The decoy effect is one of my favourites. It occurs when your preference for one of two options changes dramatically when a third, similar but less attractive option is added into the mix.
For example, in Dan Ariely’s book Predictably Irrational was a true case used by The Economist magazine. The subscription screen presented three options:
Web subscription - US $59.00. One-year subscription to Economist.com. Includes online access to all articles from The Economist since 1997
Print subscription - US $125.00. One-year subscription to the print edition of The Economist
Print & web subscription - US $125.00. One-year subscription to the print edition of The Economist and online access to all articles from The Economist since 1997.
Given these choices, 16% of the students in the experiment conducted by Ariely chose the first option, 0% chose the middle option, and 84% chose the third option. Even though nobody picked the second option, when he removed that option the result was the inverse: 68% of the students picked the online-only option, and 32% chose the print and web option.
The idea is that you’d spend the money on the option you think is “a steal” even though you had no previous plans of purchasing it.
Oh man “blue light specials” and the like used to drive me nuts. I never understood why people would buy things they had no plans on buying.
It was a zero percent savings to me.
Chesterton’s Fence is a good one that I’m working on. Never get rid of or dismiss something until you’ve understood how and why it came to be and what purpose it served.
Something like that.
Also, in the other direction, Second Order Thinking, do a triple T chart and describe the shor, medium, and long term knock-on consequences or experiental results it is likely to yield
And complementary to Chesterton’s Fence is a principle I’ve heard called Grandma’s Ham or the Monkey Ladder Experiment. Sometimes “we’ve always done it that way” is covering up outdated practices for purposes that no longer exist.
I don’t have any specific Wikipedia article, but if you want more in depth reading material, Thinking Fast and Slow is probably the authoritative work on bias, by one of the central figures to the emergence of behavioral economics.
Misbehaving is another.
The vast majority of books I read that touch on decision making or bias cite at least one or Daniel Kahneman or Richard Thaler, and they’re both reasonably accessible. If you want something more accessible than that, Thinking in Bets covers similar ground. Annie Duke targets general audiences well, but all of her books also make her strong foundation in the field of psychology and what the research supports pretty clear.
Edit: You know what? I will pick one special one. Hindsight bias, or as Annie Duke calls it, resulting. A good decision doesn’t become a bad one when the result doesn’t work out the way you want. It is an opportunity to re-evaluate, and see if there were things you could have predicted given the information you reasonably had available at the time, but, you should do the same with decisions that work out. A good decision can result in a bad outcome and a bad decision can result in a good outcome. Make a continuous effort to improve your process, but separate the process from the results. Mortgaging your house to make a bet on the Super Bowl wasn’t genius if your team won.
Dunbar’s number especially when used to contextualize the potential limits of human organization, such as relying only hiring friends and family. The chances that of the 200 people who probably know pretty well also happen to be the best candidate for an important task is low. Most exaggerating case of this is presidential nominees for positions. Like of course it’s the same guy for a few admins, it’s who they know that is remotely qualified.
The self as an illusion is an interesting concept to play with. We think of ourselves as identities so that we can operate socially. However when one examines the moment to moment experience of consciousness the self is nowhere to be found.
