1058 studies · 1900-2019

Every study behind every claim.

Nothing on this site is published without a named source. This is the full list — authors, year, journal — with the finding each one supports. If a claim is contested, its page says so.

Clifton et al., 2019, Psychological Assessment
You carry a deep belief about the world's character.
Boothby et al., 2018, Psychological Science
We assume new acquaintances like us less than they do.
Kumar and Epley, 2018, Psychological Science
You underestimate how much others appreciate your kindness.
Zhu et al., 2018, Journal of Consumer Research
You prioritize trivial tasks because they offer immediate completion.
Brooks et al., 2016, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes
Performing a simple ritual lowers your anxiety before high-stakes tasks.
Fazio et al. (2015)
If it sounds familiar, you assume it is true.
Fazio et al., 2015, Journal of Experimental Psychology
You struggle to change your mind even when presented with new facts.
Fazio et al., 2015, Journal of Experimental Psychology
You repeat a lie until it sounds like truth.
Fazio et al., 2015, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General (Illusory Truth Effect)
Repetition bypasses our ability to spot lies.
Fazio, Brashier, Payne, and Marsh, 2015, Journal of Experimental Psychology
A repeated claim eventually feels like a known truth.
Nessler et al., 2015, Human Movement Science
You unconsciously adjust your gait to match others.
Rozycka-Tran et al., 2015
You view your own success as someone else's loss.
Wittmann, 2015, Felt Time
Time perception changes as you get older.
Bastian et al., 2014, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
Shared suffering increases cooperation more than shared rewards do.
Dai, Milkman, and Riis, 2014, Management Science
You are more motivated on the first of January.
Henkel, 2014, Psychological Science
You remember less of the event you photograph.
Kouchaki and Smith, 2014, Psychological Science
You make more ethical decisions in the morning.
Kross et al., 2014, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
Talking to yourself in the third person reduces stress.
Mueller and Oppenheimer, 2014, Psychological Science
You are more likely to reach goals you write down by hand.
Nestojko et al., 2014, Memory & Cognition
You learn faster when you expect to teach the material.
Walker and Vul, 2014
You look more attractive when standing in groups.
Walker and Vul, 2014
Individuals appear more attractive when surrounded by a group.
Fernbach et al., 2013, Psychological Science
Asking why makes you more stubborn than asking how.
Milkman, Minson, and Volpp, 2013
You get more done by pairing chores with treats.
Quoidbach et al., 2013
You believe you have finished changing your personality.
Quoidbach et al., 2013, Science
You overestimate how much you will change in the future.
Quoidbach et al., 2013, Science
You view your past as a series of constant evolutions.
Quoidbach, Gilbert, and Wilson, 2013
You think your personality is finished developing today.
Quoidbach, Gilbert, and Wilson, 2013
You wrongly believe you have reached your final self.
Quoidbach, Gilbert, and Wilson, 2013
Your past self is a stranger you judge harshly.
Quoidbach, Gilbert, and Wilson, 2013
You believe you have finally finished changing your personality.
Quoidbach, Gilbert, and Wilson, 2013, Science
You overestimate your personal consistency.
Quoidbach, Gilbert, and Wilson, 2013, Science
You believe you have finally become your final self.
Steidle and Werth, 2013
Darkness changes the way you think.
Walker and Vul (2013)
You look more attractive when surrounded by other people.
Walker and Vul, 2013, Psychological Science
You look more attractive in a group than alone.
Adam & Galinsky, 2012
What you wear changes how your brain functions.
Baird et al. (2012), Psychological Science
You can solve problems better when you walk away.
Keysar, Hayakawa, & An, 2012, Psychological Science
You make more rational decisions in a foreign language.
Laham et al., 2012, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
You trust people with easier names more than others.
Mehta et al., 2012, Journal of Consumer Research
Moderate background noise actually improves your creative thinking performance.
Mehta et al., 2012, Journal of Consumer Research
Ambient noise levels determine your creativity.
Meyers-Levy and Zhu, 2012, Journal of Consumer Research
You are more creative when your physical environment feels expansive.
Norton et al., 2012, Journal of Consumer Psychology
You value things more if you had to work for them.
Norton, Mochon, and Ariely (2012)
You rate your own work better than the same work.
Norton, Mochon, and Ariely, 2012, Journal of Consumer Psychology
You value things more just because you helped build them.
Norton, Mochon, and Ariely, 2012, Journal of Consumer Psychology
You rate an object higher because you built it.
Rudd, Vohs, and Aaker, 2012, Psychological Science
A moment of awe makes you feel like time is slowing down.
Zhou et al., 2012, Emotion
Nostalgia actually makes you feel physically warmer.
Betsy Sparrow et al., 2011, Science (Google Effects on Memory)
Knowing where to find information makes us forget it.
Buell and Norton, 2011
You value a service more when you see the work.
Danziger et al. (2011)
Your ability to make sound decisions erodes throughout the day.
Danziger, Levav, and Avnaim-Pesso, 2011
Your decision quality deteriorates throughout the long workday.
Danziger, Levav, and Avnaim-Pesso, 2011
Your ability to make sound choices depletes throughout the day.
Danziger, Levav, and Avnaim-Pesso, 2011
Your ability to make good choices erodes all day.
Droit-Volet et al., 2011, Emotion
You perceive time differently depending on what you see.
Flynn & Adams (2011), Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
You misjudge the value of gifts you give others.
Gabriel Radvansky, 2011, Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology
You forget your intentions when you walk through doorways.
Hershfield et al., 2011, Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience
Your future self is often a stranger you undervalue.
Hershfield et al., 2011, Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience
You believe your future self is a stranger.
Macdonald and Lavie, 2011
You can be deaf even when your ears work.
Macdonald and Lavie, 2011, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance
High visual focus can render you temporarily deaf.
Mather and Sutherland, 2011, Perspectives on Psychological Science
You remember stories better when they have emotional tension.
Mather and Sutherland, 2011, Perspectives on Psychological Science
Your brain prioritizes memories that have high emotional intensity.
Norton et al., 2011, Journal of Consumer Psychology
You value things more just because you made them.
Norton, M. I., Mochon, D., & Ariely, D., 2011, 'The IKEA effect: When labor leads to love'
You value things more just because you made them.
Norton, Mochon, & Ariely, 2011, Journal of Consumer Psychology
We overvalue things simply because we helped build them.
Norton, Mochon, and Ariely, 2011
You value things more if you helped make them.
Norton, Mochon, and Ariely, 2011, Journal of Consumer Psychology
You work harder for rewards you did not earn.
Ramirez and Beilock, 2011, Science
Writing your worries down fixes your focus.
Sparrow, Liu, and Wegner (2011)
You stop remembering facts you know are stored digitally.
Sparrow, Liu, and Wegner, 2011
You have stopped remembering things because the internet does.
Sparrow, Liu, and Wegner, 2011
You outsource your memory to a search engine.
Sparrow, Liu, and Wegner, 2011
You no longer remember information, only where to find it.
Sparrow, Liu, and Wegner, 2011, Science
Your brain is outsourcing your memory to technology.
Tali Sharot, 2011
You expect good things to happen to you disproportionately.
Wesselmann et al., 2011, Ostracism by silence
Silence in a conversation creates a false sense of rejection.
Ackerman et al., 2010, Science
You interpret ambiguity based on your current physical comfort.
Balcetis and Dunning (2010), Wishful Seeing
You perceive objects as closer when you want them.
Friston, 2010, Nature Reviews Neuroscience
Your brain predicts what you see before you actually see it.
Gino, Norton, and Ariely (2010), The Counterfeit Self
You are more likely to lie if you wear counterfeit goods.
Hsee et al., 2010, Psychological Science
You are happier when you stay busy.
Job, Dweck, and Walton, 2010, Psychological Science
You underestimate how much control you have over your habits.
Killingsworth & Gilbert, 2010
You spend 47% of your day thinking about nothing.
Liljenquist, Zhong, and Galinsky, 2010, Psychological Science
A clean smell makes you more generous.
MacLeod et al., 2010, Journal of Experimental Psychology
You remember words significantly better if you read them aloud.
MacLeod, 2010
You learn better by doing, not by listening.
Mazar & Zhong, 2010, Psychological Science
Doing a good deed makes us more likely to cheat later.
Mazar and Zhong, 2010
You are more likely to lie after doing something ethical.
Mazar and Zhong, 2010, Psychological Science
You are more likely to lie after doing something good.
Mazar and Zhong, 2010, Psychological Science
You are more likely to lie when you feel moral.
McGraw and Warren (2010)
Your sense of humor relies on feeling safe.
Nyhan and Reifler, 2010
Disconfirming evidence can strengthen your initial incorrect belief.
Nyhan and Reifler, 2010
You defend your beliefs after seeing contrary data.
Sweeny et al., 2010
Sometimes you choose ignorance over useful information.
Trope and Liberman, 2010, Construal Level Theory
You think of future plans in impossible terms.
Zhong et al., 2010, Psychological Science
You are more likely to lie when you feel anonymous.
Zhong, Bohns, and Gino, 2010, Psychological Science
You are more likely to lie when you feel anonymous.
Alter and Oppenheimer, 2009
You mistake easy thinking for the truth.
Brinol et al., 2009, European Journal of Social Psychology
Standing tall makes you believe your own thoughts more.
Ersner-Hershfield et al., 2009, Psychological Science
You view your past self as a complete stranger.
Forgas, 2009, The influence of affect on cognition
You are a more accurate judge when you feel sad.
Goldin-Meadow et al., 2009, Psychological Science
Your hands are not just reflecting your thoughts; they are thinking.
Jostmann et al., 2009, Psychological Science
Your brain treats abstract ideas as physical weight.
Karlsson, Loewenstein, and Seppi, 2009
You avoid information that makes you feel bad.
Nader and Hardt, 2009, Nature Reviews Neuroscience
You assume your memories are accurate replays of reality.
Nordgren et al., 2009
You overestimate your ability to control your impulses.
Nordgren et al., 2009, Psychological Science
You consistently overestimate your ability to handle immediate temptation.
Rankin et al., 2009
Your brain prioritizes survival by ignoring constant input.
Walker & Skowronski (2009)
Your brain discards negative memories faster than positive ones.
Epley et al., 2008, Psychological Science
You assign human traits to objects to satisfy a need for connection.
Lupyan, 2008, Psychological Science
You stop being curious the moment you name something.
Mazar, Amir, and Ariely (2008), Journal of Marketing Research
You only cheat when you can justify it to yourself.
Mazar, Amir, and Ariely, 2008, Journal of Marketing Research
You are more likely to lie when the incentive is small.
Moore & Healy, 2008
You are far more certain than you are accurate.
Moore and Healy, 2008
Your certainty is usually a better measure of ego.
Song and Schwarz, 2008
You trust information more when it is easier read.
Vaish, Grossmann, and Woodward, 2008, Negativity Bias
Bad news is heavier than good news.
Vohs et al., 2008
Your ability to make good choices erodes by evening.
Weisberg et al., 2008, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
You judge an explanation as 'correct' if it includes neuroscience data.
Whitson and Galinsky, 2008
You see patterns in noise that aren't there.
Whitson and Galinsky, 2008, Science
Your brain creates patterns where there are none.
