Amanda Penn

What does “representativeness” mean in psychology? What are examples of representativeness heuristics? The representative heuristic is when you organize objects by their similarities and categorize them around a prototype. The representativeness heuristic describes when we estimate the likelihood of an event by comparing it to an existing prototype in our minds. We’ll go more in depth into the above representative heuristic definition and cover multiple representative heuristic examples in psychology.

What is cognitive ease? What is it good for, and when does it hinder you? Cognitive ease is an internal measure of how easy or strained your cognitive load is. In a state of cognitive ease, you’re probably in a good mood, believe what you hear, trust your intuitions, feel the situation is familiar, are more creative, and are superficial in your thinking. We’ll cover the properties of cognitive ease and how to use the concept to get your point across and convince others of its truth.

What is the conjunction fallacy? How can you avoid it? Conjunction fallacy is the belief that the conjunction of two events happening is more probable than one happening. Often, extra details that create a coherent story make the events in that story seem more probable, even though the extra conditions needing to be met make the conjunction less probable. The best way to illustrate this is with a conjunction fallacy example. We’ll cover two examples of the conjunction fallacy and how to counter this bias.

What is the peak-end rule? What does it have to do with happiness? The peak-end rule is the theory that the overall rating is determined by the peak intensity of the experience and the end of the experience. It does not care much about the averages throughout the experience. Learn how the peak-end rule applies to happiness and how it alters the way you remember experiences.

What is overconfidence bias? How do you avoid it? Overconfidence bias is when a person feels more confident in the accuracy of his or her judgment than objective standards would indicate. Overconfidence bias can lead to bad decisions and faulty predictions. Learn what overconfidence bias is, see examples of different types of overconfidence bias, and learn how to avoid the overconfidence effect.

What are framing effects in psychology? How do framing effects affect decision making? The framing effect is a cognitive bias in which people make decisions based on whether the options are “framed,” or presented, as losses or gains. An outcome presented as a gain is much more favorable as the same outcome framed as a loss. We’ll cover how framing effects impact your decision making and look at framing effect examples.

What is narrative fallacy? When and why do you make this fallacy, and how can you avoid it? The narrative fallacy is the tendency to create a story with cause-and-effect explanations out of random details and events. We fall victim to the narrative fallacy because our brains want to make sense of a random world. Learn why your brain is so prone to falling for the narrative fallacy and how to counter it.

What is the endowment effect? Am I affected by it? How does it function in my everyday life? The endowment effect is the theory that people keep an object and value it more highly once they own it. In essence, the endowment effect causes people to overvalue their belongings. We’ll look at three examples of the endowment effect and how you’re susceptible to it.

What is hindsight bias? How does it work, and how can you avoid it? Hindsight bias is the tendency to believe you have predicted events or outcomes that were unpredictable. Hindsight bias is a problem because it inflates our confidence about predicting the future. We’ll look at hindsight bias examples that make the above definition clearer. Learn why the hindsight bias in psychology is an issue and how to overcome it.