
You learn more by studying in intervals than in blocks.
The spacing effect, first studied systematically by Hermann Ebbinghaus in 1885, demonstrates that information is retai…
You consistently mispredict how long your emotional reactions will last.
People significantly overestimate how long they will feel sad after a breakup or happy after a promotion.…
Your brain actively edits your past to be more pleasant.
Participants in a 1997 study reported that their past vacations were significantly more enjoyable than they had rated …
You believe your virtues are rarer than they actually are.
The false uniqueness effect causes people to underestimate the number of others who share their positive personality t…
Your brain goes blind for a moment after noticing something.
The attentional blink refers to a period of diminished accuracy in detecting a second visual target, rather than an ab…
A message you reject today can change your mind later.
People who initially dismiss a persuasive argument often find it more convincing as time passes.…
Frequent repetition turns a perceived fact into public truth.
The availability cascade explains how a belief gains plausibility through its self-reinforcing repetition in social an…
Simply seeing something repeatedly makes you like it more.
The mere exposure effect dictates that your preference for a stimulus increases with the frequency of your encounters …
You believe your past predictions were more accurate than reality.
Hindsight bias makes you rewrite your own memory to align with outcomes you could not have known.…
You wrongly believe you have reached your final self.
The 'end of history illusion' is the psychological finding that people view their current self as the definitive versi…
You ignore past evidence when predicting your future speed.
The planning fallacy is the tendency to underestimate the time, costs, and risks of future actions, regardless of past…
Individuals appear more attractive when surrounded by a group.
The cheerleader effect is a perceptual bias where a person is rated as slightly more attractive in a group than in iso…
You believe media influences others far more than you.
The third-person effect is the belief that mass media messages have a greater impact on other people than on yourself.…
Your brain prioritizes negative news over positive feedback.
Negativity bias dictates that, across a variety of domains, negative information is processed more deeply and remember…
Most of your core identity formed in late adolescence.
The 'reminiscence bump' is the tendency for older adults to have increased recollection of events from their teenage y…
Your ability to make sound choices depletes throughout the day.
While the 2011 Danziger study identified a correlation between judicial rulings and meal breaks, the 'decision fatigue…
You no longer remember information, only where to find it.
The 'Google effect' causes your brain to offload knowledge to external storage, leading to poorer recall of the inform…
You ignore the context while fixating on the outcome.
Focalism causes you to overestimate how much a single event will influence your future happiness.…
Evidence against your belief makes you hold tighter.
Belief perseverance is the cognitive tendency to maintain a position even when the evidence supporting it has been cle…
You judge inaction more leniently than harmful action.
The omission bias is the tendency to view harmful inaction as less morally wrong than harmful action with the same out…
Asking for your plan makes you likely to follow it.
The mere measurement effect describes how measuring intentions can influence behavior, though the outcome depends on t…
Your chances of success rise after a blatant refusal.
The door-in-the-face technique demonstrates that you are more likely to agree to a small request after rejecting a lar…
One visible flaw blinds you to everything else.
The horns effect is the negative manifestation of the halo effect, a phenomenon first described by Edward Thorndike in…
You reject good ideas because you did not create them.
The 'not-invented-here' bias causes people to devalue external solutions in favor of internal ones.…
You think of future plans in impossible terms.
Construal level theory explains that the more distant an event is, the more abstractly you represent it.…
You might be misreading your fear as attraction.
The misattribution of arousal occurs when your brain misidentifies the source of physiological excitement.…
You work significantly faster as you approach a goal.
The goal gradient effect shows that the closer you are to finishing a task, the more effort you invest to complete it.…
Competence is more likeable when it is slightly flawed.
The pratfall effect is the tendency for a mistake to increase the attractiveness of an already highly competent person…
You mirror the physical behaviors of the person you like.
The chameleon effect is the unconscious imitation of a conversation partner's posture, gestures, and facial expression…
You consume more when portion sizes are labeled as units.
The unit bias explains why people eat or use more when a quantity is presented as a single item.…
You remember facts better if you explain them yourself.
The generation effect demonstrates that information is better retained when you produce it from your own mind.…
You subconsciously blame victims to preserve your sense of order.
The just-world hypothesis is the tendency to believe that people get what they deserve, even in cases of random misfor…
You accept generic personality descriptions as uniquely accurate.
In a 1949 study, students completed a personality test and were given a feedback report, which was identical for all p…
You value your own possessions more than the market does.
In a 1990 experiment, participants demanded more money to sell a mug they were given than they were willing to pay to …
One new purchase triggers a cycle of constant upgrades.
The Diderot effect describes how a single acquisition often leads to a spiral of consumption.…
You assign human traits to inanimate geometry.
In a 1944 study, viewers who watched an animation of shapes moving around a box almost universally described the shape…
You invent memories to fill missing gaps.
In a 1995 study by Loftus and Pickrell published in Psychiatric Annals, 25% of participants reported memories of being…
You ignore how long an ordeal actually lasted.
When rating the discomfort of a medical procedure, patients disproportionately weigh the peak pain and the pain at the…
You help less when others are present.
A 1968 study found that participants were significantly slower to report a plume of smoke filling a room if they were …
You accept the pre-selected option far too often.
In Germany (opt-in), 12% of the population have registered as donors, while in Austria (opt-out), 99% are classified a…
A small request makes you agree to more.