Williams & Bargh (2008), Science
Holding a warm drink makes you view people warmly.
Williams & Bargh, 2008, Science
Holding a warm drink makes you perceive people as kinder.
Williams & Bargh, 2008, Science
Holding a warm cup changes your impression of people.
Williams & Bargh, 2008, Science
Holding a warm drink makes you perceive others as kinder.
Williams & Bargh, 2008, Science
Warm coffee makes you judge people more kindly.
Williams and Bargh (2008), Science
You are less logical when you hold a warm drink.
Williams and Bargh, 2008, Experience of physical warmth promotes interpersonal warmth
People who feel warm coffee view strangers as friendlier.
Williams and Bargh, 2008, Science
You underestimate the influence of the physical environment.
Williams and Bargh, 2008, Science
You interpret physical warmth as personal social acceptance.
Williams and Bargh, 2008, Science
Holding a warm drink makes you judge others as warmer.
Williams and Bargh, 2008, Science
You rely on physical warmth to feel social comfort.
Williams and Bargh, 2008, Science
Holding a warm drink makes you judge strangers as warmer.
Williams, L. E., & Bargh, J. A., 2008, 'Experiencing physical warmth promotes interpersonal warmth'
Your physical environment dictates how you judge social interactions.
Alter et al., 2007, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
You are more creative when the font is harder to read.
Ames & Johar, 2007, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
You judge people by their intent, not their results.
Bar-Eli et al., 2007
You take action even when it is useless.
Bar-Eli et al., 2007
You feel a frantic urge to act during uncertainty.
Bar-Eli, 2007
You feel a frantic need to move during static crises.
Elliot et al., 2007, Journal of Experimental Psychology
Red colors subtly kill your performance on tests.
Emily Pronin, 2007
You see biases in others but never in yourself.
Gailliot et al., 'Self-control relies on glucose', 2007
You are less rational when you are hungry.
Henkel and Mather, 2007, Choice-Supportive Bias
You retroactively invent reasons to prefer your choice.
Henkel and Mather, 2007, Memory & Cognition
You feel more confident in a decision after it is made.
Lieberman et al., 2007, Psychological Science
You feel less distressed just by naming your emotions.
McDaniel and Einstein, 2007, Prospective Memory: An Overview and Synthesis
Remembering to remember is a distinct, fragile process.
Michael Eysenck, 2007
Anxiety changes what you pay attention to in conversation.
Pronin, 2007, The Introspection Illusion
You are worse at predicting your own behavior.
Sharot, 2007, Nature
You believe your future is better than your present.
Slovic et al., 2007
Your emotional reaction precedes your logical assessment.
Slovic et al., 2007
Your feelings dictate your risk assessment before logic starts.
Slovic et al., 2007
You judge an idea by how it makes you feel.
Slovic, Finucane, Peters, and MacGregor, 2007, European Journal of Operational Research
Your current mood dictates your tolerance for risk.
Small, Loewenstein, and Slovic (2007), Journal of Risk and Uncertainty
You care more about one victim than a hundred.
Stetson et al., 2007, PLOS ONE
You perceive time as slower when you are afraid.
Winawer et al., 2007, PNAS
Your language shapes how your brain perceives color.
Ap Dijksterhuis, 2006, Science
Your best decisions happen when you stop thinking hard.
Arnold Zwicky, 2006
You notice things more frequently after learning about them.
Bateson et al., 2006, Biology Letters
You are more honest when you feel observed by eyes.
Bateson, Nettle, and Roberts (2006), Biology Letters
You act as if you are being watched even when alone.
Cepeda et al. (2006)
You learn significantly more by forgetting a little bit.
Coan et al. (2006) on social baseline theory
Your brain expects others to help carry your burdens.
Englich, Mussweiler, and Strack, 2006, Psychological Science
Every decision you make is shaped by the first number.
Geier, Rozin, and Doros (2006)
You consume the entire portion regardless of the amount.
Geier, Wansink, & Rozin, 2006, Psychological Science
The size of a serving unit changes how much we eat.
Geier, Wansink, and Rozin, 2006, Psychological Science
You consume more when portion sizes are labeled as units.
Gneezy, List, & Wu, 2006, Quarterly Journal of Economics
You prefer a smaller reward that is certain.
Grill-Spector et al., 2006, Trends in Cognitive Sciences
Your brain saves energy by ignoring repetition.
Kivetz, Urminsky, and Zheng (2006)
You work harder as you approach a finish line.
Kivetz, Urminsky, and Zheng (2006), Journal of Marketing Research
You spend more time on tasks that offer no reward.
Kivetz, Urminsky, and Zheng, 2006
Your motivation increases as you approach a finish line.
Kivetz, Urminsky, and Zheng, 2006
You work faster as the finish line appears.
Kivetz, Urminsky, and Zheng, 2006, Journal of Marketing Research
You work harder as you approach a goal.
Kivetz, Urminsky, and Zheng, 2006, The Goal Gradient Effect
You work significantly faster as you approach a goal.
Oppenheimer (2006)
You automatically assume that fluent speech equals high intelligence.
Roediger & Karpicke, 2006, Perspectives on Psychological Science
Testing yourself is a better strategy than studying more.
Willis & Todorov, 2006, Psychological Science
You judge people by your own hidden assumptions.
Zhong and Liljenquist, 2006, Science
Your moral judgment is tied to your physical hygiene.
Frederick, 2005
You are smarter when you slow down deliberately.
Frederick, 2005, Journal of Economic Perspectives
You fail because you trust your first instinct.
George Loewenstein (2005)
You are terrible at predicting your feelings in a cold state.
George Loewenstein, 2005
You predict future happiness based on your current physical state.
George Loewenstein, 2005
You cannot accurately predict your own emotional responses.
Hall and Johansson, 2005
You will invent reasons for choices you never made.
Holland et al., 2005, Smells like clean spirit
The smell of citrus makes you act more cleanly.
Johansson et al., 2005
You will invent reasons for a choice you never made.
Johansson et al., 2005
You are blind to the reasons for your own choices.
Johansson et al., 2005, Science
You can be convinced you chose the rejected option.
Johansson, Hall, Sikström, and Olsson (2005)
You would not notice if your life changed suddenly.
Johansson, Hall, Sikström, and Olsson, 2005
You become blind to your own bad decisions.
Schubert, 2005, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
You judge powerful people based on their physical height.
Shane Frederick, 2005
You avoid thinking deeply even when you could.
Bialystok et al., 2004
Speaking two languages physically reorganizes your brain's efficiency.
Judge & Cable, 2004, Journal of Applied Psychology
Taller people earn more because you assume they lead.
Kruger et al., 2004, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
You value things more when you think they required effort.
Morwitz and Fitzsimons, 2004, The Mere Measurement Effect
Asking for your plan makes you likely to follow it.
Paul Slovic, 2004, Affect Heuristic
You decide based on feelings, then justify with logic.
Schwartz, 2004
You feel less satisfied when you have many options.
Singer et al., 2004, Science
You use your own body to simulate others' pain.
Slovic, 2004
Your mood determines your assessment of objective risk.
Tse, Intriligator, Rivest, and Cavanagh, 2004
New experiences make time feel like it's slowing.
Wager et al., 2004
Your expectation of an outcome can trigger a real result.
Wagner et al., 2004, Nature
Sleeping on it improves your problem-solving abilities.
Barker et al., 2003, Perceptual and Motor Skills
The scent of your environment dictates your ability to focus.
Eisenberger et al., 2003, Science
You fear social exclusion more than you admit.
Eisenberger, Lieberman, & Williams, 2003, Science
Your brain registers social rejection as physical pain.
Emmons & McCullough, 2003, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
Expressing gratitude consistently rewires your daily outlook.
George Loewenstein, 2003
You assume your future self will have your current desires.
Gilovich et al. (2003)
Your presence in a room matters less than you feel.
Goldin-Meadow, 2003
You are more creative when you move your hands.
Johnson and Goldstein, 2003
The path of least resistance is almost always chosen.
Johnson and Goldstein, 2003
You stick to the status quo to avoid making a choice.
Johnson and Goldstein, 2003
You accept the status quo because it was chosen.
Johnson and Goldstein, 2003, Science
You accept the pre-selected option far too often.
Johnson and Goldstein, 2003, Science
The default choice shapes your entire life's direction.
Johnson and Goldstein, 2003, Science
You are statistically likely to choose the pre-selected option.
Joshua Knobe (2003), Analysis
You judge side effects based on how much you like them.
Loewenstein et al., 2003
You overestimate how your future self will feel.
Loewenstein et al., 2003
You judge your future self by your current needs.
Loewenstein, O'Donoghue, and Rabin (2003)
You think your future self will share your current tastes.
Loewenstein, O'Donoghue, and Rabin, 2003
You overestimate your ability to manage your future moods.
Loewenstein, O'Donoghue, and Rabin, 2003
You believe that your future self will stay the same.
Loewenstein, O'Donoghue, and Rabin, 2003
You assume your future self will share your current desires.
Loewenstein, O'Donoghue, and Rabin, 2003, Quarterly Journal of Economics
You are a terrible judge of your future self.
Loewenstein, O'Donoghue, and Rabin, 2003, Quarterly Journal of Economics
You assume your future self wants what you want now.
Loewenstein, O'Donoghue, and Rabin, 2003, The Quarterly Journal of Economics
You overestimate your future happiness based on your current state.
Nader, 2003
Your memory changes every time you recall it.
Paulhus et al., 2003
You claim to know things that do not exist.
Paulhus et al., 2003, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
You claim to understand concepts that do not exist.
Proffitt et al., 2003, Psychological Science
Your hands and feet influence your perception of distance.
Savitsky & Gilovich, 2003
You think your nerves are obvious to everyone around.
Walker et al., 2003
You forget the negative emotions of past events faster.
Wilson & Gilbert (2003), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology
You predict future happiness based on your current state.
Wilson and Gilbert, 2003
You fixate on one detail while ignoring the context.
Wilson and Gilbert, 2003
You ignore the context while fixating on the outcome.
Brad Bushman (2002) in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
Venting your anger makes you more aggressive, not less.
Gilbert, Driver-Linn, and Wilson, 2002
You overestimate how long your misery will last.
Gilovich et al., 2002, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
You act as if you know what others are thinking.
Glenberg and Kaschak, 2002, Psychonomic Bulletin and Review
You process sentences faster when they match your physical movement.
Pelham et al., 2002, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
Your name influences your career choices.
Pelham, Mirenberg, and Jones (2002)
You unconsciously prefer items that share your own initials.
Pelham, Mirenberg, and Jones, 2002, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
You are more likely to trust a stranger if they share your birthday.
Pelham, Mirenberg, and Jones, 2002, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
You subconsciously prefer the letters in your own name.
Polivy & Herman, 2002, American Psychologist
You view your past habits through an overly optimistic lens.
Pronin et al., 2002
You believe you are less biased than your peers.
Rozenblit and Keil, 2002
You cannot accurately explain how a zipper works.
Rozenblit and Keil, 2002, Cognitive Science
Your brain hides its lack of preparation from you.
Rozenblit and Keil, 2002, Cognitive Science
You assume you understand everyday objects better than you do.
Rozenblit and Keil, 2002, Cognitive Science
You understand your own car less than you think.
