Knowing bias names is less useful than having counter-moves you will actually do when tired. Below are five that show up constantly in reader mail.
1. Anchoring
The first number you hear colonises the negotiation — salary, house price, child support expectations. Counter-move: write your own anchor on paper before you open any email or listing. Your anchor should cite at least two independent sources.
2. Confirmation bias
You search for reasons the option you like is wise. Counter-move: spend twenty minutes writing the strongest case for the option you dislike. If you cannot make it sound coherent, you have not understood it yet.
3. Availability
Recent headlines feel more probable than they are. Counter-move: ask for base rates — how often does this outcome happen to people like me, not on Twitter, but in boring datasets?
4. Loss aversion
Losses hurt about twice as much as equivalent gains feel good — Kahneman and Tversky’s classic finding. That skew makes people cling to mediocre status quos. Counter-move: frame the status quo as an active choice with its own risks, not as zero.
5. Planning fallacy
We underestimate time and cost for our own projects while believing others are late. Counter-move: take your best-case timeline and multiply by 1.5 for personal projects; ask someone who has done the exact thing what surprised them.
Why this site keeps publishing bias primers
The analyzer is essentially bias scaffolding: scenarios fight availability, lenses fight confirmation, timelines fight planning fallacy. Articles like this one explain the “why” so the tool does not feel like a black box. That transparency is part of what “helpful content” systems reward.
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