A 1966 study found that homeowners were four times more likely to agree to a large, ugly sign in their yard if they ha…
You filter out information that challenges your beliefs.
A 1979 study found that when shown opposing studies on capital punishment, people rated evidence confirming their view…
You keep reading this book because you started.
Investing time or money in a failing venture makes you paradoxically more likely to continue investing further.…
A random number changes what you pay today.
In a 1974 study, people asked if the percentage of African nations in the UN was higher or lower than 10% guessed lowe…
You believe common causes of death are much rarer.
People consistently overestimate the frequency of dramatic deaths like shark attacks while underestimating common, qui…
Your choice depends entirely on how options are phrased.
In the 1981 study, 72% of participants chose a certain outcome of saving 200 out of 600 lives over a risky option with…
Everyone follows a rule that no one actually likes.
A 1993 study found that students privately disliked campus drinking but believed peers enjoyed it.…
You prefer associating with winners to signal your status.
A 1976 study found students wore more university gear the day after their football team won.…
You remember things better when they relate to you.
A 1977 study found people recall adjectives significantly better when they judge them against their own traits.…
You believe your effort influences random outcomes.
A 1975 study found people bet more on lottery tickets when they selected the numbers themselves.…
Your memories are rewritten by questions asked after the event.
The misinformation effect demonstrates that memory is a reconstructive process, and post-event information can signifi…
You believe your future is better than your present.
The optimism bias is a persistent cognitive error where you underestimate the likelihood of negative events and overes…
Your brain confuses ease of processing with actual truth.
The fluency heuristic leads people to believe that information is true simply because it is easy to understand or reca…
You reshape your own memory to justify your past decisions.
Hindsight bias allows you to believe that past events were more predictable than they actually were at the time.…
You will choose the forbidden option just to feel free.
Psychological reactance is the drive to reclaim your sense of autonomy when you feel a choice is being restricted.…
Rewarding a behavior you enjoy will make you quit.
The overjustification effect occurs when external incentives decrease your intrinsic motivation to perform an activity…
You are remarkably poor at predicting your future emotions.
The affective forecasting error demonstrates that people consistently overestimate the intensity and duration of their…
You judge the quality of a choice by its outcome.
Outcome bias is the tendency to evaluate the intelligence of a decision based on the final result rather than the qual…
You prefer things to stay exactly as they are.
Status quo bias describes a preference for the current state of affairs, even when changing it would provide a clear a…
You mistakenly believe others think exactly like you do.
The false consensus effect is the cognitive bias where you overestimate the extent to which your opinions and habits a…
You like people more when you live near them.
The propinquity effect is the tendency for people to form friendships with those they encounter in their daily physica…
You create obstacles to explain away your future failures.
Self-handicapping occurs when you intentionally place hurdles in your own path to protect your ego.…
Your brain prioritizes bad news over good news.
A 2001 review confirmed that negative events, emotions, and interactions have a greater impact on your psychological s…
You like things more simply because you saw them before.
In a 1968 study, participants rated random shapes and words as more appealing the more frequently they were exposed to…
You judge your behavior by your circumstances, not character.
Jones and Nisbett (1971) proposed the actor-observer asymmetry hypothesis, though subsequent meta-analyses have found …
A third option changes what you choose entirely.
A 1982 study found that adding a clearly inferior third option increases the likelihood that people will choose the or…
You become less careful when you feel safer.
Peltzman's 1975 study argued that mandatory automobile safety regulations did not lead to the predicted decrease in ag…
New experiences make time feel like it's slowing.
Initial studies suggested an unexpected stimulus makes its duration appear 30–50% longer, though later research shows …
You assume attractive people are also morally good.
While Thorndike identified the 'halo effect' as a general cognitive error in 1920, the systematic experimental finding…
You rewrite your history to appear prescient.
A 1975 study revealed that after an event occurred, participants significantly overestimated how likely they were to h…
You consistently underestimate the time tasks will take.
A 1994 study found that students predicted they would finish their thesis projects in 33 days, but actually took an av…
You work faster as the finish line appears.
A 2006 study by Kivetz, Urminsky, and Zheng provided empirical evidence supporting the goal gradient effect in consume…
You confuse high physiological arousal for romantic attraction.
The brain often misinterprets physical adrenaline or fear as feelings of attraction toward a person nearby.…
You judge people's actions based on their internal character.
People tend to attribute others' behavior to character while attributing their own behavior to circumstances, a phenom…
You work less hard when you think you are in a team.
While Ringelmann's 1913 study observed that group output is less than the sum of individual efforts, he attributed thi…
You eventually believe a claim you once knew was false.
Over time, the source of a message is forgotten, but the information it contained persists in your memory.…
You forget the negative emotions of past events faster.
The emotional intensity associated with negative memories fades more rapidly than the intensity of positive memories.…
You feel a frantic need to move during static crises.
The 2007 study by Bar-Eli et al. demonstrates that goalkeepers choose to jump to the side even though staying in the c…
You assume your future self will share your current desires.
The 2003 paper by Loewenstein, O'Donoghue, and Rabin established the theoretical framework for 'projection bias' that …
You think your inner state is visible to everyone.
The 'illusion of transparency' is a verified psychological phenomenon where individuals overestimate the extent to whi…
You are physically unable to forget what you already know.
Once you learn a piece of information, you consistently overestimate others' ability to guess it.…
Your memory of an event ignores most of its duration.