Rozenblit and Keil, 2002, Cognitive Science
You believe you understand how a simple zipper works.
Shah, Friedman, and Kruglanski, 'Forgetting all else', 2002
You actively block your own goals to focus.
Wegner, 2002, The Illusion of Conscious Will
You create stories to fill in missing information.
Wegner, 2002, The Illusion of Conscious Will
You consistently overestimate your ability to control external events.
Baumeister et al. (2001), negativity bias
Negative feedback has twice the impact of positive praise.
Baumeister et al., 2001
Your brain prioritizes negative news over positive feedback.
Baumeister et al., 2001
Your brain prioritizes threatening information over positive feedback.
Baumeister et al., 2001, Review of General Psychology
You are judged more by your errors than your successes.
Baumeister et al., 2001, Review of General Psychology
Your brain prioritizes bad news over good news.
Baumeister et al., 2001, Review of General Psychology
We spend more mental energy processing bad news than good.
Baumeister, Bratslavsky, Finkenauer, and Vohs, 2001, Review of General Psychology
Your brain prioritizes bad news over good news.
Butterfield and Metcalfe, 2001, Journal of Experimental Psychology
You fix mistakes faster when you feel certain.
Fitzsimons and Morwitz (2001)
Asking if you will act makes you more likely to.
Henrich and Gil-White, 2001
You value information simply because a successful person said it.
Henrich and Gil-White, 2001
You follow successful people even when their methods are flawed.
Monin and Miller, 2001
Doing one good deed makes you act more selfishly.
Pronin et al., 2001, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
You believe you understand others better than they understand you.
Pronin, Kruger, Savitsky, and Ross, 2001
You believe you know others better than they you.
Rozin & Royzman, 2001
You weight negative information more heavily than positive feedback.
Rozin and Royzman, 2001
Your brain weighs bad experiences more than good ones.
Rozin and Royzman, 2001, Personality and Social Psychology Review
You confuse your focus with reality.
Rubinstein, Meyer, & Evans, 2001, Journal of Experimental Psychology
You lose time with every shift in focus.
Rubinstein, Meyer, and Evans, 2001, Journal of Experimental Psychology
You pay a steep cognitive price for multitasking.
Deci and Ryan, 2000
Your motivation drops when you feel external pressure.
Gilovich et al., 2000, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
You assume everyone is watching your every move.
Gilovich, 2000
You adjust your confidence to match your social environment.
Gilovich, Medvec, & Savitsky, 2000, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
People notice your mistakes far less than you think.
Gilovich, Medvec, and Savitsky (2000)
You are not being watched as much as you think.
Gilovich, Medvec, and Savitsky, 2000
You overestimate how much the world focuses on you.
Iyengar & Lepper, 2000, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
Having too many choices makes us buy nothing.
Iyengar and Lepper (2000)
You avoid making choices when you have too much data.
Mather, Shafir, and Johnson (2000)
You misremember why you chose what you chose.
Mather, Shafir, and Johnson, 2000
You remember your past choices as better than they were.
Mather, Shafir, and Johnson, 2000, Memory & Cognition
You misremember your past choices as smarter than they were.
McGlone and Tofighbakhsh, 2000
You trust a statement more if it rhymes.
McGlone and Tofighbakhsh, 2000
You find statements more true if they simply rhyme.
McGlone and Tofighbakhsh, 2000, Psychological Science
Your brain prefers information that sounds like music.
McGlone and Tofighbakhsh, 2000, Psychological Science
A rhyme makes a statement seem more truthful to you.
Nader et al., 2000, Nature
Recalling a memory makes it vulnerable to being altered.
Oettingen, 2000
You fail to reach goals by ignoring obstacles ahead.
Ross and Wilson, 2000, Psychological Review
You interpret your own past as more stable than it was.
Slovic, Finucane, Peters, and MacGregor, 2000, Journal of Behavioral Decision Making
You assess risks as lower because you feel good.
Thomas Gilovich, 2000
You overestimate how much people notice your minor behaviors.
Wilson et al., 2000
You think your happiness depends on one specific circumstance.
Wilson et al., 2000, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
You focus on one event while ignoring context.
Bargh and Chartrand, 1999, American Psychologist
You underestimate the power of your own habits.
Carlson & Russo, 1999, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General
You twist evidence to support a chosen path.
Chartrand and Bargh, 1999, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
You unconsciously mimic the body language of others.
Chartrand and Bargh, 1999, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
You mirror the physical behaviors of the person you like.
Gollwitzer, 1999, American Psychologist
You reach goals faster when you create an if-then plan.
Justin Kruger, 1999, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
You see yourself as less capable than you are.
Kahneman, 1999
You ignore the length of an experience in your memory.
Kruger & Dunning (1999), Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
You overestimate your own competence when you are ignorant.
Kruger and Dunning, 1999
You are most confident when you know the least.
Kuran & Sunstein, 1999
You mistake repeated headlines for objective reality.
Kuran & Sunstein, 1999
Frequent repetition turns a perceived fact into public truth.
Kuran and Sunstein, 1999
A rumor becomes truth if it is repeated enough.
Levine and Norenzayan, 1999
The faster your city, the less likely you are to help.
O'Donoghue & Rabin, 1999, The Quarterly Journal of Economics
You prioritize small gains over large rewards.
Pronin, Lin, and Ross (1999), Stanford University
You believe you see the world exactly as it is.
Reber and Schwarz (1999), Effects of Perceptual Fluency on Judgments of Truth
You mistake the ease of processing for objective truth.
Reber and Schwarz, 1999
You make judgements based on how quickly you think.
Reber and Schwarz, 1999, Journal of Experimental Psychology
Your brain confuses ease of processing with actual truth.
Reber and Schwarz, 1999, The processing fluency of truth
You trust information more if it is presented clearly.
Shiv and Fedorikhin, 1999
Your self-control is exhausted by simple mental math.
Shiv and Fedorikhin, 1999, Journal of Consumer Research
Your decision-making changes when you are distracted by numbers.
Sidanius and Pratto (1999) on Social Dominance Theory
You support systems that reinforce your own group's dominance.
Simons & Chabris (1999)
You do not see what you are not expecting.
Simons and Chabris, 1999
You fail to notice the obvious in plain sight.
Simons and Chabris, 1999
You are physically unable to see what you ignore.
Simons and Chabris, 1999
You are blind to things right before your eyes.
Simons and Chabris, 1999
You are blind to the obvious when focused elsewhere.
Simons and Chabris, 1999
You miss the obvious when your focus is occupied.
Simons and Chabris, 1999, Perception
You miss what is right in front of you.
Simons and Chabris, 1999, Perception
You fail to see clear objects when your focus is locked.
Simons and Chabris, 1999, Perception
You are blind to obvious changes in your environment.
Botvinick and Cohen, 1998, Nature
Your brain can treat a fake hand as real.
Daniel Simons, 1998
You are blind to dramatic changes in your environment.
Friesen and Kingstone, 1998, Psychonomic Bulletin and Review
Your attention is wired to follow where others look.
Gilbert et al., 1998
You consistently mispredict how long your emotional reactions will last.
Gilbert et al., 1998, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
You are remarkably poor at predicting your future emotions.
Gilbert, Pinel, Wilson, Blumberg, and Wheatley (1998)
You consistently overestimate how long you will feel hurt.
Gilovich et al., 1998, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
You assume others see your internal nerves clearly.
Gilovich et al., 1998, The Illusion of Transparency
You overestimate how clearly others see your inner emotions.
Gilovich, Medvec, and Savitsky (1998)
You overestimate how clearly your feelings show to others.
Gilovich, Savitsky, & Medvec, 1998, Illusion of Transparency
Others cannot see your internal emotions as clearly as you.
Gilovich, Savitsky, and Medvec (1998)
You believe your internal state is obvious to others.
Gilovich, Savitsky, and Medvec (1998), Illusion of Transparency
You overestimate how much people read your internal state.
Gilovich, Savitsky, and Medvec, 1998
You think your inner emotions are obvious to others.
Gilovich, Savitsky, and Medvec, 1998
You think your inner state is visible to everyone.
Gilovich, Savitsky, and Medvec, 1998
You believe your inner emotions are visible to others.
Gilovich, Savitsky, and Medvec, 1998, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
You believe your thoughts are more transparent to others than they really are.
Greenwald, McGhee, and Schwartz (1998), Implicit Bias
You carry unconscious biases that contradict your explicit values.
Hsee, 1998, Psychological Science
A smaller gift can feel more valuable than a larger one.
Mack & Rock, 1998, MIT Press
Your attention is limited to one object.
Nickerson, 1998
Your brain actively ignores evidence that contradicts your view.
Nickerson, 1998, Review of General Psychology
You ignore information that contradicts what you already believe.
Nickerson, 1998, Review of General Psychology
You ignore information that contradicts your existing world view.
Pickering and Branigan, 1998, Journal of Memory and Language
You unconsciously copy the sentence structure of people you speak to.
Rubin, Rahhal, and Poon, 1998
Most of your core identity formed in late adolescence.
Schkade & Kahneman, 1998, Psychological Science
Moving to a warmer climate rarely improves long-term happiness.
Schkade and Kahneman (1998)
You think life changes more based on one factor.
Schkade and Kahneman (1998)
You exaggerate the importance of your current life focus.
Schkade and Kahneman (1998)
Nothing is as important as you think it is.
Schkade and Kahneman, 1998
You overvalue the impact of one life change.
Schkade and Kahneman, 1998
You focus on one problem and ignore the broader reality.
Schkade and Kahneman, 1998
Nothing is as important as you think it is.
Schkade and Kahneman, 1998
Your mood depends entirely on what you track.
Schkade and Kahneman, 1998, Focusing Illusion
You think that thing matters more than it does.
Schkade and Kahneman, 1998, Journal of Behavioral Decision Making
Thinking about an object makes its importance grow.
Schkade and Kahneman, 1998, Psychological Science
You exaggerate the impact of any single factor.
Schkade and Kahneman, 1998, Psychological Science
You give too much weight to a specific detail.
Simons & Levin, 1998
You are blind to changes in the scenery.
Simons and Levin (1998)
You believe you are more observant than you are.
Simons and Levin, 1998, Trends in Cognitive Sciences
You are blind to changes happening right before you.
Simons, D. J., & Levin, D. T., 1998, 'Failure to detect changes to people during a real-world interaction'
Your brain ignores most of the visual world.
Thomas Gilovich, 1998
You assume people notice your mood more than they do.
Higgins, 1997, American Psychologist
You are driven either by hope or caution.
Mitchell et al., 1997
You remember events as better than they were.
Mitchell, Thompson, Peterson, and Cronk, 1997
You remember the vacation better than the experience.
Mitchell, Thompson, Peterson, and Cronk, 1997, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
You remember past events more fondly than you felt them at the time.
Mitchell, Thompson, and Peterson, 1997
Your brain actively edits your past to be more pleasant.
Neal Roese (1997)
You feel worse because you imagined a better outcome.
Rensink et al., 1997, Psychological Science
Your brain creates a false sense of visual continuity.
Roese, 1997
You cannot stop yourself from imagining an impossible scenario.
Vicki Morwitz, 1997
Asking someone about their plans makes them more likely to act.
