The Bias blind spot is the tendency not to acknowledge one’s own thought biases. In a research study conducted by Emily Pronin of Princeton University, participants were described different cognitive biases such as the Halo Effect and Self-Serving Bias. When asked how biased the participants themselves were, they rated themselves as less biased than the average person.

Interesting Fact: Amazingly, there is actually a bias to explain this bias (imagine that!). The Better-Than-Average Bias is the tendency for people to inaccurately rate themselves as better than the average person on socially desirable skills or positive traits. Coincidentally, they also rate themselves as lower than average on undesirable traits.

This is a bonus because it attempts to explain cognitive biases. Attribute substitution is a process individuals go through when they have to make a computationally complex judgment. Instead of making the difficult judgment, we unconsciously substitute an easily calculated heuristic (Heuristics are strategies using easily accessible, though loosely related, information to aid problem solving). These heuristics are simple rules that everyone uses everyday when processing information, they generally work well for us; however, they occasionally cause systematic errors, aka, cognitive biases.