Cognitive bias refers to systematic patterns of deviation from norm or rationality in judgment, where individuals create their own "subjective reality" from their perception of the input. An individual’s construction of reality, not the objective input, may dictate their behavior in the world. Thus, cognitive biases may sometimes lead to perceptual distortion, inaccurate judgment, illogical interpretation, or what is broadly called irrationality. Some cognitive biases are presumably adaptive, having evolved to solve specific problems in our ancestral environments. However, they can lead to various errors and inaccuracies in modern contexts, affecting decision-making in politics, finance, management, and personal relationships.
The study of cognitive biases is a crucial area within cognitive psychology and behavioral economics. One well-known example is the confirmation bias, a tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms one’s preexisting beliefs or hypotheses, while giving disproportionately less consideration to alternative possibilities. Other biases include the anchoring bias, where individuals rely too heavily on an initial piece of information offered when making decisions (the "anchor"), and the availability heuristic, which occurs when people overestimate the importance of information that is available to them.
A more nuanced bias is the Dunning-Kruger effect, in which individuals with lower ability at a task overestimate their ability. It is a form of cognitive bias in which people believe that they are smarter and more capable than they really are. Essentially, low ability