Projection Bias
We overestimate how much our future preferences will resemble our current ones.
Projection bias is the tendency to falsely project current preferences onto the future. People assume that what they want now is what they will want later. Someone choosing a retirement plan in their 30s may project current spending preferences incorrectly onto their 70-year-old self. Consumers overestimate how much they'll use gym memberships and subscription services because they project their current motivation.
What it looks like in the wild.
- Finance Gym Membership People join a gym in January, convinced they will go three times a week all year — because they project their current motivational state onto their future behavior, ignoring how motivation typically wanes.
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.
Someone buys a complicated, high-end coffee machine, convinced they'll become a home barista. They use the simple drip maker they already own instead.
A minimalist who just moved into a tiny apartment is certain they'll never want more space, so they sell most of their furniture.
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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