Cognitive biases in everyday decisions
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Cognitive Biases in Everyday Decisions — Daily trivia Monday, June 15, 2026: questions and answers
All 10 questions with answers and explanations. Play this daily
Q 01Which cognitive bias makes most people rate their own abilities as above average?
- AHindsight bias
- BSpotlight effect
- CIllusory superiority
- DOptimism bias
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Illusory superiority
Illusory superiority is also called the Lake Wobegon effect, after Garrison Keillor's fictional town where all the children are above average.
Q 02Which bias makes a diner order a familiar dish over a better-reviewed new one?
- ALoss aversion
- BCurse of knowledge
- CNegativity bias
- DStatus quo bias
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Status quo bias
Status quo bias, also called default bias, is a preference for keeping things as they are: switching feels like a loss, even when the new option is better.
Q 03Which historical event is the classic textbook example of groupthink?
- AThe Marshall Plan
- BThe Bay of Pigs invasion
- CThe Berlin Airlift
- DThe Apollo 11 landing
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The Bay of Pigs invasion
Irving Janis made the Bay of Pigs invasion a lead case of groupthink: Kennedy's advisers self-censored their doubts and backed the CIA's plan uncritically.
Q 04What tendency makes fans blame referees or weather for losses but credit wins to their team's skill?
- ASelf-serving bias
- BActor-observer bias
- CConfirmation bias
- DFundamental attribution error
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Self-serving bias
Self-serving bias shows up on the sports pages: in newspaper reports of baseball and football games, winners explained results by their own play far more often than losers did.
Q 05Which heuristic explains why a longer colonoscopy with a gentler ending was rated less unpleasant than a shorter one?
- ARosy retrospection
- BSunk cost fallacy
- CPeak-end rule
- DFading affect bias
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Peak-end rule
The peak-end rule says we judge an experience by its most intense moment and its ending: in a 2003 trial, patients whose colonoscopy ended more gently remembered it as less unpleasant.
Q 06What is the cognitive bias of believing you understand complex technologies when your knowledge is superficial?
- AIllusion of control
- BIllusion of explanatory depth
- CMere-exposure effect
- DClustering illusion
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Illusion of explanatory depth
Yale's Leonid Rozenblit and Frank Keil named the illusion of explanatory depth in 2002: people who rated their grasp of zippers and flush toilets highly rated it lower once asked to explain them.
Q 07What do psychologists call giving too much weight to the first piece of information received in a decision?
- AAnchoring bias
- BRecency bias
- CConfirmation bias
- DAvailability heuristic
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Anchoring bias
Anchoring bias ran so deep in a 1974 study that a number from a spun wheel of fortune shifted people's estimates of the share of UN members that were African countries.
Q 08What did researchers name the finding that people value products they built themselves far more than identical ready-made ones?
- AEndowment effect
- BSunk cost fallacy
- CEffort heuristic
- DIKEA effect
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IKEA effect
The IKEA effect only lasts if you finish the job: when participants built and then destroyed their creations, or failed to complete them, the extra value vanished.
Q 09What is the pricing trick called when an Economist print-only offer nobody chose steered 84% to the same-priced bundle?
- AFraming effect
- BScarcity effect
- CBandwagon effect
- DDecoy effect
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Decoy effect
The decoy effect, or asymmetric dominance effect, works because an obviously worse option makes the similar bundle next to it look like a bargain.
Q 10Which bias explains why students given four quarters bought candy far more often than those given a $1 bill?
- ADenomination effect
- BMental accounting
- CMoney illusion
- DPain of paying
Show answer
Denomination effect
The denomination effect makes one big note feel harder to break, so people who want to curb their spending deliberately ask for larger bills.
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