Focusing Effect
We place too much importance on one aspect of an event when making predictions.
The focusing illusion (or focusing effect) is a cognitive bias that occurs when people place too much importance on one aspect of an event, causing an error in accurately predicting the utility of a future outcome. The classic example comes from Kahneman: 'Nothing in life is as important as you think it is, while you are thinking about it.' People overestimate how much happiness moving to California will bring them because they focus on the pleasant weather and ignore all other factors.
What it looks like in the wild.
- Everyday life Salary Focus Job seekers overweight salary in job satisfaction predictions, underweighting factors like management quality or commute time.
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.
When evaluating a potential business location, an entrepreneur focuses on the foot traffic and ignores the high rent, because the customer accessibility captures attention while the less visible but financially significant occupancy costs receive insufficient weight in their location decision.
After seeing a job posting with great benefits, a candidate focuses on the perks and ignores the demanding schedule, because the attractive package captures attention while the less visible but lifestyle-significant time commitments receive inadequate weight in their application decision.
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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