Egocentric Bias
We rely too heavily on our own perspective when estimating others' perspectives.
Egocentric bias is the tendency to rely too heavily on one's own perspective and/or have a higher opinion of oneself than reality. It causes people to believe they did more work on group projects than others did, and to anchor too heavily on their own viewpoint when trying to imagine others'. This bias contributes to overconfidence and poor perspective-taking in negotiations and conflict resolution.
What it looks like in the wild.
- Workplace Group Project Credit Members of a team project, when asked what percentage of the work they contributed, give figures that collectively add up to well over 100% — each overestimating their own contribution.
Recognising a definition is not the same skill as spotting it.
Two scenarios from the app, with distractors drawn from the same family of biases — which is what makes them hard.
A father buys his young son a book about astronomy because he finds space fascinating, without noticing his son is obsessed with dinosaurs.
Paul assumes his suggestion to work late will be welcomed by the team, as he himself often prefers to finish tasks immediately.
Biases rarely arrive alone.
Understand more. Assume less.
188 biases, 18,869 scenarios, and a record of how you actually decide.
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