Carmon and Kahneman, 1996, Journal of Consumer Research
Wait times seem longer when you are uncertain.
Garry, Manning, Loftus, and Sherman, 1996
Your brain fills in gaps with events that never happened.
Kenrick & Gutierres, 1996, Contrast Effect
You evaluate objects differently based on what you saw before.
Kruglanski & Webster, 1996, Psychological Review
Your need for order makes you refuse new evidence.
Redelmeier & Kahneman, 1996, Pain (Peak-End Rule)
Your memory of an event ignores its duration.
Redelmeier and Kahneman (1996), Pain
You forget the length of a painful experience entirely.
Redelmeier and Kahneman, 1996
You do not remember an experience by its total duration.
Redelmeier and Kahneman, 1996, Pain
You ignore how long an ordeal actually lasted.
Ross and Ward (1996)
You assume everyone sees the world exactly like you.
Ross and Ward (1996), Naive Realism
You believe your perception is the objective truth.
Ross and Ward, 1996
You think you see the world exactly as it is.
Ross and Ward, 1996, 'Naive Realism in Everyday Life'
You believe you see the world exactly as it is.
Ross and Ward, 1996, The Stanford Series on Community
You mistake your own point of view for objective reality.
Carl Sagan, 1995
You think faces are everywhere because your brain is overactive.
Elizabeth Loftus, 'The formation of false memories', 1995
You vividly remember events that never happened.
Gilbert and Malone, 1995
You assume that people act according to their nature.
Kaplan, 1995, Journal of Environmental Psychology
Nature restores your capacity to focus on hard tasks.
Loftus, 1995, Journal of Experimental Psychology
You invent memories to fill missing gaps.
Medvec, 1995
You suffer more when success is almost within reach.
Medvec, Madey, and Gilovich (1995)
You feel more regret for things that nearly happened.
Medvec, Madey, and Gilovich, 1995
You are more troubled by almost winning than losing.
Medvec, Madey, and Gilovich, 1995
The silver medalist is sadder than the bronze.
Roediger and McDermott, 1995
Your memory is not a recording of past events.
Roediger and McDermott, 1995
Your memory will invent details that were never there.
Roediger and McDermott, 1995, Journal of Experimental Psychology
You create memories of things that never actually happened.
Slovic, 1995, American Psychologist
You don't know what you want until you see it.
Steele & Aronson, 1995
Your performance drops when you fear confirming a stereotype.
Steele and Aronson, 1995, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
Anxiety about performance can lower your actual results.
Anderson et al., 1994, Journal of Experimental Psychology
Remembering a single detail can cause you to forget others.
Baron, 1994, Thinking and Deciding
You over-allocate resources to eliminate a minor, symbolic risk.
Buehler, 1994
Your best-case scenario is your default timeline for tasks.
Buehler, Griffin, and Ross (1994)
You consistently underestimate how much time a task requires.
Buehler, Griffin, and Ross (1994)
You are biologically wired to miss your own deadlines.
Buehler, Griffin, and Ross, 1994
You are systematically wrong about your own schedule.
Buehler, Griffin, and Ross, 1994
You will always underestimate the time a task takes.
Buehler, Griffin, and Ross, 1994
You ignore past evidence when predicting your future speed.
Buehler, Griffin, and Ross, 1994
You consistently underestimate the time tasks will take.
Buehler, Griffin, and Ross, 1994
You assume your current project will finish on time.
Buehler, Griffin, and Ross, 1994
You believe your future work will be faster today.
Buehler, Griffin, and Ross, 1994, Planning Fallacy
You expect your future self to work perfectly.
Daniel Wegner, 1994
You try to suppress thoughts and make them louder.
Hatfield, Cacioppo, and Rapson, 1994
You adopt the mood of the room without choosing.
Jost and Banaji, 1994
You feel an unconscious pressure to justify social fairness.
Jost and Banaji, 1994
You struggle to change your mind when you feel threatened.
Loewenstein, 1994, Psychological Bulletin
Curiosity is the physical feeling of a missing piece.
Pashler, 1994, Psychological Bulletin
Your brain cannot process two independent tasks at once.
Schmidt, 1994
You remember the punchline far better than the context.
Wegner (1994)
Trying to suppress a thought makes it unavoidable.
Wegner, 1994
The more you try not to think, the more.
Berridge & Robinson, 1993, Brain Research Reviews
You want things that you do not enjoy.
Daniel Kahneman, 1993
You remember the intensity of an experience, not duration.
Daniel Kahneman, 1993, Peak-End Rule
You remember experiences based only on the ending, not duration.
Dehaene et al., 1993, Journal of Experimental Psychology
Your brain treats numbers as physical space.
Fredrickson & Kahneman, 1993, Psychological Science
Your memories ignore the duration of your past experiences.
Johnson, Hashtroudi, and Lindsay, 1993
You think your personal memories are objectively accurate.
Kahneman, 1993
Your memory of an experience ignores the average duration.
Kahneman, 1993
Your memory of an event ignores most of its duration.
Kahneman, Fredrickson, Schreiber, and Redelmeier, 1993, Psychological Science
You judge an experience by its strongest moment and ending.
Kahneman, Fredrickson, et al. (1993)
You remember only the intensity and the conclusion of events.
Kahneman, Fredrickson, et al., 1993, Peak-End Rule
Your memory of an event is not a summary.
Kruglanski, A. W., & Webster, D. M., 1993, 'Motivated closing of the mind'
Your desire for closure changes the way you process information.
Loomis et al., 1993
Your mind maps out space even in the dark.
Morwitz, Johnson, and Schmittlein, 1993
Being asked about a behavior makes you more likely to do it.
Prentice & Miller, 1993, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
You assume the person next to you is fine.
Prentice and Miller, 1993
Everyone follows a rule that no one actually likes.
Redelmeier and Kahneman, 1993, Pain
Your brain ignores most of an experience to save energy.
Vicki Morwitz, 1993, Journal of Consumer Research
Asking if you will do a task makes it likelier.
Wilson and Schooler, 1993
Asking yourself why you like something makes you like it less.
Wilson and Schooler, 1993, Thinking Too Much
Writing down your preferences makes you choose the wrong thing.
Beggan, 1992, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
You value things more once you possess them.
Bikhchandani, Hirshleifer, and Welch, 1992
Your choices often follow the crowd's momentum.
Cosmides and Tooby, 1992
You ignore evidence that contradicts your rule unless it's framed socially.
Cosmides and Tooby, 1992
You are biologically tuned to catch social cheaters.
Ditto and Lopez, 1992, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
You struggle to accept information that changes your mind.
Macrae, Milne & Bodenhausen, 1992, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
You categorize people to save your brain energy.
Raymond et al. (1992), attentional blink
You are functionally blind for half a second.
Raymond, Shapiro, & Arnell, 1992
Your brain misses information for a split second daily.
Raymond, Shapiro, and Arnell, 1992
You have a bottleneck in your visual attention.
Raymond, Shapiro, and Arnell, 1992
You cannot process two rapid events as separate occurrences.
Raymond, Shapiro, and Arnell, 1992
Your brain goes blind for a moment after noticing something.
Raymond, Shapiro, and Arnell, 1992, Journal of Experimental Psychology
Your brain goes blind for a moment after focusing.
Raymond, Shapiro, and Arnell, 1992, Journal of Experimental Psychology
Your brain shuts down for half a second after focusing.
Ritov and Baron (1992)
You feel less guilty when you choose inaction.
Ritov and Baron, 1992
You judge harmful inaction as less severe than action.
Ritov and Baron, 1992, Omission Bias
You judge inaction more leniently than harmful action.
Kahneman, Knetsch, and Thaler, 1991, Journal of Political Economy
You assign value to objects solely through ownership.
Schwarz et al., 1991
You determine the truth by how quickly it arrives.
Smith and Shaffer (1991), Speed of Speech and Persuasion
You misjudge the competence of people who speak rapidly.
Elizabeth Newton (1990) on the tapping experiment
You use your own life as the ultimate metric.
Elizabeth Newton, 1990 study on tapping melodies
You find it impossible to ignore what you already know.
Elizabeth Newton, 1990, Stanford University
You cannot imagine what it is like not knowing.
Elizabeth Newton, 1990, Stanford University Dissertation
You find it impossible to ignore what you know.
Kahneman et al., 1990
You value an object more because you own it.
Kahneman et al., 1990, Journal of Political Economy
You value things more once you claim them.
Kahneman, Knetsch, & Thaler, 1990
You value your possessions simply because you own them.
Kahneman, Knetsch, & Thaler, 1990, Journal of Political Economy
You overvalue items because you own them.
Kahneman, Knetsch, and Thaler (1990)
You value items higher simply because you own them.
Kahneman, Knetsch, and Thaler (1990)
You value the things you own more than identical objects.
Kahneman, Knetsch, and Thaler (1990)
You value your own possessions more than others do.
Kahneman, Knetsch, and Thaler (1990), Journal of Political Economy
You value things more simply because you own them.
Kahneman, Knetsch, and Thaler, 1990
You value your possessions more than they are worth.
Kahneman, Knetsch, and Thaler, 1990, Journal of Political Economy
You value an object more once it becomes yours.
Kahneman, Knetsch, and Thaler, 1990, Journal of Political Economy
You overvalue things just because you own them.
Newton (1990), Curse of Knowledge
You cannot imagine what it is like not knowing.
Newton, 1990
You cannot imagine not knowing what you already know.
Newton, 1990
You lose the ability to teach once you learn.
Newton, 1990
You are physically unable to forget what you already know.
Ritov and Baron, 1990, Journal of Behavioral Decision Making
You avoid action to prevent the possibility of regret.
Schooler and Engstler-Schooler, 1990, Cognitive Psychology
Describing a face makes you worse at identifying it.
Brown and Murphy, 1989, Journal of Experimental Psychology
You can misidentify the source of your own thoughts.
Camerer, Loewenstein, & Weber, 1989, Journal of Political Economy
You find it impossible to imagine not knowing something.
Camerer, Loewenstein, and Weber (1989)
You assume experts share your clarity of thought.
Camerer, Loewenstein, and Weber, 1989
You cannot un-know what you have already learned.
Camerer, Loewenstein, and Weber, 1989
You find it nearly impossible to ignore what you know.
Camerer, Loewenstein, and Weber, 1989
You cannot imagine a world where you do not know this.
Colin Camerer, 1989, Curse of Knowledge
You find it impossible to remember what it is like to be ignorant.
Diaconis and Mosteller, 1989
You are surprised by the Law of Truly Large Numbers.
Intraub & Richardson (1989)
You remember seeing more than was actually there.
Intraub & Richardson, 1989
You remember more of a scene than you actually saw.
Intraub and Richardson (1989), boundary extension
Your brain fills in the edges of your vision.
Itamar Simonson, 1989
You choose the middle option because it looks balanced.
Jacoby, 1989, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
You assume a name is famous simply because you saw it earlier.
Medin & Ortony, 1989, Similarity and Analogical Reasoning
You believe objects have a hidden true nature.
Medin and Ortony (1989) on psychological essentialism
Your brain prefers a world with simple, rigid categories.
Medin and Ortony, 1989
You believe every category has a hidden, unchanging truth.
Ross (1989), Psychological Review
You misremember your past self to fit your current values.