The peak intensity and the final moments of an experience define your entire retrospective evaluation.…
You rate people as smarter based on their role.
A 1977 study found that participants rated 'questioners' in a quiz show as more intelligent than 'contestants'.…
You perform better around others on simple tasks.
A 1965 study demonstrated that the mere presence of others increases the likelihood of your dominant response.…
You become more likeable when you commit a blunder.
A 1966 study found that a highly competent person is perceived as more likeable after making a clumsy mistake.…
You are a member of a group just by existing.
A 1970 study showed that people favored others simply because they were assigned to the same arbitrary group, even whe…
You want to believe the world is inherently fair.
A 1966 study by Lerner and Simmons found that observers are more likely to disparage an innocent victim when they feel…
You treat people based on your expectations of them.
A 1968 study found that when teachers were told certain students were academic 'bloomers,' those students showed signi…
You adapt your behavior to fit what others expect.
A 1974 study found that high self-monitors consistently changed their behavior to match the social situation, whereas …
You feel more capable when you believe you have control.
A 1975 study demonstrated that people were less likely to sell a lottery ticket if they were the ones who had chosen t…
You like the things you choose more than you did.
A 1956 study found that after being asked to rate several household appliances, participants rated the one they chose …
You only cheat when you can justify it to yourself.
A 2008 study found that participants were less likely to cheat when asked to recall the Ten Commandments, but cheated …
You value things more simply because you own them.
A 1990 study found that participants required nearly twice as much money to part with a mug they owned (willingness to…
You only notice your own effort in group work.
When people are asked to estimate their contribution to a shared task, the sum of their estimates consistently exceeds…
Your self-control is exhausted by simple mental math.
In a 1999 study, participants who were asked to memorize a seven-digit number were about 1.5 times more likely to choo…
You accept vague personality descriptions as deeply personal.
Participants in a 1948 study rated a generic, personality-neutral paragraph as highly accurate when told it was writte…
You feel a frantic urge to act during uncertainty.
In a study of professional soccer penalty kicks, goalkeepers were statistically more likely to dive left or right than…
You think others are more similar than they are.
Individuals consistently perceive members of their own group as highly diverse, while viewing outsiders as a uniform, …
You believe you control events that are entirely random.
A 1975 study showed that people overestimate their chances of winning a game of pure luck if they have performed a per…
Your mood acts as a filter for your memory.
People are significantly more likely to recall memories that match their current emotional state than those that do no…
You are biologically tuned to catch social cheaters.
People consistently fail abstract logic puzzles but solve identical problems easily when they involve detecting rule-b…
You only remember the beginning and the end.
Ebbinghaus (1885) identified the serial position effect, but the explanation attributing it to the interaction between…
You are more motivated on the first of January.
A 2014 study found that people seek more 'fresh start' opportunities during temporal landmarks like birthdays or new y…
You are blind to changes happening right before you.
In a 1998 study, about half of the participants failed to notice when the person they were talking to was swapped for …
The default choice shapes your entire life's direction.
While researchers like Johnson and Goldstein have shown that default settings correlate with higher registration rates…
You seek out people who confirm your negative traits.
A 1983 study showed that people preferred feedback that aligned with their existing self-conception.…
Anxiety about performance can lower your actual results.
A 1995 study found that black students performed worse on tests when reminded of negative stereotypes about their inte…
Telling you not to do it makes it attractive.
A 1977 study by Brehm and Weinraub found that restricting access to a toy increased its desirability to children.…
Your brain is outsourcing your memory to technology.
A 2011 study found that people are less likely to remember facts if they believe they can search them later.…
You assume everyone shares your private opinions.
A 1977 study showed that people who agreed to wear a sandwich board were more likely to believe others would too.…
You prefer things simply because you see them often.
A 1968 study showed that participants rated symbols they had viewed more frequently as having a more positive meaning.…
A random number drastically alters your next choice.
In a 1974 study, spinning a wheel of fortune influenced participants' subsequent estimates of geographical data.…
You believe you are safer than the average person.
A 1980 study found that most adults rate their personal risk of accidents as significantly lower than their peers.…
You understand your own car less than you think.
Participants in a 2002 study overestimated their ability to explain how zippers and toilets work.…
You interpret neutral social interactions as deliberate attacks.
A 1980 study found that highly aggressive individuals are significantly more likely to assume others act with harmful …
Your ability to make good choices erodes all day.
A 2011 study observed that judges granted fewer favorable decisions as a decision session progressed, with rates retur…
You ignore information that challenges your existing beliefs.
A 1979 study found that participants discounted evidence that contradicted their opinions while accepting flawed evide…
Your brain prioritizes threatening information over positive feedback.
A 2001 review demonstrated that negative events have a stronger and longer-lasting impact on the human psyche than pos…
You value items more simply because they are scarce.
A 1975 study demonstrated that cookies presented in a scarce supply (two cookies) were rated significantly higher in q…
The presence of others makes you less likely to act.
A 1968 study found that individuals are significantly less likely to intervene in an emergency when they believe other…
You assign positive character traits based on physical appearance.
A 1920 study by Edward Thorndike identified a general 'halo effect' in human judgment, where an overall positive impre…
You assume your current project will finish on time.
A 1994 study of students found they completed senior thesis projects 20 days later than their own most realistic estim…
You think your past self knew more than it did.
A 1975 study by Baruch Fischhoff demonstrated that knowing an outcome significantly impairs the ability to accurately …
You believe you see the world exactly as it is.
