58 logical fallacies and cognitive biases

Offering a piece of information which is irrelevant for the main point with the intention to mislead or distract.

“Many people are campaigning for the environment, but I think that we must tackle unemployment and make sure that we take better care of our homeless.”

An attempt to distract you by making you feel bad for someone while anyone’s emotional state is irrelevant to the cause at hand. As human beings, we often find it hard to defend ourselves against people or groups of people claiming to be sad, hurt, or scared.

“Are you sure that you want to blame these immigrants when they’re clearly suffering from their past experiences.”

The false belief that a lot of people can’t be wrong about the same thing at the same time. Both logic and history has taught us that majorities can be objectively wrong, but it’s socially comforting to remind your opponent that you have the majority position on your side — which makes your position correct by default.

“One billion flies can’t be wrong — eat shit.”

The false belief that a lot of people can’t be wrong about something for a very long time. Just because human beings have been religious throughout our history, this fact in of itself doesn’t proof the existence of supernatural powers.

“This simply can’t be wrong since this has been common practice forever.”

The misleading concept that science are at odds with nature and that you therefore shouldn’t trust science. Just because we’ve evolved in unison with nature without vaccines, this fact doesn’t automatically make vaccines dangerous.

“We trust in safekeeping our natural immune systems and therefore we don’t trust in vaccines.”

The misconception that if you can’t prove something to be false, then it must be true.

“Since God can’t be disproven, God must exist.”

To use a circular argument; any form of argument where the conclusion is assumed in one of the premises.

“God exists because it says so in the Bible.”

To use words of multiple meanings interchangeably to gain the upper hand in an argument.

“I have the right to believe in God; therefore, believing in God is right.”

Assuming that something must be either A or B and not both, nor neither. The media logic often dictates that narratives must be simplified and amplified to be easier to quickly understand; as soon as something is two or more things simultaneously, we tend to find this hard to wrap our heads around. A person could be good or bad at the same time — or neither.

“You’re either with us (on everything), or you’re against us (on everything).”

The false notion that any right answer must lie somewhere in between extreme positions. If someone says that the water is cold and someone else says it’s hot, it’s easy to assume that the temperature is likely to be somewhere in between. But it could still be really hot — or really cold.

“Someone said that this is really dangerous and someone said that this is perfectly safe, so as long as I’m cautious, I should be fine.”

The false assumption that something can’t be correct or incorrect because there’s no precise cut-off between two points. This is a fallacy we’re seeing in the news media connected to the coronavirus pandemic all the time; since we can’t say which precise number of deaths is good or bad, many argue that we can’t say anything about any number.

“We haven’t had lots of pandemic deaths in Sweden because we know of other countries who clearly have had lots of deaths — and since we haven’t had as many as those countries, we clearly haven’t had lots of deaths.”

The false assumption that one step in a certain direction is bound to lead to many steps in that same direction. Sure, eating a piece of candy could lead to an increased consumption of sugar which could lead to a serious disease which ultimately could cost you your life. But eating a piece of candy won’t lead directly to your death.

“If you eat that sandwich you’re going to get fat.”

When someone draws very general conclusions based on a very small subset of subjective circumstances. We are often quick to draw generalised conclusions based on anecdotal evidence, especially if those circumstances are individual.

“I got mugged in the street yesterday and I hate the fact that society is becoming increasingly more unsafe.”

The attempt to disqualify an argument by making a point using an irrelevant analogy. Analogies can be powerful communication tools, but it’s also easy to make comparisons that simply aren’t fair or accurate.

“Abortion is murder.”

The attempt to push the opponent to disprove your claims. It’s the person making the claim who has the burden of proof, but a popular technique is to push the responsibility over at the person you’re arguing against.

“I believe in God and you must prove me wrong to change my mind.”

Just because an if-then statement is true in a certain situation, this doesn’t make the if-then statement true in all situations.

“A cat meows, so everything that meows is a cat.”

If a statement with specific conditions is correct, this doesn’t make the statement correct or incorrect for all other types of conditions.

“A cat meows, so if it doesn’t meow, then it isn’t a cat.”

Manipulating the argument by changing the specifics of your initial claims — after being questioned or even proven wrong.

“Yes, there might be some innocent people in jail, but I was only talking about the ones who actually did committed their crimes.”

To disqualify someone or something based on a false or biased ideal.

” All real men have beards, so if you don’t have a beard, then you can’t be a real man.”

Just because you find something hard to believe or imagine, that in itself doesn’t make it untrue.

