Bias Bites

This mini‐​lesson is designed to help your students recognize and better understand confirmation bias. This cognitive shortcut helps us make quick decisions, but it can also lead to poor judgment and closed‐​minded thinking.

This mini‐​lesson is designed to help your students recognize and better understand in‐​group bias. This cognitive shortcut can help foster strong relationships within a group, but it can also lead to discrimination, a lack of viewpoint diversity, and limited collaboration with anyone outside the group. 

This mini‐​lesson is designed to help your students recognize and better understand dichotomous thinking. This cognitive shortcut can help with quick decision‐​making by simplifying complicated issues into manageable categories; however, this bias can also lead to oversimplifications that can reinforce biases and even lead to extreme views. 

This mini‐​lesson is designed to help your students recognize and better understand the availability heuristic. This cognitive shortcut can help with quick decision‐​making based on readily available information in our memory, but it can also lead to biased judgments that may overestimate or underestimate the frequency or probability of events. 

This mini‐​lesson is designed to help your students recognize and better understand negativity bias. This cognitive shortcut can motivate us to take action to address negative situations and avoid future problems; however, it can also lead to a pessimistic outlook and contribute to feelings of stress and anxiety. 

This mini‐​lesson is designed to help your students recognize and better understand the bandwagon effect. This cognitive shortcut can increase social cohesion by creating a sense of belonging and identity, but it may also suppress individuality and critical thinking in an effort by the individual to conform to group norms.

This mini‐​lesson is designed to help your students recognize and better understand the Pygmalion effect. It is a cognitive shortcut in which high expectations boost motivation and lead to improved performance while low expectations create a negative self‐​fulfilling prophecy and underperformance. 

This mini‐​lesson is designed to help your students recognize and better understand belief perseverance. Although this bias can encourage individuals to stand firm in their beliefs, it can also hinder critical thinking and perpetuate stereotypes and prejudice. 

This mini‐​lesson is designed to help your students recognize and better understand the affect heuristic. Although this bias can allow us to make decisions quickly and efficiently, it can also promote biased responses that are based on emotions, not facts. 

This mini‐​lesson is designed to help your students recognize and better understand the Dunning‐​Kruger effect. This bias can help us take on new challenges by giving us a sense of self‐​confidence and self‐​efficacy; however, it can also promote poor decision‐​making through inaccurate assessments and a resistance to feedback.