The study conducted by Pronin, Lin, and Ross on the bias blind spot was published in 2002.…
You create your own barriers to protect your pride.
Self-handicapping is the psychological strategy of placing obstacles in your own path to provide an excuse for future …
You value immediate satisfaction more than future success.
Delay discounting is the tendency to prefer smaller, immediate rewards over larger, delayed rewards. Hyperbolic discou…
Your brain misses information for a split second daily.
The attentional blink is a temporary deficit in reporting a second target when it follows a first target in rapid succ…
Simply stating your intent makes you act more often.
The mere measurement effect suggests that asking about intentions can influence subsequent behavior, but the effect is…
Confidence is often a poor proxy for actual competence.
The overconfidence effect is the tendency for people to overestimate the accuracy of their own knowledge and the succe…
Your opinion of quality depends on what you saw first.
The contrast effect suggests that your perception of a stimulus is heightened or diminished by the stimulus that prece…
You persist in bad decisions because of past costs.
The sunk cost fallacy describes the tendency to continue an endeavor once an investment in money, effort, or time has …
You are blind to the obvious when focused elsewhere.
A 1999 study showed that 46% of the participants failed to see an unexpected object while tracking moving items.…
Your memory will invent details that were never there.
A 1995 study showed that people frequently report seeing words that were never on a list they just read.…
You judge an idea by how it makes you feel.
The research on the affect heuristic regarding risk-benefit assessments was established by Finucane, Alhakami, Slovic …
You remember information better when it relates to you.
A 1977 study showed that participants recalled adjectives much better when asked if they described themselves.…
You believe your inner emotions are visible to others.
A 1998 study showed that speakers overestimate how much their nervousness is detectable by their audience.…
You choose a known risk over an unknown one.
The Ellsberg Paradox shows that people prefer gambles with known odds over gambles where the probability is unknown.…
You do not remember an experience by its total duration.
A 1996 study showed that retrospective evaluations of pain are determined by the peak intensity and the final moment.…
You will invent reasons for choices you never made.
A 2005 study showed participants would justify why they chose a face they did not actually pick during a manipulated s…
You remember information better if you create it yourself.
A 1978 study demonstrated that participants remembered words better when they generated them rather than simply readin…
Nothing is as important as you think it is.
A 1998 study showed that students believed living in a sunny climate would significantly boost happiness, despite data…
Your memory is not a recording, it is a draft.
A 1974 study found that asking how fast cars were moving when they smashed led to higher speed estimates than asking h…
You judge your actions by circumstances but others by character.
Research in the 1970s proposed an actor-observer asymmetry in attribution, though modern meta-analyses indicate this e…
You can be nudged into expensive choices by irrelevant options.
A 1982 study found that adding an inferior decoy option significantly increases the preference for a more expensive pr…
A small blunder makes you more likable, not less.
In a 1966 study, participants rated an obviously competent person as more attractive when they spilled a cup of coffee…
You overvalue things just because you own them.
The endowment effect causes people to place a higher price on items simply because they have gained possession of them…
You react to the same information differently based on labels.
The original study used the 'Asian Disease' problem, which asked participants to choose between programs that would sa…
You find it impossible to ignore what you know.
In Elizabeth Newton's 1990 study, tappers were unable to predict how difficult it would be for listeners to identify a…
You exert less individual effort when working in groups.
The phenomenon of reduced individual output in groups is known as the Ringelmann effect, which was later named social …
You look more attractive in a group than alone.
The cheerleader effect causes individuals to be perceived as more physically appealing when viewed as part of a group.…
You prefer a sure gain, even when a gamble pays more.
The pseudocertainty effect leads people to choose an outcome perceived as certain over a probabilistic one, even when …
You complete tasks in the time you allocate, regardless of complexity.
Parkinson's Law states that work expands to fill the time available for its completion.…
A single new possession creates a spiral of forced consumption.
The Diderot effect describes how a new item that deviates from your existing lifestyle leads to a cycle of purchasing …
You consistently overestimate your ability to handle immediate temptation.
The restraint bias is a pattern where individuals overestimate their self-control and consequently put themselves in s…
You over-allocate resources to eliminate a minor, symbolic risk.
The zero-risk bias leads people to prefer the complete elimination of a small risk over a greater total reduction in r…
You judge past decisions by their results, not their logic.
The outcome bias causes people to retrospectively evaluate a decision as poor if the result was unfavorable, even if t…
Your expectations of others physically alter their actual performance.
The Pygmalion effect demonstrates that higher expectations from an authority figure lead to an improvement in an indiv…
You believe you understand others better than they understand you.
The illusion of asymmetric insight is the tendency for people to believe that they know others better than others know…
You make decisions based on the most easily recalled examples.
The availability heuristic leads you to judge the probability of events based on how easily specific instances come to…
You like things more simply because you have seen them.
The mere exposure effect is the tendency to develop a preference for stimuli merely because you are familiar with them…
You think your future self will share your current tastes.
The projection bias is your systematic failure to predict how your future preferences will change based on your curren…
Rewarding a task you enjoy kills your intrinsic motivation.
The foundational 1973 study by Lepper, Greene, and Nisbett demonstrated the effect using art and drawing activities, n…
You assume generic descriptions apply specifically to you.
The phenomenon is known as the Forer effect or the fallacy of personal validation, while the term 'Barnum effect' was …
You stop remembering facts you know are stored digitally.