Ross, 1989
You think your past tastes are a map of your future.
Abraham Tesser, 1988
Your friends' success hurts more when it involves your own talent.
Baron and Hershey (1988), Outcome Bias in Decision Evaluation
You judge the morality of an action by its success.
Baron and Hershey, 1988, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
You judge the morality of acts by the outcome.
Baron and Hershey, 1988, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
You judge the quality of a choice by its outcome.
Baron and Hershey, 1988, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
You judge past decisions by their results, not their logic.
Baron and Hershey, 1988, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
You judge decisions by the result, not the process.
Baron, 1988, Thinking and Deciding
You seek unnecessary information before making simple choices.
Grant McCracken (1988)
A single new purchase triggers an endless cycle of consumption.
Grant McCracken, 1988
One new purchase triggers a cycle of constant upgrades.
Hansen and Hansen (1988)
Your brain gives more weight to bad news.
Jonathan Baron, 1988, Thinking and Deciding
You seek useless information just to feel more certain.
McCracken, 1988, Culture and Consumption
A single new possession creates a spiral of forced consumption.
Payne et al., 1988
You perform differently when the task requires effort.
Samuelson and Zeckhauser, 1988
You prefer the way things are by default.
Samuelson and Zeckhauser, 1988, Journal of Risk and Uncertainty
You prefer things to stay exactly as they are.
Steele, 1988, Advances in Experimental Social Psychology
Reflecting on your values can undo your defensiveness.
Strack, Martin, & Stepper, 1988, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
A fake smile can change your mood.
Suls and Wan, 1988
You believe your virtues are rarer than they actually are.
Sweller, 1988, Cognitive Science
You lose cognitive precision when performing two tasks simultaneously.
Tesser, 1988, Advances in Experimental Social Psychology
You feel worse when your friend succeeds.
Bradburn et al. (1987) on autobiographical memory
You misremember when events in your life actually happened.
Loftus et al., 1987
Your focus on a weapon blinds you to everything else.
Mazur, 1987, Quantitative Analyses of Behavior
You value a small reward today over a larger one.
Suls and Wan, 1987
You believe you are more unique than you are.
Suls and Wan, 1987, False Uniqueness Effect
You think your virtues are unique, but your vices are normal.
Wegner et al., 1987, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
You are blind to the persistence of your own thoughts.
Gary Dell, 1986, Psychological Review
You are already preparing your next words while speaking.
MacLeod et al. (1986) in Journal of Abnormal Psychology
Your attention is silently pulled toward what you fear.
McDaniel and Einstein (1986), Memory & Cognition
You remember unusual details better than common ones.
Milliman, 1986, Journal of Marketing
Music tempo changes how you shop.
Arkes & Blumer, 1985
You keep finishing the book you dislike reading.
Arkes & Blumer, 1985
You persist in bad decisions because of past costs.
Arkes and Blumer, 1985
You finish books you hate because you started them.
Arkes and Blumer, 1985
You continue painful projects to avoid admitting loss.
Arkes and Blumer, 1985, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes
You keep reading this book because you started.
Arkes and Blumer, 1985, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes
You continue losing ventures because of the investment already made.
Gilovich, Vallone, and Tversky (1985), Cognitive Psychology
You see patterns in random data that simply do not exist.
Gilovich, Vallone, and Tversky, 1985, Cognitive Psychology
You overestimate your ability to predict the future.
Marlatt (1985)
One small slip leads you to abandon everything.
Polivy and Herman, 1985, Journal of Abnormal Psychology
A minor lapse in control leads to a total collapse.
Richard Thaler, 1985
You treat the same amount of money differently.
Richard Thaler, 1985, Marketing Science
You value money differently depending on where it came from.
Shefrin and Statman, 1985
You sell winning investments while keeping your losing ones.
Shefrin and Statman, 1985, Journal of Finance
You hold losing investments far longer than winning ones.
Thaler, 1985
You spend money differently depending on where it comes from.
Tipper, 1985, Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology
Your brain actively blocks information you recently chose to ignore.
Fiske and Taylor, 1984, Social Cognition
Your brain prefers to avoid thinking deeply.
James Flynn, 1984, Flynn Effect
Your baseline for intelligence has shifted over the decades.
Posner and Cohen, 1984, Attention and Performance X
It is physically harder to look back at things.
Davison (1983)
You think others are swayed more than you.
Davison, 1983
You believe media influences others far more than you.
Evans, Barston, and Pollard, 1983, British Journal of Psychology
You accept illogical arguments if the conclusion feels true.
Schwarz & Clore, 1983
Your mood at this moment dictates your life evaluation.
Swann, 1983
You prefer being accurately judged over being falsely praised.
Third-person effect, Davison, 1983
You think media influences others, but not you.
Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D., 1983, 'Extensional versus intuitive reasoning'
You ignore the most common outcome because it feels boring.
W. Phillips Davison, 1983, Public Opinion Quarterly
You believe media affects everyone but you.
William Swann, 1983, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
You seek out people who confirm your negative traits.
Wimmer and Perner, 1983
You struggle to understand that others know what you don't.
Bond and Komoda, 1982, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
You forget what others say when you are waiting.
Cacioppo and Petty, 1982, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
You naturally prefer effortful thinking over simple, automated shortcuts.
Ekman & Friesen, 1982
Your smile is involuntary and cannot be faked.
Güth, W., Schmittberger, R., & Schwarze, B., 1982, 'An experimental analysis of ultimatum bargaining'
You prioritize fairness only when it benefits you.
Huber, Payne, and Puto (1982)
You choose the middle option to avoid extremes.
Huber, Payne, and Puto, 1982
You can be nudged by an irrelevant third option.
Huber, Payne, and Puto, 1982
You buy more when a useless option is added.
Huber, Payne, and Puto, 1982
A third option changes what you choose entirely.
Huber, Payne, and Puto, 1982, Journal of Consumer Research
A third option changes which of two items you prefer.
Joel Huber and Christopher Puto, 1982
Your choice changes when an irrelevant option appears.
Joel Huber, 1982
You can be nudged into expensive choices by irrelevant options.
Kahneman & Tversky, 1982
You suffer most when you imagine how things might be.
Katz and Allen, 1982, Not Invented Here Bias
You reject good ideas because you did not create them.
Lichtenstein, Fischhoff, and Phillips, 1982, Judgment Under Uncertainty
You systematically overestimate how much you know about topics.
Ainslie, 1981
You devalue future rewards to prioritize immediate, smaller gains.
Bower (1981)
Your mood determines what you can remember.
Bower, 1981
You struggle to remember joyful moments while feeling sad.
Bower, 1981
Your mood acts as a filter for your memory.
Bower, 1981, American Psychologist
Your recall improves when you return to your original mood.
Brewer and Treyens, 'Role of schemata in memory', 1981
Your brain ignores details that complicate your narrative.
Erickson and Mattson (1981), The Moses Illusion
Your brain ignores facts that contradict your current context.
Erickson and Mattson, 1981, Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior
You ignore obvious errors when your mind is focused.
Ola Svenson (1981)
You are not as good a driver as you think.
Ola Svenson (1981), Acta Psychologica
You believe you are better than you actually are.
Ola Svenson, 1981, Acta Psychologica
You believe you possess more talent than the average.
Ola Svenson, 1981, Illusory Superiority
You are convinced you are a better driver than most.
Tversky & Kahneman, 1981
You reach different conclusions depending on how options are presented.
Tversky and Kahneman (1981)
You react differently to the same information depending on delivery.
Tversky and Kahneman (1981)
The same information changes your choice depending on context.
Tversky and Kahneman (1981), The Framing of Decisions
You accept risks more when they are presented as gains.
Tversky and Kahneman, 1981
You react differently to the same information framed differently.
Tversky and Kahneman, 1981
Your choice changes based on how the risk is framed.
Tversky and Kahneman, 1981
You decide based on how data is phrased.
Tversky and Kahneman, 1981
You fear risk more when the outlook is positive.
Tversky and Kahneman, 1981, Science
You choose the option based on how it is described.
Tversky and Kahneman, 1981, Science
Your choice depends entirely on how options are phrased.
Tversky and Kahneman, 1981, Science
You react to the same information differently based on labels.
Bower and Clark (1980)
You remember stories better than raw information.
Kenneth Dodge, 1980
You mistake neutral interactions for deliberate slights.
Kenneth Dodge, 1980
You assume the worst when others act neutrally.
Kenneth Dodge, 1980
You interpret neutral social interactions as deliberate attacks.
Kenrick & Gutierres, 1980
Your opinion of quality depends on what you saw first.
Kenrick & Gutierres, 1980, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
Your perception of beauty shifts based on recent comparisons.
Kenrick and Gutierres (1980)
Your judgment is skewed by what you saw before.
Kenrick and Gutierres (1980)
Your judgment of quality is anchored to recent experience.
Kenrick and Gutierres, 1980
You judge objects differently based on what they are near.
Lerner, 1980
You blame the victim to feel safer yourself.
Melvin Lerner, 1980
You subconsciously assume people deserve their current fortune.
Neil Weinstein, 1980, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
You assume you are less likely than others to experience misfortune.
Neil Weinstein, 1980, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
You believe you are safer than the average person.
Neil Weinstein, 1980, Optimism Bias
You believe you are safer from misfortune than everyone else.
Quattrone & Jones, 1980
You view strangers as more similar than they are.
Quattrone and Jones (1980), Out-group Homogeneity
You see your group as diverse but others uniform.
Quattrone and Jones, 1980
You think others are more similar than they are.
Quattrone and Jones, 1980
You perceive members of other groups as all identical.
Sherman (1980), mere-measurement effect
Simply predicting your behavior makes you more likely to act.
Steven J. Sherman, 1980
Simply stating your intent makes you act more often.
Svenson, 1980, Acta Psychologica
You think you are more unique than you actually are.
Thaler, 1980, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization
You value your own possessions more than the market does.
Thompson, 1980, Perception
Your brain ignores facial details when a face is upside down.
Treisman and Gelade, 1980
You focus on what you expect to see.
Treisman and Gelade, 1980, Cognitive Psychology
Your eye movements reflect your internal search patterns.
Weinstein, 1980
You believe bad things only happen to others.
Weinstein, 1980
You believe you are safer than the average person.
Weinstein, 1980, Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology
You assume you are safer than everyone else.
Kahneman and Tversky, 1979
You fear losing money more than gaining it.
Kahneman and Tversky, 1979
Losing ten dollars feels worse than winning ten feels.
Kahneman and Tversky, 1979, Econometrica
You ignore the math when certainty is on the table.
Kahneman and Tversky, 1979, Econometrica
You prefer a sure gain, even when a gamble pays more.
Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A., 1979, 'Prospect theory: An analysis of decision under risk'
You fear losing more than you value gaining.
Latane, Williams, and Harkins, 1979
You work less when you are in a group.
Lord, Ross, and Lepper (1979)
You filter reality to fit what you already know.
Lord, Ross, and Lepper, 1979
You ignore information that disagrees with your prior beliefs.
Lord, Ross, and Lepper, 1979
You ignore information that challenges your existing beliefs.
Lord, Ross, and Lepper, 1979
Your brain ignores facts that contradict your beliefs.