“I can’t believe that the universe and everything in it arose from nothing, so it can’t be true.”

The false assumption that correlation equals causation.

“Crime rates went up when the price of gas went up, so for the sake of everyone’s safety, we must lower our taxes on fossil fuels.”

To decide on your position and then go out to find only data to support that position — and no other position. This fallacy is especially prominent in this digital age of ours, when it’s possible to go online to find arguments defending almost any imaginable position.

“I’ve found numerous studies supporting my position and I have no idea if there are any studies supporting your position as well.”

To ask a question with an assumption already built into the question.

“Have you stopped beating your wife?”

If we don’t understand or see the reason for something, we might be inclined to do away with it. However, even if we at first don’t understand it, most things have been put in place for a reason. We should therefore leave it be unless we fully understand its purpose.

“There’s a fence here, but I can’t really see what it’s good for, so let’s do away with it.”

I’ve also written about survivorship bias and Abraham Wald.

“All returning warplanes with damages were shot in the wings, so we should reinforce the wings to make them safer.”

A cognitive bias in which people tend to overestimate their own competence as they quickly make initial progress in a new field.

“I’ve just started learning about this and I’m amazed at how much more I know now compared to before when I knew next to nothing, so I’m quite sure that I’m something of an expert on this subject now.”

Most of us have a tendency to recall or interpret information in a way that reinforces our existing cognitive schemas.

“I refused to take my medicine and I got well, so I do my best to stay away from medicine always.

When faced with an initial number, we often tend to compare any subsequent numbers to that initial anchor.

“The third house shown to us by the broker was over our budget, but still a bargain compared to the first two houses she showed us.”

We tend to assume that other people have at least enough knowledge to comprehend and digest what we’re saying.

“A preschool class came by the lab yesterday and asked about my work, so I talked about genome sequencing for a good half hour and got no follow-up questions.”

We find it easier to believe that negative things can happen to others than to ourselves. But some people have a tendency to be biased in the opposite way; they overestimate the likelihood of negative events.

“We’re so blessed that those terrible things couldn’t ever happen to us.” / “What happened to them will also happen to us — only worse.”

Sometimes we stick to a behaviour simply because we’ve already invested time, money, and other types of resources into it. To abandon such an investment would force us to face an irreversible failure.

“I ordered too much food, so we’ll simply have to over-eat for a few weeks to get our money’s worth.”

As human beings, we tend to react more strongly to negative impacts than to positive impacts of similar or equal weight.

“Our daughter graduated with honors from college yesterday, but then on our way home, our car broke down and ruined the rest of the day.”

We tend to think that everything will decline, especially in light of new developments. This might be due to a form of cognitive laziness; we don’t wish to change the way we think in tandem with the times. In relation to media science, I’ve written about declinism in The curious case of Cambridge Analytica and the big data techlash.

“Things are continually just getting worse.”

When challenged, the outcome might be that we cling even firmer to our beliefs — instead of questioning ourselves. I’ve also written about this in How to fight populism.

“People really seem to hate our ideology, but this only proves that we’re right about everything.”

When someone else makes a mistake, we tend to attribute this mistake to their character or their behaviour, but when we ourselves makes mistakes, we tend to attribute such mistakes to contextual circumstances.

“People are idiots in traffic; especially when I’m stressed.”

We have evolved to be subjectively preferential to people who belongs to the same social group. This isn’t necessarily a bad behaviour per se, but we must watch out for situations where we are put in a position in which we simply can’t be expected to be fair and objective.

“I might be biased, of course, but I dare say, objectively, that my daughter was the best performer in the whole orchestra.”

We have a tendency to fill any gaps in information given to us using our existing cognitive schemas. This is, for instance, why it’s so easy to think that an horoscope is eerily accurate and this is because we fail to recognise that vague statements might not just apply to oneself, but to a large number of other people, too.

“I read my horoscope yesterday and the information was uncannily accurate, so I’m certainly convinced that there are some things about the cosmos that influences our lives in a way that we can’t yet understand.”

We have a tendency to sort information based on our existing cognitive schemas (see also the Forer effect). One outcome of this is that we tend to disregard any information that sits badly with what we already believe while absorbing anything that confirms our existing beliefs with ease.

“The Earth is flat and I haven’t seen any credible evidence to the contrary.”