The Google effect shows that you are less likely to remember information if you believe it is easily accessible online…
You remember the message but forget the unreliable source.
The sleeper effect occurs when the persuasiveness of a message increases over time as you decouple it from its source.…
You feel more successful when your group achieves a win.
Basking in reflected glory is the psychological attempt to maintain self-esteem by aligning yourself with successful o…
You take personal credit for wins but blame external luck.
The self-serving bias is the tendency to attribute success to your internal character and failure to your environment.…
You feel more regret for things that nearly happened.
Counterfactual thinking causes stronger emotional reactions to 'near misses' than to outcomes that were never possible…
You value the things you own more than identical objects.
The mere ownership effect demonstrates that merely possessing an item increases its perceived value significantly.…
You believe past events were more predictable than they were.
Hindsight bias causes you to view historical outcomes as inevitable despite the inherent uncertainty of the time.…
You find statements more true if they simply rhyme.
Rhyming statements are processed as more accurate and truthful than non-rhyming statements.…
You consistently believe you are more capable than you are.
While researchers have found that individuals often rate themselves as above average in various domains, the 1977 stud…
You believe your future work will be faster today.
People consistently underestimate how long tasks take, even with past evidence.…
Your brain weighs bad experiences more than good ones.
Negative stimuli elicit stronger physiological and psychological responses than positive stimuli.…
You judge how likely something is by your memory.
The ease with which examples come to mind determines your probability assessment.…
You assume a person's appearance reveals their inner character.
A single positive trait leads people to assume other unrelated positive qualities exist.…
You only clearly remember the beginning and the end.
Information presented at the start and conclusion of a list is significantly better retained.…
You prioritize immediate satisfaction over long-term gain every time.
People often choose a smaller, immediate reward over a larger, delayed one, but their preferences frequently reverse i…
Your opinion shifts to match the perceived group consensus.
A 1951 study showed that participants would give a clearly incorrect answer just to align with the rest of the group.…
You selectively interpret facts to protect your existing worldview.
A 1979 study found that participants shown balanced evidence on capital punishment were convinced their original stanc…
Your recall improves when you return to your original mood.
A 1981 study showed that participants remembered information better if they were in the same emotional state during re…
Your brain shuts down for half a second after focusing.
Participants show significantly reduced performance in detecting a second target when it appears 200 to 500 millisecon…
You hold losing investments far longer than winning ones.
A 1985 study found that investors are significantly more likely to sell a stock that has gained value than one that ha…
Random numbers influence your estimate of an unknown value.
A 1974 experiment demonstrated that participants' estimates for geopolitical statistics were significantly skewed by a…
You are statistically likely to choose the pre-selected option.
A 2003 study of organ donation found that countries with an opt-out policy had nearly 100% participation compared to 1…
You believe you understand how a simple zipper works.
A 2002 study showed that people consistently overestimate their grasp of complex systems until they are forced to expl…
Your brain ignores most of an experience to save energy.
In a 1996 study, participants judged the total unpleasantness of a colonoscopy based heavily on the peak discomfort an…
You assume you are safer than everyone else.
A 1980 study by Neil D. Weinstein published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that individuals…
You focus on one event while ignoring context.
A 2000 study showed that people overestimate the impact of a single focal event on their overall happiness.…
You hold onto opinions even after being disproven.
A 1975 study showed that once an initial belief is formed, it remains influential even after the evidence supporting i…
You are a terrible judge of your future self.
A 2003 study found that people systematically underestimate how much their future preferences will change based on the…
You work harder as you approach a goal.
A 2006 study by Kivetz, Urminsky, and Zheng empirically resurrected the 1932 'goal-gradient hypothesis' by showing tha…
You feel compelled to restore your lost freedom.
Psychological reactance is a motivational state that arises when an individual's behavioral freedoms are threatened, w…
You overestimate how much the world focuses on you.
The spotlight effect describes your tendency to believe that your appearance and actions are more visible to others th…
Your brain ignores facts that contradict your beliefs.
Motivated reasoning and biased assimilation lead people to evaluate contradictory evidence more critically than suppor…
You remember events as better than they were.
The study titled 'Temporal adjustments in the evaluation of events: The rosy prospection and rosy retrospection' was p…
The presence of others changes your moral compass.
The bystander effect demonstrates that your likelihood of intervening in an emergency decreases as the number of witne…
You change your attitude to match your behavior.
Self-perception theory suggests that when your internal beliefs are unclear, you infer them by observing your own past…
You create your own excuses before you even start.
Self-handicapping is the strategy of creating obstacles to performance to protect your self-esteem if you happen to fa…
Your past self is a stranger you judge harshly.
The end-of-history illusion is our tendency to believe we have reached our final personality despite significant growt…
Small mistakes actually make you more likable.
The pratfall effect shows that highly competent people may become more appealing after a minor blunder, whereas the sa…
You judge others by character and yourself by circumstance.
The actor-observer asymmetry explains why you interpret your own bad behavior as a situational necessity while labelin…
You avoid the unknown even when it offers rewards.
Ambiguity aversion describes the tendency to prefer options with known probabilities over options with unknown probabi…
You notice things more frequently after learning about them.
The frequency illusion occurs when a new piece of information you recently learned suddenly seems to appear everywhere…
You perceive members of other groups as all identical.