Lord, Ross, and Lepper, 1979, Confirmation Bias
You scan the world for what you expect.
Lord, Ross, and Lepper, 1979, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
You filter out information that challenges your beliefs.
Lord, Ross, and Lepper, 1979, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
You selectively interpret facts to protect your existing worldview.
Nickerson & Adams, 1979, Cognitive Psychology
The details you ignore are often the most important ones.
Pettigrew (1979), ultimate attribution error
You judge the actions of your group more leniently.
Ross and Sicoly, 1979
You believe you contributed more than others did.
Ross and Sicoly, 1979
You remember your contributions as disproportionately large.
Ross and Sicoly, 1979
You naturally remember yourself doing more work than others.
Ross and Sicoly, 1979
You only notice your own effort in group work.
Tversky and Kahneman (1979)
The pain of losing is stronger than the joy of winning.
Tversky and Kahneman, 'Prospect Theory', 1979
You fear losing more than you value gaining.
Berglas & Jones, 1978
You create your own barriers to protect your pride.
Berglas and Jones, 1978
You sabotage your performance to protect your ego.
Berglas and Jones, 1978
You create obstacles to explain your potential failure.
Berglas and Jones, 1978
You create your own excuses before you even start.
Berglas and Jones, 1978
You sabotage yourself to protect your ego.
Berglas and Jones, 1978, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
You create obstacles to explain your potential failure.
Bjork and Landauer, 1978
Your brain learns more by spreading study over time.
Bradley (1978), Self-Serving Bias
You claim personal credit for wins but blame luck.
Brickman et al., 1978, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
You only notice how much you have when it disappears.
Jones and Berglas, 1978
You sabotage your own work to protect your ego.
Jones and Berglas, 1978, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
You create obstacles to explain away your future failures.
Lichtenstein et al., 1978, Journal of Experimental Psychology
You believe common causes of death are much rarer.
Matlin and Stang, 1978
Your brain processes positive concepts faster than negative ones.
Slamecka & Graf (1978)
You remember information better if you create it.
Slamecka and Graf (1978), generation effect
You retain information better when you create it yourself.
Slamecka and Graf, 1978
You remember information better if you create it yourself.
Slamecka and Graf, 1978, Journal of Experimental Psychology
You remember facts better if you explain them yourself.
Taylor and Fiske, 1978, Advances in Experimental Social Psychology
You prioritize vivid information over statistical reality.
Fischhoff, Slovic, & Lichtenstein, 1977
Confidence is often a poor proxy for actual competence.
Fischhoff, Slovic, and Lichtenstein, 1977
Your certainty in your beliefs outweighs their actual accuracy.
Hasher, Goldstein, and Toppino, 1977, Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior
You repeat a false statement until you believe it.
Lee Ross, 1977
You attribute your own poor choices to the situation.
Lee Ross, 1977, Advances in Experimental Social Psychology
You mistake others' circumstances for their personality traits.
Lichtenstein and Fischhoff, 1977
You consistently believe you are more capable than you are.
Lichtenstein and Fischhoff, 1977
You overestimate your ability on tasks you find difficult.
Mita, Dermer, and Knight, 1977, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
You prefer images of yourself when they are reversed.
Nisbett & Wilson, 1977, Psychological Review
You are a stranger to your own reasons.
Nisbett and Wilson, 1977
You do not know why you reached that conclusion.
Rogers et al., 1977
You remember things better when they relate to you.
Rogers et al., 1977, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
You remember information best when you connect it to yourself.
Rogers, Kuiper, & Kirker, 1977
You remember details better if they concern your own personality.
Rogers, Kuiper, and Kirker, 1977
You remember information better if it relates to you.
Rogers, Kuiper, and Kirker, 1977
You remember information best when it relates to you.
Rogers, Kuiper, and Kirker, 1977
You remember information better when it relates to yourself.
Rogers, Kuiper, and Kirker, 1977
You remember information better when it relates to you.
Ross et al. (1977), Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
You think others agree with you more than they do.
Ross et al., 1977, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
You mistakenly believe others think exactly like you do.
Ross, 1977
You view your own mistakes as bad luck.
Ross, Amabile, and Steinmetz, 1977
You rate people as smarter based on their role.
Ross, Greene, & House, 1977, False Consensus Effect
We consistently assume that others think like we do.
Ross, Greene, & House, 1977, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
You judge other people using your own internal state.
Ross, Greene, and House (1977)
You assume other people agree with your personal views.
Ross, Greene, and House (1977)
You assume your private opinions are the majority view.
Ross, Greene, and House (1977)
You assume your opinions are more common than they are.
Ross, Greene, and House, 1977
You assume everyone agrees with your private opinion.
Ross, Greene, and House, 1977, False Consensus Effect
You believe your own opinions are the default setting.
Ross, Greene, and House, 1977, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
You assume everyone shares your private opinions.
Argyle and Cook, 1976, Gaze and Mutual Gaze
You avoid eye contact to manage your own arousal.
Cialdini et al. (1976)
You feel more successful when your group achieves a win.
Cialdini et al., 1976
You claim success for a team you barely know.
Cialdini et al., 1976
You feel an ownership for groups you did not join.
Cialdini et al., 1976
You prefer associating with winners to signal your status.
Cialdini et al., 1976
You claim credit for things you did not do.
McGurk and MacDonald, 1976, Nature
You hear sounds differently based on lip movement.
Ainslie (1975), Hyperbolic Discounting
Your brain prioritizes immediate comfort over future success.
Ainslie, 1975, Psychological Bulletin
You prefer a smaller reward now over a larger one later.
Baruch Fischhoff, 1975
You think your past self knew more than it did.
Baruch Fischhoff, 1975
You believe past events were more predictable than they were.
Baruch Fischhoff, 1975, Journal of Experimental Psychology
You rewrite your memory to claim you saw it coming.
Baruch Fischhoff, 1975, Journal of Experimental Psychology
Your memory rewrites past events to make them predictable.
Baruch Fischhoff, 1975, Journal of Experimental Psychology
You are convinced the outcome was predictable all along.
Cialdini et al., 1975, Door-in-the-Face Technique
Your chances of success rise after a blatant refusal.
Cialdini et al., 1975, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
You are more likely to agree after you have refused.
Ellen Langer, 1975
You interpret luck as evidence of your own skill.
Ellen Langer, 1975, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
You believe you control things that are purely random.
Ellen Langer, 1975, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
You feel more in control when you participate in luck.
Fischhoff (1975)
You rewrite history to make yourself seem clairvoyant.
Fischhoff (1975)
You think you knew the outcome all along.
Fischhoff, 1975
You project your current knowledge onto your past self.
Fischhoff, 1975
You rewrite your history to suit your present.
Fischhoff, 1975
You are convinced past events were easier to predict.
Fischhoff, 1975
You falsely believe you predicted the outcome.
Fischhoff, 1975
You confuse your current opinion with your past beliefs.
Fischhoff, 1975
You believe your past predictions were more accurate than reality.
Fischhoff, 1975
You rewrite your history to appear prescient.
Fischhoff, 1975
You rewrite your own history to match current outcomes.
Fischhoff, 1975, Journal of Experimental Psychology
You view your past through your present.
Fischhoff, 1975, Journal of Experimental Psychology
You reshape your own memory to justify your past decisions.
George Ainslie, 1975
You value a small reward today over more tomorrow.
George Ainslie, 1975
You value immediate satisfaction more than future success.
Godden and Baddeley, 1975, British Journal of Psychology
You recall information best in the same environment you learned it.
Langer (1975)
You assume you influence things that are purely random.
Langer (1975)
You believe you can influence outcomes based on pure chance.
Langer (1975), Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
You feel more capable when you believe you have control.
Langer (1975), illusion of control
You believe you influenced an outcome that was random.
Langer, 1975
You believe your effort influences random outcomes.
Langer, 1975
You believe you control events that are entirely random.
Langer, 1975
You roll dice harder to influence the outcome.
Langer, 1975, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
You overestimate your control over random outcomes.
Miller and Ross (1975)
You take personal credit for wins but blame external luck.
Miller and Ross, 1975
You take credit for your wins and blame bad luck elsewhere.
Miller and Ross, 1975
You blame circumstances for failure but yourself for success.
Miller and Ross, 1975
You take the credit and blame the world.
Miller and Ross, 1975, Psychological Bulletin
You blame your failures on the world around you.
Miller and Ross, 1975, Psychological Bulletin
You claim your successes but blame the environment for failures.
Peltzman, 1975
You become less careful when you feel safer.
Ross, Lepper, and Hubbard, 1975
You struggle to change your mind despite evidence.
Ross, Lepper, and Hubbard, 1975
You cling to your convictions even when proven false.
Ross, Lepper, and Hubbard, 1975, Belief Perseverance
Evidence against your belief makes you hold tighter.
Ross, Lepper, and Hubbard, 1975, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
You hold onto opinions even after being disproven.
Worchel et al., 1975, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
You value things more when they are scarce.
Worchel, Lee, and Adewole (1975)
You judge objects as more valuable if they are scarce.
Worchel, Lee, and Adewole, 1975
You value items more just because they are rare.
Worchel, Lee, and Adewole, 1975
You value items more simply because they are scarce.
Alan Baddeley, 1974
You have a limit to your internal mental voice.
Bickman, 1974, Authority Bias
You accept arguments based on the speaker's rank.
Dutton & Aron (1974)
You often mistake your physical state for attraction.
Dutton and Aron (1974)
You often misinterpret your own physical anxiety as attraction.
Dutton and Aron, 1974
You feel more attraction when your heart rate is high.
Dutton and Aron, 1974
You confuse high physiological arousal for romantic attraction.
Dutton and Aron, 1974, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
You confuse physical excitement with a romantic connection.
Dutton and Aron, 1974, Misattribution of Arousal
Fear and attraction often feel exactly the same.
Dutton and Aron, 1974, The Bridge Study
You might be misreading your fear as attraction.
Elizabeth Loftus, 1974
Your memory is not a recording, it is a draft.
George Ainslie, 1974
You prioritize immediate satisfaction over long-term gain every time.
Ingham et al. (1974)
You exert less effort when you work in a group.
Kahneman and Tversky, 'Judgment under uncertainty', 1974
Your brain prefers simple patterns over complex reality.
Loftus and Palmer (1974)
You can remember events that never actually happened.
Loftus and Palmer, 1974
A leading question can plant a false memory.
Loftus and Palmer, 1974, Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior
You judge risk based on how a question is phrased.
Loftus and Palmer, 1974, Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior
Your memories are rewritten by questions asked after the event.
Loftus, 1974
You can remember events that never actually happened.
Mark Snyder, 1974, Self-monitoring of expressive behavior
You are a different person in different rooms.
Snyder (1974), Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
You adapt your behavior to fit what others expect.
Snyder, 1974, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
You subconsciously shift your persona for every setting.
Tversky and Kahneman (1974)
The first number you hear dictates your entire decision.
Tversky and Kahneman (1974)
The first number you hear dictates your future estimates.
Tversky and Kahneman (1974), Anchoring Effect
A random number changes how you value a price.
Tversky and Kahneman (1974), Science
Your first impression of a price anchors every later decision.
Tversky and Kahneman 1974
You make decisions based on the first thing you hear.
Tversky and Kahneman, 1974
Your first impression of a number dictates your final choice.
