Editing Cognitive bias (section)

== Common theoretical causes of some cognitive biases ==
Bias arises from various processes that are sometimes difficult to distinguish. These include:

*[[Bounded rationality]] — limits on optimization and rationality
**[[Prospect theory]]
*[[Evolutionary psychology]]  — Remnants from evolutionary adaptive mental functions.<ref>{{cite journal| vauthors = Van Eyghen H |year=2022|title=Cognitive Bias. Philogenesis or Ontogenesis|journal= Frontiers in Psychology|volume=13|doi=10.3389/fpsyg.2022.892829 |pmid=35967732 |pmc=9364952 |doi-access=free}}</ref>
**[[Mental accounting]]
**[[Adaptive bias]] — basing decisions on limited information and biasing them based on the costs of being wrong
*[[Attribute substitution]] — making a complex, difficult judgment by unconsciously replacing it with an easier judgment<ref>{{cite book | vauthors = Kahneman D, Frederick S | chapter = Representativeness revisited: Attribute substitution in intuitive judgment | veditors = Gilovich T, Griffin DW, Kahneman D |title=Heuristics and Biases: The Psychology of Intuitive Judgment |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge |year=2002 |pages=49–81  |isbn=978-0-521-79679-8 |oclc=47364085}}</ref>
*[[Attribution theory]]
**[[Salience (neuroscience)|Salience]]
**[[Naïve realism (psychology)|Naïve realism]]
*[[Cognitive dissonance]], and related:
**[[Impression management]]
**[[Self-perception theory]]
* Information-processing shortcuts ([[Heuristics in judgment and decision making|heuristics]]),<ref>Kahneman, D., Slovic, P., & Tversky, A. (1982). Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases (1st ed.). Cambridge University Press.</ref> including:
**[[Availability heuristic]] — estimating what is more likely by what is more available in memory, which is biased toward vivid, unusual, or emotionally charged examples<ref name="h_and_b" />
**[[Representativeness heuristic]] — judging probabilities based on resemblance<ref name="h_and_b"/>
**[[Affect heuristic]] — basing a decision on an emotional reaction rather than a calculation of risks and benefits<ref>{{cite book | vauthors = Slovic P, Finucane M, Peters E, MacGregor DG |chapter=The Affect Heuristic |pages=397–420 | veditors = Gilovich T, Griffin D, Kahneman D |year=2002 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |title=Heuristics and Biases: The Psychology of Intuitive Judgment |isbn=978-0-521-79679-8}}</ref>
*[[Emotion]]al and moral motivations<ref>{{cite journal| vauthors = Pfister HR, Böhm G |year=2008|title=The multiplicity of emotions: A framework of emotional functions in decision making|journal=Judgment and Decision Making|volume=3|pages=5–17|doi=10.1017/S1930297500000127 |doi-access=free}}</ref> deriving, for example, from:
** The [[two-factor theory of emotion]]
** The [[somatic markers hypothesis]]
*[[Introspection illusion]]
* Misinterpretations or [[misuse of statistics]]; [[innumeracy]].
*[[Social influence]]<ref>{{cite journal| vauthors = Wang X, Simons F, Brédart S |year=2001|title=Social cues and verbal framing in risky choice|journal=Journal of Behavioral Decision Making|volume=14|issue=1|pages=1–15|doi=10.1002/1099-0771(200101)14:1<1::AID-BDM361>3.0.CO;2-N}}</ref>
*The brain's limited information processing capacity<ref>{{cite journal| vauthors = Simon HA |year=1955|title=A behavioral model of rational choice|journal=The Quarterly Journal of Economics|volume=69|issue=1|pages=99–118|doi=10.2307/1884852|jstor=1884852}}</ref>
*Noisy information processing (distortions during storage in and retrieval from memory).<ref name="HilbertPsychBull" /> For example, a 2012 ''[[Psychological Bulletin]]'' article suggests that at least eight seemingly unrelated biases can be produced by the same [[information-theoretic]] generative mechanism.<ref name="HilbertPsychBull">{{cite journal | vauthors = Hilbert M | title = Toward a synthesis of cognitive biases: how noisy information processing can bias human decision making | journal = Psychological Bulletin | volume = 138 | issue = 2 | pages = 211–37 | date = March 2012 | pmid = 22122235 | doi = 10.1037/a0025940 | url = http://www.martinhilbert.net/HilbertPsychBull.pdf | citeseerx = 10.1.1.432.8763}}</ref> The article shows that noisy deviations in the memory-based information processes that convert objective evidence (observations) into subjective estimates (decisions) can produce [[List of cognitive biases#Belief, decision-making and behavioral|regressive conservatism]], the [[Conservatism (belief revision)|belief revision]] (Bayesian conservatism), [[illusory correlation]]s, [[illusory superiority]] (better-than-average effect) and [[worse-than-average effect]], [[subadditivity effect]], [[List of cognitive biases#Belief, decision-making and behavioral|exaggerated expectation]], [[overconfidence]], and the [[hard–easy effect]].