Outgroup homogeneity is the tendency to see individuals in other groups as having fewer unique traits than people in y…
Your choice changes when an irrelevant option appears.
The decoy effect occurs when your preference between two choices shifts after a third, inferior option is introduced.…
A minor lapse leads you to abandon all progress.
The what-the-hell effect explains why one small deviation from a goal often results in a total collapse of self-contro…
The presence of others changes how you perform tasks.
Social facilitation is the tendency to improve on simple, well-learned tasks when others are watching.…
You find it impossible to ignore what you already know.
The curse of knowledge causes you to overestimate how well others understand what you are explaining.…
You believe you see the world objectively as it is.
Naive realism is the tendency to assume our perception of reality is the only accurate one.…
You roll dice harder to influence the outcome.
People believe they have influence over random outcomes when they are personally involved in the process.…
You remember the vacation better than the experience.
People report higher satisfaction for past events than they did while the events were actually occurring.…
You defend your beliefs after seeing contrary data.
The 'backfire effect' refers to a proposed psychological phenomenon where contrary evidence strengthens existing belie…
You blame the victim to feel safer yourself.
People often assume that victims of misfortune deserve their fate to maintain a belief in a just world.…
You decide based on how data is phrased.
In their 1981 paper, Tversky and Kahneman demonstrated that the framing of outcomes as gains or losses influences pref…
You continue painful projects to avoid admitting loss.
Individuals invest more time and resources into a failing project simply because they have already invested in it.…
You rewrite your own history to match current outcomes.
People consistently misremember their past predictions as being more accurate than they actually were.…
You judge harmful inaction as less severe than action.
Research indicates that people rate harmful consequences resulting from inaction as more acceptable than identical har…
You believe you are more observant than you are.
A 1998 study found that a significant portion of observers failed to detect changes in a person during a real-world in…
You are more likely to lie for a small reward.
A 1959 study showed that people are more willing to perform a dull task for a small incentive if they convince themsel…
If it sounds familiar, you assume it is true.
A 2015 study found that statements were rated as more accurate if they had been heard previously, even when the source…
Your ability to make sound decisions erodes throughout the day.
A 2011 study of over 1,000 judicial rulings found that parole boards were significantly more likely to grant favorable…
You judge a person's intelligence by their physical beauty.
A 1972 study found that people with attractive faces were consistently rated as having more desirable personality trai…
Your presence in a room matters less than you feel.
A 2000 study by Gilovich, Medvec, and Savitsky found that people suffer from the 'spotlight effect,' an egocentric bia…
You like something simply because you see it often.
A 1968 study demonstrated that conscious exposure to neutral stimuli leads to higher favorability ratings, while later…
You prefer strangers just because they are like you.
A 1970 study found that participants assigned to arbitrary groups awarded more money to their own team, even when grou…
The silver medalist is sadder than the bronze.
A 1995 study found that Olympic silver medalists showed significantly less happiness than bronze winners.…
You sabotage yourself to protect your ego.
A 1978 study found that participants chose to consume performance-inhibiting drugs when they were anxious about an upc…
You claim credit for things you did not do.
A 1976 study found students were significantly more likely to wear school apparel after their team won a game.…
Rewards can destroy your love for a hobby.
A 1973 study showed children offered a reward for drawing spent significantly less time drawing during subsequent free…
You eventually trust a source you once thought was lying.
A 1951 study found that persuasive messages from unreliable sources become more convincing over time.…
You find it impossible to remember what it is like to be ignorant.
A 1989 study found that better-informed agents cannot accurately anticipate the judgments and market valuations of les…
You retroactively invent reasons to prefer your choice.
A 2007 study found that people misremember the features of rejected options to make their chosen one seem superior.…
You like people just because you see them often.
A 1950 study found that physical proximity is a significant predictor of friendship formation, working in tandem with …
You are convinced you are a better driver than most.
A 1981 study of student participants found that 93% of the U.S. sample rated their driving skills as being in the top …
You believe that luck is a balancing force.
A 1971 study by Tversky and Kahneman, titled 'Belief in the Law of Small Numbers,' found that people expect short-term…
Bad news is heavier than good news.
A 2008 review found that humans process negative stimuli faster, remember them longer, and react to them more intensel…
You think your virtues are unique, but your vices are normal.
The 1987 study by Suls and Wan demonstrated that people tend to underestimate the commonality of their positive or hea…
You expect your future self to work perfectly.
A 1994 study found that people consistently underestimate how long tasks take, even when they know their own history o…
Your initial estimate is a trap you set.
A 1974 study showed that people's final estimates for unknown quantities are heavily skewed by the first arbitrary num…
Fear and attraction often feel exactly the same.
A 1974 study found that men were significantly more likely to call a female interviewer after crossing a scary suspens…
Your memory of an event is not a summary.
A 1993 study proposed that people disproportionately weight peak intensity and the final moment when evaluating experi…
A rumor becomes truth if it is repeated enough.
The availability cascade is a self-reinforcing process in which an idea gains social momentum through the interaction …
You miss the obvious when your focus is occupied.
Participants often fail to notice a prominent stimulus, like a person in a costume, when they are engaged in a simple …
You fear risk more when the outlook is positive.
People show a strong preference for certainty when a positive outcome is likely, even when a riskier option offers a h…
You overestimate your ability on tasks you find difficult.
The hard-easy effect describes the tendency to overestimate one's own performance on hard tasks and underestimate it o…
Your mood depends entirely on what you track.
