Bias number 30 is known as the context effect. This cognitive bias illustrates the ways in which a person’s environment affects perception of a stimulus such as an image, sound or object.

The context effect uses a top-down approach to analysing environmental information, meaning that people will base analysis on prior knowledge to make assessments on their experience of their surroundings. In essence, people are drawing on past experiences to infer conclusions about their present encounter with the stimulating object.

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Bias number 29 is known as the consistency bias. This is a cognitive bias that influences our ability to make decisions in the present by referring to past decisions.

This bias lies at the source of our tendency to double-down on decisions we’ve made in the past under the belief in the importance of consistency. Committing to the decision for the sake of being consistent, even when we have doubts, constricts our decision-making, often guiding us to adhere to bad decisions.

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Bias number 28 is known as the conservatism bias. This is a bias that affects the way in which people alter their beliefs when given new pieces of information.

In short, people have a tendency to be slow, or conservative, in changing their beliefs when presented with evidence that challenges the held belief. People usually shift their existing belief insufficiently in accordance with new pieces of evidence, giving more weight to their currently-held beliefs than is appropriate. Some psychologists believe this is an extension of the anchoring bias that influences people to make decisions by continually referring back to a core belief, whether it is sound or not.

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Bias number 27 is known as the conjunction fallacy. This is a cognitive bias that arises when we make assumptions about the occurrence of more than one condition, such as a personality trait.

For the statisticians amongst us, this is an interesting cognitive bias because it assumes that specific conditions are more probable when they occur together over the occurrence of a single condition. This is statistically improbable, and yet our thought processes, relying less on fact and more on assumption, will infer otherwise.

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Bias number 26 is known as the congruence bias. The congruence bias is a subset of the confirmation bias that impacts people’s ability to make decisions based on beliefs.

The congruence bias arises when people rely too much on the direct testing of a received bias while failing to conduct indirect testing of the bias. What does this mean in non-psychology speak?

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Bias number 25 is known as the confirmation bias. This is perhaps the most well-known cognitive bias, brought up in business circles as a justification for challenging cultural norms and the beliefs upon which they are based.

This bias demonstrates that human beings are inclined to search for, interpret, favour and recall information that confirms an already-existing belief, dismissing information that challenges their beliefs in the process. Reasons for the presence of confirmation bias may include wishful thinking, limited capacity for thinking and the avoidance of being wrong.

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Bias number 24 is known as compassion fade. This is a social cognitive bias that has a significant affect on people’s willingness to help others in need.

Compassion fade generally arises as the number of people in need rises. It could be seen as a way in which a person regulates and maintains the balance between the desire to be of service to others and the desire to manage emotional overwhelm.

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Bias number 23 is known as the clustering illusion. This is a cognitive bias that leads people to create patterns in data sets that are, in fact, random.

We attempt to bring meaning to data analysis by forging links between data sets that, in reality, have no links. As humans, we have a tendency to need to create order from chaos, deriving a narrative that explains the situation, to create coherence. Our brains will create imaginary patterns in an attempt to tie things up nice and neat in a bow.

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Bias number 22 is known as the choice supportive bias. This is a cognitive bias that supports a person’s decision-making process once a decision has been made.

The way the choice supportive bias works is this. Once you've made a choice, you retrospectively assign positive attributes towards your decision and negative attributes to the decisions you didn’t make. Emotional reactions towards the decision, such as satisfaction or regret, play just as much a part in the occurrence of this bias as the decision itself. 

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Bias number 21 is known as the cheerleader effect. This is a cognitive bias that affects the way people perceive individuals when they are alone versus in a group.

How does the group association affect the perception of an individual? According to studies, people are rated more attractive in a group than they are as an individual when their photos are shown to test subjects. This bias occurs consistently in single-sex and mixed groups of different sizes.

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