The world is very confusing, and we end up only seeing a tiny sliver of it, but we need to make some sense of it in order to survive. Once the reduced stream of information comes in, we connect the dots, fill in the gaps with stuff we already think we know, and update our mental models of the world.
We tend to find stories and data when looking at sparse data
Since we only get a tiny sliver of the world’s information, and also filter out almost everything else, we never have the luxury of having the full story. This is how our brain reconstructs the world to feel complete inside our heads.
| Confabulation | Pareidolia |
| Insensitivity to Sample Size | Clustering Illusion |
| Anecdotal Fallacy | Neglect of Probability |
| Masked Man Fallacy | Illusion of Validity |
| Gambler’s Fallacy | Recency Illusion |
| Anthropomorphism | Illusory Correlation |
We fill in characteristics from stereotypes, generalities, and prior histories
When we have partial information about a specific thing that belongs to a group of things we are pretty familiar with, our brain has no problem filling in the gaps with best guesses or what other trusted sources provide. Conveniently, we then forget which parts were real and which were filled in.
We simplify probabilities and numbers to make them easier to think about
Our subconscious mind is terrible at math and generally gets all kinds of things wrong about the likelihood of something happening if any data is missing.
| Mental Accounting | Appeal to Probability Fallacy |
| Normalcy Bias | Murphy’s Law |
| Zero-sum Bias | Survivorship Bias |
| Subadditivity Effect | Denomination Effect |
| Magic Number 7+-2 |
We imagine things and people we’re familiar with or fond of as better
Similar to the above but the filled-in bits generally also include built in assumptions about the quality and value of the thing we’re looking at.
| Out-group Homogeneity Bias | Reactive Devaluation |
| Halo Effect | In-group Bias |
| Not-Invented-Here Syndrome | Positivity Effect |
| Cross-race Effect | Well-Traveled Road Effect |
| Cheerleader Effect |
We think we know what other people are thinking
In some cases this means that we assume that they know what we know, in other cases we assume they’re thinking about us as much as we are thinking about ourselves. It’s basically just a case of us modeling their own mind after our own (or in some cases after a much less complicated mind than our own).
| Illusion of Transparency | Illusion of External Agency |
| Extrinsic Incentive Error | Spotlight Effect |
| Curse of Knowledge | Illusion of Asymmetric Insight |
We project our current mindset and assumptions onto the past and future
Magnified also by the fact that we’re not very good at imagining how quickly or slowly things will happen or change over time.
| Self-consistency Bias | Projection Bias |
| Time-saving Bias | Pessimism Bias |
| Declinism | Outcome Bias |
| Rosy Retrospection | Resistant Bias |
| Pro-innovation Bias | Planning Fallacy |
| Impact Bias | Moral Luck |
| Hindsight Bias | Telescoping Effect |