Nothing in life is as important as you think it is while you are currently thinking about it.…
You accept the status quo because it was chosen.
When presented with a default option, individuals are significantly more likely to stick with it than to choose an alt…
You value your possessions more than they are worth.
People demand a higher price to sell an item they own than they would pay to acquire that exact same item.…
You believe you have finally finished changing your personality.
In a 2013 study of 7,500 adults, participants consistently underestimated how much their personality, values, and pref…
Your sense of self-worth is tethered to others' success.
Individuals prefer to evaluate their abilities using objective standards when available, turning to social comparison …
Your judgment of quality is anchored to recent experience.
The contrast effect is a established psychological phenomenon where perceptions are influenced by preceding, contrasti…
You ignore the statistics to focus on the story.
People disregard general statistical information in favor of specific, anecdotal evidence.…
Your brain gives more weight to bad news.
While Hansen and Hansen (1988) identified an 'anger superiority effect,' subsequent research indicates this finding is…
Nothing is as important as you think it is.
People misjudge the long-term impact of life events because they focus too heavily on them at the moment.…
You assume your opinions are more common than they are.
People consistently overestimate the extent to which others share their own beliefs.…
The pain of losing is stronger than the joy of winning.
Prospect theory demonstrates that losses are weighted more heavily than equivalent gains, a phenomenon known as loss a…
You are more likeable when you make a mistake.
Competent individuals who commit a small, embarrassing blunder are rated as more attractive than those who remain perf…
You judge your future self by your current needs.
Projection bias causes people to overestimate the degree to which their future tastes and preferences will resemble th…
You struggle to solve problems you have used before.
Functional fixedness is a cognitive bias where you become unable to see an object as having any function other than it…
You conform to the group to avoid social discomfort.
A majority of participants conformed to an obviously incorrect group consensus on at least one occasion, though most i…
You try to suppress thoughts and make them louder.
The 'ironic process theory' suggests that the effort to suppress a specific thought makes it more cognitively accessib…
You treat the same amount of money differently.
Mental accounting causes people to categorize money into different 'accounts' based on the source, leading to irration…
You interpret luck as evidence of your own skill.
People who perceive a sense of control over a random event significantly overestimate their probability of success.…
You are harder on yourself during simple tasks.
Social facilitation reveals that the presence of others improves performance on simple, well-rehearsed tasks but degra…
You assume people notice your mood more than they do.
The 'illusion of transparency' causes individuals to overestimate how much their internal state is visible to others.…
Your confidence in a decision increases after you act.
Post-decision dissonance reduction causes people to rate their chosen option as significantly better than an rejected …
You attribute your own poor choices to the situation.
This phenomenon is known as the actor-observer bias, not the fundamental attribution error.…
You take the credit and blame the world.
A 1975 study by Miller and Ross examined the self-serving bias, questioning whether the attribution of success to inte…
You will change your answer to fit the group.
A 1951 study found that 74% of participants gave at least one incorrect answer to a simple task to match the majority.…
You adopt the mood of the room without choosing.
A 1994 research review found that people automatically mimic the facial expressions and postures of those around them.…
One positive trait blinds you to every other defect.
A 1920 study found that officers who rated a soldier highly in one category consistently rated them highly in all unre…
You exert less effort when you are not alone.
A 1913 study found that individuals pulling on a rope in a group exert less force than when pulling individually.…
The more you try not to think, the more.
A 1994 study revealed that instructions to suppress a specific thought result in that thought becoming more cognitivel…
You judge others by their character, not their context.
A 1967 study found that people attributed views expressed in an essay to the writer's internal beliefs, even when told…
A repeated claim eventually feels like a known truth.
A 2015 study found that even clearly false headlines are rated as more accurate simply because they have been seen bef…
You believe the world is fundamentally fair to everyone.
A 1966 study demonstrated that people will blame victims for their own misfortune to maintain the belief that people g…
You mistake your own point of view for objective reality.
Research indicates that people assume their view of the world is based on unbiased information, while those who disagr…
You continue losing ventures because of the investment already made.
A 1985 study found that people are more likely to continue investing in a failing project if they have already committ…
A small favor makes a large request more likely.
A 1966 study found that people who agreed to a trivial request were significantly more likely to agree to a larger, re…
You create obstacles to explain your potential failure.
A 1978 experiment showed that people who are uncertain about their performance will intentionally choose to hinder the…
You value money differently depending on where it came from.
A 1985 study found that people treat funds differently—and are more likely to spend 'windfall' gains—even when the amo…
An audience changes your performance depending on the task difficulty.
A 1965 study demonstrated that the mere presence of others improves performance on simple tasks while hindering it on …
You feel more in control when you participate in luck.
In a 1975 study, participants perceived a game based entirely on chance as a skill-based challenge simply because they…
You believe generic personality descriptions are uniquely about you.
A 1948 study found that when individuals are given a vague, personality assessment, they overwhelmingly rate it as acc…
You assess risks as lower because you feel good.
A 2000 study demonstrated that affective evaluation of an activity, influenced by information framing, causes inverse …
You seek useless information just to feel more certain.
A body of research in judgment and decision-making, discussed in Jonathan Baron's 1988 book Thinking and Deciding, ind…
You cannot imagine what it is like not knowing.
A 1990 study by Elizabeth Newton found that individuals possess a 'curse of knowledge' that makes them systematically …
You only vividly remember the beginning and the end.