Tversky and Kahneman, 1974
Your mind is trapped by the first number you hear.
Tversky and Kahneman, 1974
You interpret early information as a fixed anchor.
Tversky and Kahneman, 1974, Anchoring Bias
Your initial estimate is a trap you set.
Tversky and Kahneman, 1974, Science
Your first impression of a price sets the internal standard.
Tversky and Kahneman, 1974, Science
Your first impression of a number dictates your judgment.
Tversky and Kahneman, 1974, Science
A random number changes what you pay today.
Tversky and Kahneman, 1974, Science
A random number drastically alters your next choice.
Tversky and Kahneman, 1974, Science
Random numbers influence your estimate of an unknown value.
Kahneman and Tversky (1973)
You ignore the statistics to focus on the story.
Kahneman and Tversky, 1973
You ignore statistical data for a single compelling story.
Kahneman and Tversky, 1973, Base Rate Fallacy
You ignore the numbers when a story is better.
Kahneman and Tversky, 1973, Psychological Review
An anecdote outweighs data when you make a judgment.
Lepper, Greene, & Nisbett, 1973
Rewards can turn your favorite hobby into a chore.
Lepper, Greene, and Nisbett (1973)
Rewards often destroy your interest in things you enjoyed.
Lepper, Greene, and Nisbett (1973)
Rewarding a task you enjoy kills your intrinsic motivation.
Lepper, Greene, and Nisbett, 1973
You stop loving things when you are paid.
Lepper, Greene, and Nisbett, 1973
Rewards can destroy your love for a hobby.
Lepper, Greene, and Nisbett, 1973, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
Rewarding a behavior you enjoy will make you quit.
Rosch, 1973, Cognitive Psychology
You categorize objects based on how they 'should' work.
Tversky & Kahneman, 1973, Availability Heuristic
Ease of memory leads us to overestimate rare events.
Tversky & Kahneman, 1973, Cognitive Psychology
You judge how common a risk is by how easily you recall it.
Tversky and Kahneman (1973)
You gauge risk by the news, not logic.
Tversky and Kahneman (1973)
You make decisions based on the most easily recalled examples.
Tversky and Kahneman, 1973
You judge risk by what you recall easily.
Tversky and Kahneman, 1973
You rate common risks as rarer than they are.
Tversky and Kahneman, 1973
You judge how likely something is by your memory.
Tversky and Kahneman, 1973, Cognitive Psychology
You mistake the ease of recalling a reason for the validity of that reason.
Tversky and Kahneman, 1973, Cognitive Psychology
You overestimate risks that appear frequently in the news.
Tversky and Kahneman, 1973, Cognitive Psychology
You judge risk by how easily you recall stories.
Craik & Lockhart, 1972, Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior
You believe that reading is the same as learning.
Dion et al. (1972)
You judge a person's intelligence by their physical beauty.
Dion et al., 1972
You assume attractive people possess other positive traits.
Irving Janis, 1972
You align your views to minimize conflict within groups.
Janis, 1972
You stay silent to keep the group happy.
Jones and Nisbett (1972)
You explain your mistakes differently than you explain theirs.
Brickman and Campbell, 1971, Adaptation-Level Theory
Events do not make you as happy as expected.
Jones & Nisbett, 1971
You judge people by their actions, but yourself by intent.
Jones & Nisbett, 1971, Attribution: Perceiving the Causes of Behavior
You judge people by their actions but yourself by intentions.
Jones and Nisbett (1971)
You judge people by their actions but yourself by intent.
Jones and Nisbett (1971)
You blame your own mistakes on your situation.
Jones and Nisbett, 1971
You explain your errors with context, others with character.
Jones and Nisbett, 1971
You judge your actions by intent but others by outcomes.
Jones and Nisbett, 1971
You judge your own actions by intent, but others' by outcomes.
Jones and Nisbett, 1971
You judge your behavior by your circumstances, not character.
Jones and Nisbett, 1971
You judge your actions by circumstances but others by character.
Jones and Nisbett, 1971, Attribution: Perceiving the Causes of Behavior
You judge people by their actions but yourself by your intentions.
Jones and Nisbett, 1971, Attribution: Perceiving the Causes of Behavior
You view your own moral failures as situational accidents.
Meyer and Schvaneveldt, 1971
You process known words faster than scrambled letters.
Paivio, 1971
You remember stories better than sequences of abstract facts.
Regan, 1971
A tiny, unsolicited gift alters your future decision-making process.
Shepard and Metzler, 1971
Your physical movements can prime your mental speed.
Tversky and Kahneman (1971)
You believe a win is due after repeated losses.
Tversky and Kahneman, 1971
You think the past forces a change in probability.
Tversky and Kahneman, 1971
You expect patterns where there is only randomness.
Tversky and Kahneman, 1971, Gambler's Fallacy
You believe that luck is a balancing force.
Masahiro Mori (1970), Energy
You prefer a slightly broken robot over a near-perfect one.
Richard M. Warren, 'Perceptual restoration of missing speech sounds', 1970
Your brain hallucinates words you did not hear.
Robert Bjork, 1970
You can deliberately choose to forget useless information.
Tajfel (1970), Scientific American
You are a member of a group just by existing.
Tajfel, 1970
You prefer strangers just because they are like you.
Crowder and Morton, 1969
A final sound can wipe out your last memory.
Ekman and Friesen, 1969, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
Your face follows rules dictated by your culture.
Jecker & Landy, 1969
Doing a favor for someone makes you like them.
Jecker & Landy, 1969, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
Asking for a favor can increase someone's affection.
Jecker and Landy, 1969, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
You feel an urge to act because you were asked.
Malpass & Kravitz, 1969
You are significantly worse at distinguishing faces of other races.
Malpass and Kravitz, 1969, Psychonomic Science
Your brain prefers to categorize people by race to process information faster.
Reicher, 1969
Your brain reads the shape of words, not every letter.
Bibb Latané, 1968
The presence of others decreases your urgency to help.
Darley and Latané (1968)
The presence of more people makes you less helpful.
Darley and Latané, 1968
The presence of others makes you less likely to act.
Darley and Latané, 1968, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
You are less likely to help someone if you are in a crowd.
Latane and Darley, 1968
You are less likely to help if others are watching.
Latane and Darley, 1968
The presence of others changes your moral compass.
Latané and Darley, 1968
You are less likely to help if others are around.
Latané and Darley, 1968
You stop helping the moment a witness appears.
Latané and Darley, 1968, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
You help less when others are present.
Robert Zajonc (1968)
You like things more simply because you have seen them.
Robert Zajonc, 1968
You like things more simply because you saw them.
Robert Zajonc, 1968, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
You prefer things just because they are familiar.
Robert Zajonc, 1968, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
You like things more simply because you saw them before.
Robert Zajonc, 1968, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
You prefer things simply because you see them often.
Rosenthal & Jacobson, 1968, Pygmalion in the Classroom
People perform better when you expect them to succeed.
Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968)
Others perform better because you expect them to.
Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968), Pygmalion in the Classroom
You treat people based on your expectations of them.
Rosenthal and Jacobson, 1968
People perform better because you expect them to.
Rosenthal and Jacobson, 1968, Pygmalion in the Classroom
Your expectations of others physically alter their actual performance.
Zajonc (1968)
You like something simply because you see it often.
Zajonc (1968)
You prefer things just because you have seen them.
Zajonc, 1968
You prefer things simply because you have seen them before.
Zajonc, 1968
Simply seeing something repeatedly makes you like it more.
Zajonc, 1968, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
You like things more simply because you have seen them.
Bem, 1967
You change your attitude to match your behavior.
Chapman and Chapman, 1967
You see patterns that do not actually exist.
Chapman and Chapman, 1967, Journal of Abnormal Psychology
You see patterns where none actually exist.
Chapman and Chapman, 1967, Journal of Abnormal Psychology
You see patterns in noise that are not actually there.
Edward Jones and Victor Harris, 1967
You assume a person's current mood is their permanent nature.
Jones and Harris (1967) on attribution
You assume people are consistent even when they are not.
Jones and Harris, 1967
You blame the person, not the situation.
Jones and Harris, 1967
You judge people's actions based on their internal character.
Jones and Harris, 1967
You judge others by character and yourself by circumstance.
Jones and Harris, 1967
You judge others by their character, not their context.
Moyer & Landauer, 1967
Comparing two things takes longer when they are similar.
Sachs, 1967, Perception & Psychophysics
You remember the core meaning but lose the exact words.
Seligman and Maier, 1967, Journal of Experimental Psychology
You perform worse when you feel forced into a task.
Simon and Rudell, 1967, Journal of Applied Psychology
You react faster when your hand matches the stimulus position.
Yarbus, 1967, Eye movements and vision
Your eyes do not see, they perform a search.
Aronson et al., 1966, Psychonomic Science
You find people more attractive if they show flaws.
Aronson, Willerman, and Floyd (1966)
You are more likeable when you make a mistake.
Aronson, Willerman, and Floyd (1966)
A small mistake can make you more likable.
Aronson, Willerman, and Floyd, 1966
Small mistakes actually make you more likable.
Aronson, Willerman, and Floyd, 1966, Psychonomic Science
Being perfect makes you less likable, not more.
Aronson, Willerman, and Floyd, 1966, The Pratfall Effect
Competence is more likeable when it is slightly flawed.
Brehm, 1966
You feel an immediate desire for what is forbidden.
Brehm, 1966
You want what you are told you cannot have.
Brehm, 1966
You feel compelled to restore your lost freedom.
Brehm, 1966, A Theory of Psychological Reactance
You want a thing more precisely because it is forbidden.
Brehm, 1966, A Theory of Psychological Reactance
You will choose the forbidden option just to feel free.
Brown & McNeill, 1966
You cannot find the word you know you know.
Elliot Aronson, 1966
A small mistake makes a high achiever more likable.
Elliot Aronson, 1966
A small blunder makes you more likable, not less.
Elliot Aronson, 1966, Psychonomic Science
You become more likable after making a small, visible mistake.
Elliot Aronson, 1966, The Pratfall Effect
You are more likable when you make small mistakes.
Freedman and Fraser, 1966
A small favor makes you say yes to big ones.
Freedman and Fraser, 1966
You agree to big requests to stay consistent.
Freedman and Fraser, 1966, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
A small request makes you agree to more.
Freedman and Fraser, 1966, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
A small favor makes a large request more likely.
Green & Swets, 1966, Signal Detection Theory
Your internal criteria decide what is signal and noise.
Holzman & Rousey, 1966
You struggle to recognize your own recorded voice.
Jack Brehm, 1966, A Theory of Psychological Reactance
Telling you not to do it makes it attractive.
Maslow (1966)
If you have a hammer, everything is a nail.
Melvin Lerner, 1966
You want to believe that bad things are deserved.
Pratfall effect, Elliot Aronson, 1966
You become more likeable when you commit a blunder.
Segall et al., 1966, Science
Your environment shapes how you perceive basic lines.
Lerner (1965), Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
You want to believe the world is inherently fair.
Lerner, 1965
You subconsciously blame victims to preserve your sense of safety.
Melvin Lerner, 1965
You subconsciously blame victims to preserve your sense of order.
Melvin Lerner, 1965, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
You believe the world is fundamentally fair to everyone.