This can be seen as the equivalent in media science to the psychological fallacy of the backfire effect. Studies have shown that people with strong opinions on a specific issue tend to believe that the media is biased towards their opposition. The effect will be even stronger if the individual believes that there is a silent majority out there who are particularly susceptible to erroneous or misleading media coverage.

“I know that the media is telling me that I’m wrong, but that’s perfectly understandable since their primary objective is to stop me from exposing the truth.”

This fallacy is closely related to Texas sharpshooter and fallacy of division. Especially online, this fallacy fuels the most part of the reasoning behind popular conspiracy theories. In a world where information is abundant and easily accessible, it’s easy for anyone to make whatever case seem plausible. As an example, see this fragmented yet powerful attempt by the French author Rupert Furneaux demonstrates how to cast doubt on the existence of Napoleon Buonaparte, one of the most famous characters in history:

1. The name Napoleon is just a variation of Apoleon or Apollo, and as God of the Sun, he was named Buonaparte, which means “the good part of the day” (when the sun shines).

9. Napoleon, the Sun Myth, always conquered in the South but was always defeated by the cold winds of the North. Like the Sun, Napoleon rose in the East — he was born on Corsica) — and dawned in the West — he died on St. Helena.

Most social animals harbours an instinctive fear of isolation and in-groups maintain their cultural stability partially by excluding individuals with non-conforming opinions or behaviours. This can create a culture in which group members are self-censoring both their opinions and their behaviours by going silent. I’ve written about this effect in Woke in business: How to navigate the moral war of political correctness.

“My opinions are perceived as wrong and it’s better for everyone if I stay silent.”

This is a marketing exploit where the persuader aims to get you to say yes to something substantial (“big ask”) by methodically getting you to say yes to something smaller first (“small ask”).

“I wasn’t going to buy the pink umbrella at first, but then I subscribed to their newsletter and via the newsletter I downloaded a free photobook with pink umbrellas — and now I own five pink umbrellas.”

People are socially less inclined to offer support or aid if there are lots of other people around who could do it instead. I’ve written about this very special psychological effect in A web of lies: The death of Kitty Genovese and Conversion theory: the disproportionate influence of minorities.

“Everyone cares deeply about personal safety, so everyone will download our new CSR-app to help each other.”

If someone is nice or generous towards us, we often tend to feel a sort of obligation to reciprocate. While this, in itself, is a beautiful and normal part of human behaviour, it’s something that special interests can take advantage of.

“I can’t believe the car broke down so fast — the guy I bought it from threw in so many extra features.”

Once we commit to something, we invest a part of ourselves in that decision. This makes it harder for many of us to abandon such commitments, because it would mean giving up on a part of ourselves. This bias is, of course, closely related to yes ladders, declinism, appeal to tradition, and sunk cost fallacy.

“I’ve made my decision and therefore I’m sticking with it.”

This fallacy is the commercial extension of the bandwagon effect; by showcasing social proof we are comforted by decision made by others. Ideally, we should always make sure that reviews and displays of engagement are relevant (and real) before making any decisions for ourselves, but this doesn’t always happen.

“Their product seem to have lots of happy users, so the risk of getting scammed is low.”

“We most prefer to say yes to people we know and like,” says Robert Cialdini in Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. This bias is closely related to the in-group fallacy described above. According to Social Media Examiner, a few extensions of this principle are:

We like people who are similar to us. We like people who compliment us. We like things that are familiar to us. Cooperation toward joint efforts inspires increased liking. An innocent association with either bad or good things will influence how people feel about us. Physical attractiveness creates a halo effect and typically invokes the principle of liking.

“He is gorgeous, successful, and speaks in a way that resonates with me, so why shouldn’t I trust everything he says?”

It’s generally difficult for us to distinguish between perceived authority and real authority. Many internet companies are using testimonials by people with fancy titles that their audience have never heard about — and it works. This is closely related to the fallacious appeal to authority.

“This product was recommended by several leading doctors and that’s true because the ad said so.”

Most of us are notoriously scared of missing out (also known as FOMO, fear of missing out). This makes assign perceive things as more valuable the more rare they are. I’ve also written about this in Craving more — creating an illusion of scarcity.

“I’m so happy that I managed to snag that pink unicorn umbrella before the discount ran out!”

The pain of losing can psychologically be twice as powerful as the joy of winning. This often allows us to take disproportionate risks in order to avoid losing compared to the risks we’re ready to take to win. This is, of course, closely related to commitment and consistency and the sunk cost fallacy.

“Our last investment led to a loss of market share, so we must increase our investment to regain it.”