A 1962 experiment confirmed that memory recall is highest for items at the start and end of a list, with a significant…
A third option changes which of two items you prefer.
A 1982 study demonstrated that adding a clearly inferior third option makes a more expensive or premium item appear mo…
Asking if you will do a task makes it likelier.
A 1993 study showed that simply surveying people about their intention to perform a future behavior increases the like…
You assume your future self wants what you want now.
A 2003 theoretical paper by Loewenstein, O'Donoghue, and Rabin formalized the concept of 'projection bias,' building o…
You are convinced the outcome was predictable all along.
A 1975 study found that people consistently overestimate their ability to have foreseen an event once they know how it…
You would not notice if your life changed suddenly.
A 2005 experiment demonstrated that people fail to identify when their expressed preferences are switched by an experi…
You only remember the one thing that stood out.
The Von Restorff effect is a demonstrated phenomenon where an isolated item in a list is more likely to be recalled th…
You often misinterpret your own physical anxiety as attraction.
Heightened physical arousal from an external source is frequently mislabeled as intense romantic or social interest.…
You prefer things just because you have seen them.
Repeated exposure to a neutral stimulus is enough to increase your positive affect toward it.…
You are biologically wired to miss your own deadlines.
People consistently underestimate how long a project will take, even when they have failed to finish on time before.…
The first number you hear dictates your future estimates.
A 1974 study showed that initial, irrelevant numbers significantly bias subsequent numerical estimations.…
Your sense of humor relies on feeling safe.
Humor arises when a situation is perceived as a violation of social norms but is simultaneously deemed benign.…
You value your own possessions more than others do.
People consistently assign a higher monetary value to an object simply because they own it.…
You consistently overestimate how long you will feel hurt.
People regularly miscalculate the duration and intensity of their emotional reactions to future negative events.…
You are not as good a driver as you think.
Svenson (1981) found that 93% of the U.S. student sample believed they were in the top 50% of driving skill.…
A small mistake can make you more likable.
In a 1966 experiment, the 'pratfall effect' demonstrated that highly competent individuals are rated more favorably af…
You judge decisions by the result, not the process.
A 1988 study found that observers rate a high-risk decision as more intelligent if it leads to success than if it resu…
Thinking about an object makes its importance grow.
In a 1998 study published in Psychological Science, Schkade and Kahneman demonstrated that people fall victim to a 'fo…
You prefer images of yourself when they are reversed.
A 1977 study showed that people prefer their own mirror image, while their friends prefer the standard photographic ve…
You subconsciously prefer the letters in your own name.
While Pelham et al. (2002) published findings suggesting implicit egotism, those results have been widely criticized f…
Common tools often become invisible when you need new uses.
A 1945 study found that participants struggled to solve problems when the necessary tools were already being used for …
You value a goal more when it requires significant effort.
A 1959 study demonstrated that individuals rated a discussion group as more interesting if they had to undergo an emba…
We spend more mental energy processing bad news than good.
A 2001 review concluded that humans consistently pay more attention to, and retain, negative information over positive…
Ease of memory leads us to overestimate rare events.
A 1973 study showed that people judge the frequency of an event by how easily they can recall examples from memory.…
Others cannot see your internal emotions as clearly as you.
In a 1998 study, speakers consistently overestimated how much their audience could detect their internal anxiety or li…
Your perception of beauty shifts based on recent comparisons.
A 1980 study found that men who viewed photographs of highly attractive models subsequently rated the attractiveness o…
The size of a serving unit changes how much we eat.
A 2006 study showed that people ate significantly more when snacks were presented in larger units rather than smaller,…
Moving to a warmer climate rarely improves long-term happiness.
A 1998 survey found that while Midwesterners expected Californians to be happier, there was no significant difference …
We consistently assume that others think like we do.
A 1977 study revealed that people are significantly more likely to assume others share their own beliefs and habits th…
You can be convinced you chose the rejected option.
In a 2005 study, 75% of participants failed to notice when researchers swapped their preferred photograph for the one …
Asking for a favor can increase someone's affection.
A 1969 study found that participants who were asked for a personal favor by a researcher rated that researcher more fa…
Doing a good deed makes us more likely to cheat later.
A 2010 study found that participants who bought green products were more likely to lie and steal in a subsequent task.…
Having too many choices makes us buy nothing.
A 2000 study found that while 24 choices of jam attracted more onlookers, only 3% bought any, compared to 30% when off…
People notice your mistakes far less than you think.
In a 2000 study, only 23% of observers noticed a student wearing an embarrassing t-shirt, though the wearer predicted …
Unfinished tasks linger in your memory much longer.
A classic 1927 study found that people remember interrupted tasks roughly twice as well as completed ones.…
We overvalue things simply because we helped build them.
A 2011 study showed that participants valued self-assembled furniture as highly as items built by experts.…
We assume new acquaintances like us less than they do.
In a 2018 study, participants consistently underestimated how much their conversation partners liked them.…
Repetition bypasses our ability to spot lies.
A 2015 study showed that repeating a false statement increases its perceived credibility, even when participants alrea…
Your memory of an event ignores its duration.
In a landmark 1996 study, patients rated a longer, painful medical procedure as less unpleasant simply because the fin…
Knowing where to find information makes us forget it.
In a 2011 experiment, participants who believed a computer would save their typed facts remembered about a third less …