A free, self-paced textbook in 7 chapters. Read a chapter, then drill it with the 100 companion flashcards using spaced repetition.
The human brain relies on mental shortcuts, or heuristics, to navigate a constant flood of information. While these shortcuts are often efficient, they systematically produce predi...
Cognitive biases also color how we see ourselves, often flattering the self while obscuring reality. The self-serving bias captures this neatly: we attribute our wins to talent and...
Humans are intensely social creatures, and many biases emerge from the dynamics of group life. Social conformity drives the bandwagon effect and the more extreme herd mentality, in...
Many biases arise from the ways our memory and attention are built. Hindsight bias, often called the "I-knew-it-all-along" effect, makes past events feel predictable after they hav...
Another cluster of biases governs how we assign value, especially to things we own or have invested in. The sunk cost fallacy traps us into continuing failed courses of action beca...
A surprising number of biases involve resisting change, avoiding threatening information, or doubling down on existing beliefs. Reactance, formalized by Jack Brehm's reactance theo...
A final set of biases shows how expectations can shape reality itself, for better and worse. The Pygmalion effect (also called the Rosenthal effect) demonstrates that higher expect...