Fundamental Attribution Error: They Are Impatient, You Were Late
The same behaviour gets explained by character in others and by circumstance in yourself. The asymmetry is not mainly self-flattery — it is what you can and cannot see.
Topic
Heuristics & Biases
Behavioral Economics: The Errors Point the Same Way
If people departed randomly from rational choice, the departures would cancel out. They lean consistently in the same directions — which is what makes them worth studying, and worth worrying about.
Cognitive Dissonance: The Belief Moves Because the Action Cannot
When what you did clashes with what you think, one has to give. The action already happened and the belief is private — so people end up sincerely believing whatever justifies what they did.
The Central Limit Theorem: Why Bell Curves Are Everywhere
One die is flat. Ten dice added together make a bell curve. The shape is a property of adding independent things — which tells you exactly when to expect it and when not to.
The Law of Large Numbers: Small Samples Are Wild
Seven heads in ten flips is unremarkable; seventy thousand in a hundred thousand would be extraordinary. The same probability, different room for chance — with consequences most people miss.
Simpson's Paradox: True in Every Group, False Overall
A treatment beats its rival for small stones, beats it for large stones, and loses when you combine the patients. Nothing was miscalculated — which is what makes it worth understanding.
The Base Rate Fallacy: Start With How Common It Is
The quiet, bookish stranger sounds like a librarian. There are a hundred times more salespeople — so the shy ones alone outnumber every librarian in the country.
Bayes' Theorem: The 99% Accurate Test That Is Wrong 91% of the Time
A rare disease, a 99% accurate test, a positive result — and roughly a 9% chance you're ill. The gap comes from one number most people leave out entirely.
Hanlon's Razor: Most Slights Were Never Aimed at You
The meeting you weren't invited to has two explanations that fit equally well. Preferring the boring one isn't generosity — it's what happens when you count how much each explanation assumes.
Loss Aversion: Why ₹1,000 Lost Hurts More Than ₹1,000 Gained
A fair coin flip for equal stakes feels like a bad bet to almost everyone. The asymmetry behind that instinct quietly governs pricing, negotiation, investing, and why reform is so hard.
Survivorship Bias: The Bullet Holes That Weren't There
Wartime analysts mapped damage on returning bombers and proposed armouring the places full of holes. A statistician pointed out those were the survivable hits — and inverted the entire dataset.
Confirmation Bias: Why Research Can Make You More Wrong
When evidence agrees with us we ask what it shows. When it disagrees we ask what's wrong with it. Apply that second question to one side only and you can dismantle half the evidence without noticing.
Regression to the Mean: The Jinx That Is Just Arithmetic
Praise a great performance and the next is worse; criticise a bad one and the next improves. A flight instructor learned this lesson over years of observation — and it was never about motivation.