cognitive-biaseslisted

# Cognitive Biases Human reasoning relies on heuristics — fast, frugal shortcuts that work well most of the time but produce systematic errors under predictable conditions. Cognitive biases are those systematic errors. They are not random noise; they are patterned departures from normative reasoning that can be anticipated, diagnosed, and partially corrected. This skill catalogs the twelve most consequential biases, each with a mechanism, a diagnostic signal, and a mitigation strategy. **Agent affinity:** tversky (heuristics and biases tradition), kahneman-ct (System 1 / System 2 framing), paul (integration with elements of reasoning) **Concept IDs:** crit-confirmation-bias, crit-availability-anchoring, crit-intellectual-humility, crit-calibrated-confidence ## The Bias Catalog at a Glance | # | Bias | Mechanism | Diagnostic signal | |---|---|---|---| | 1 | Confirmation bias | Seek and weight supporting evidence more than disconfirming | "I knew it" for every matching case; disconfirming cases feel like "exceptions" | | 2 | Availability heuristic | Judge probability by how easily examples come to mind | Vivid recent events dominate risk estimates | | 3 | Anchoring | First number or idea biases subsequent estimates | Second guess is close to the first even with new information | | 4 | Representativeness | Judge by resemblance to a stereotype, ignoring base rates | Ignoring how rare the category actually is | | 5 | Framing effects | Same content, different phrasing, differe