Robert Zajonc, 1965
The presence of others changes how you perform tasks.
Robert Zajonc, 1965
You are harder on yourself during simple tasks.
Robert Zajonc, 1965, Science
An audience changes your performance depending on the task difficulty.
Social facilitation, Zajonc, 1965
You perform better around others on simple tasks.
Zajonc (1965)
You perform better at simple tasks when others watch.
Zajonc, 1965
The presence of others disrupts your ability to learn.
Conrad, 1964, British Journal of Psychology
Similar sounding words disrupt your short-term memory.
Helson, 1964, Adaptation-Level Theory
Your judgment is relative to what came before.
Hess and Polt, 1964, Science
Your pupils widen when you encounter mental difficulty.
Vroom, 1964, Work and Motivation
You only act when the result seems possible.
Bennet Murdock, 1962, Journal of Experimental Psychology
You only remember the beginning and the end.
Bennet Murdock, 1962, Journal of Experimental Psychology
You only vividly remember the beginning and the end.
Leon James, 1962, Psychological Reports
You can temporarily destroy the meaning of any word.
Murdock (1962)
You only clearly remember the start and end.
Murdock, 1962, Journal of Experimental Psychology
You remember the beginning and the end, not the middle.
Schachter and Singer 1962
Your brain creates a story to explain your physical reactions.
Schachter and Singer, 1962, Psychological Review
You interpret your own physiological arousal incorrectly every day.
Schachter and Singer, 1962, Psychological Review
You interpret your bodily signals through social context.
Serial position effect, 1962
Your brain is programmed to ignore the middle.
Daniel Ellsberg, 1961
You avoid the unknown even when it offers rewards.
Ellsberg (1961)
You reject options when the outcome is unclear.
Ellsberg, 1961
You choose a known risk over an unknown one.
Stoner, 1961, A Comparison of Individual and Group Decisions
Groups make riskier decisions than individuals alone.
Aronson & Mills, 1959, Effort Justification
You value a goal more when it requires significant effort.
Festinger and Carlsmith (1959)
You are more likely to lie for a small reward.
Conrad, 'Apophenia', 1958
Your brain creates meaning out of literal noise.
Donald Broadbent, 1958, Filter Model of Attention
Your focus defines the limits of your reality.
Klaus Conrad, 1958
You see patterns that do not actually exist in data.
Landsberger, 1958
Your performance improves solely because you are watched.
Warren & Gregory, 1958, Verbal Transformation Effect
Repeating a word eventually makes it lose all meaning.
Cyril Northcote Parkinson (1957) on the Law of Triviality
The complexity of a task makes you procrastinate less.
Festinger, 1957
Your confidence in a decision comes after the act.
Festinger, 1957
You value things more just because you suffered for them.
Festinger, 1957
You value things more after working for them.
Leon Festinger, 1957, A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance
You rewrite your values to justify actions you already took.
Underwood, 1957
Your brain blocks out memories to clear the way.
Brehm (1956), Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology
You rate a choice as better after you have already made it.
Brehm (1956), Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology
You like the things you choose more than you did.
Brehm, 1956, Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology
You adjust your identity to match your recent decisions.
Jack Brehm, 1956
Your confidence in a decision increases after you act.
Simon, 1956, Psychological Review
Your brain prefers a simple solution over a perfect one.
Parkinson, 1955, The Economist
You complete tasks in the time you allocate, regardless of complexity.
Festinger (1954)
Your sense of self-worth is tethered to others' success.
Festinger (1954), Social Comparison Theory
You define your worth by measuring it against others.
Festinger, 1954
You judge your current life against those performing better.
Hastorf and Cantril (1954) on 'They Saw a Game'
You are remarkably good at ignoring what you do not want to see.
Leon Festinger, 1954
You derive your self-worth by comparing yourself to peers.
Cherry, 1953
You can identify your own name in a crowded room.
Colin Cherry, 1953
You are constantly filtering conversations you are not hearing.
E. Colin Cherry (1953), The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
Your brain tracks background noise until your name is spoken.
Asch, 1951
You ignore your own senses to match the group.
Asch, 1951
You will change your answer to fit the group.
Asch, 1951, Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology
Your opinion shifts to match the perceived group consensus.
Hovland & Weiss, 1951
You eventually believe the lies you heard before.
Hovland and Weiss (1951), Public Opinion Quarterly
You eventually forget where you heard the information.
Hovland and Weiss, 1951
You eventually believe a claim you once knew was false.
Hovland and Weiss, 1951, Sleeper Effect
You eventually trust a source you once thought was lying.
Howes and Solomon, 1951
Your brain processes familiar words faster than uncommon ones.
Solomon Asch, 1951
You conform to the group to avoid social discomfort.
Solomon Asch, 1951, Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology
You change your opinion to avoid social isolation.
Solomon Asch, 1951, Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology
You look to strangers to decide which path is correct.
Festinger et al., 1950, Social Pressures in Informal Groups
You like people more when you live near them.
Festinger, Schachter, & Back, 1950
You like the people you encounter most frequently.
Festinger, Schachter, and Back, 1950, Propinquity Effect
You like people just because you see them often.
Forer, 1949
You find vague personality descriptions surprisingly accurate.
Forer, 1949
You find personal meaning in descriptions written for everyone.
Forer, 1949, Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology
You find deep meaning in vague, generic descriptions.
Hovland, Lumsdaine, and Sheffield (1949)
You remember the message but forget the unreliable source.
Hovland, Lumsdaine, and Sheffield, 1949
A message you reject today can change your mind later.
Bertram Forer (1948)
You assume generic descriptions apply specifically to you.
Bertram Forer, 1948, Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology
You trust vague descriptions that seem specifically about you.
Bertram Forer, 1948, Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology
You accept generic personality descriptions as uniquely accurate.
Bertram Forer, 1948, Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology
You believe generic personality descriptions are uniquely about you.
Forer, 1948
You accept vague personality descriptions as deeply personal.
Robert Merton, 1948
Your expectations of someone actually dictate how they treat you.
Allport and Postman, 1947
Your memory stores only the gist of experiences.
Asch, 1946
You only remember the very first impression you formed.
Asch, 1946, Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology
You are influenced by the first thing you hear.
Asch, 1946, The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology
The first attribute you notice determines your entire assessment.
Duncker, 1945
You struggle to use objects in new ways.
Duncker, 1945, Psychological Monographs
You change your mind when you cannot use tools.
Karl Duncker, 1945
You struggle to solve problems you have used before.
Karl Duncker, 1945, Functional Fixedness
Common tools often become invisible when you need new uses.
Heider & Simmel, 1944, American Journal of Psychology
Your brain groups unrelated information into a single story.
Heider and Simmel, 1944, The American Journal of Psychology
You assign human traits to inanimate geometry.
Luchins, 1942
You struggle to change a rule once established.
Luchins, 1942
You use the same solution for different problems.
Sherif, 1935, Archives of Psychology
You see motion in lights that stay perfectly still.
Sherif, 1935, Archives of Psychology
Your perception of reality shifts to match others.
Stroop, 1935, Journal of Experimental Psychology
You cannot ignore the meaning of a word.
Von Restorff (1933)
You only remember the one thing that stood out.
Von Restorff, 1933
Your brain ignores uniform items but highlights the oddity.
Von Restorff, 1933, Psychologische Forschung
You only remember the item that stands out.
Bartlett, 1932
Your memory changes every time you retell a story.
Bartlett, 1932
You are a slave to your previous assumptions.
Bartlett, 1932, Remembering: A Study in Experimental and Social Psychology
You repeat a story until the details disappear.
Bartlett, 1932, Remembering: A Study in Experimental and Social Psychology
Your brain reconstructs memories to fit a coherent narrative structure.
Frederic Bartlett, 1932, Remembering
Your memory for stories morphs to fit your culture.
Köhler, 1929, Gestalt Psychology
You link abstract sounds to specific physical shapes.
Bluma Zeigarnik, 1927, Psychologische Forschung
Unfinished tasks linger in your memory much longer.
Zeigarnik, 1927
Your brain prioritizes unfinished tasks to force closure.
Wallis, 1926, The Art of Thought
You only notice your stress when you stop moving.
Edward Thorndike (1920)
A single positive trait tricks you into seeing perfection.
Edward Thorndike, 1920
You judge strangers as kinder based purely on appearance.
Edward Thorndike, 1920
You judge a stranger's intelligence by their physical attractiveness.
Edward Thorndike, 1920
You assign positive character traits based on physical appearance.
Edward Thorndike, 1920
You assume a person's appearance reveals their inner character.
Edward Thorndike, 1920, The Journal of Applied Psychology
You judge a stranger's intelligence solely by their appearance.
Kuleshov, 1920, Soviet Film Theory
The first thing you see changes the entire scene.
Thorndike, 1920
You judge a person's character by their appearance.
Thorndike, 1920
You assume a physically attractive person is also inherently virtuous.
Thorndike, 1920
You assume attractive people are also morally good.
Thorndike, 1920
One positive trait blinds you to every other defect.
Thorndike, 1920, The Horns Effect
One visible flaw blinds you to everything else.
Mario Ponzo, 1913, Ponzo Illusion
Distance alters your perception of size without your consent.
Max Ringelmann, 1913, though replicated extensively in later group dynamics research
You exert less individual effort when working in groups.
Maximilian Ringelmann, 1913
You exert less effort when working in a group.
Ringelmann, 1913
Your personal effort drops when you join a group.
Ringelmann, 1913
You work less hard when you think you are in a team.
Ringelmann, 1913
You exert less effort when you are not alone.
Max Wertheimer, 1912, Phi Phenomenon
You perceive motion even when nothing is moving.
Yerkes and Dodson, 1908, Journal of Comparative Neurology and Psychology
You perform better when you are slightly stressed.
Ebbinghaus, 1902
Your visual size perception is easily manipulated.
Müller & Pilzecker, 1900
New memories actively overwrite what you already remembered.
Ebbinghaus, 1885
You learn more by studying in intervals than in blocks.
Ebbinghaus, 1885
You only remember the beginning and the end.
Gestalt psychology, Law of Closure
Your brain fills in gaps to create complete objects.
Hawthorne effect, 1920s
You change your own behavior when being watched.
Hermann Ebbinghaus, 1885
You only clearly remember the beginning and the end.
Janet Polivy and C. Peter Herman
A minor lapse leads you to abandon all progress.
Kuleshov, 1920s
Your perception of an emotion depends on what came before.
Lee Ross, 1990s research on naive realism
You believe you see the world objectively as it is.
Lev Kuleshov, 1910s film experiments
Context changes the emotion you read in others.
Nassim Taleb, The Black Swan (theoretical foundation)
You consistently underestimate your own internal narrative.
Sensory Adaptation, Psychophysics
Your senses shut down to save energy over time.
Uncertain (standard behavioral economics finding)
You prefer a known failure to an unknown outcome.
Weber's Law, Ernst Heinrich Weber
Small changes are invisible against large existing quantities.
choice-supportive bias
Your preferences change based on the choices you ignore.
conscious processing hypothesis
You perform worse when you try to consciously control movement.
sound-induced flash illusion
Your brain interprets sound as a visual flash.
uncertain
You categorize people before you know their names.