Brain Traps: Cognitive Bias

Your brain takes shortcuts. Most of the time they help. Sometimes they cost you money, arguments and years.

Brain Traps gives you one cognitive bias each morning: what it is, an example from ordinary life, and one concrete thing you can do today so it does not catch you again. 100 traps documented by real psychology and behavioral economics research — Kahneman and Tversky, Milgram, Asch, Loftus and many more.

◆ TODAY'S TRAP: one bias a day, with the researchers and year of the study that described it.
◆ EXPLORE by word, category or theme: decisions, memory, social life, perception, money, risk, work, shopping.
◆ SIX CATEGORIES: Decisions, Memory, Social, Perception, Money & Risk, Beliefs.
◆ FAVORITES: keep the ones that keep catching you.
◆ SHARE clean, elegant cards.
◆ OPTIONAL daily reminder and classic typography, made for calm reading.

Some of the traps inside: why a $300 coat marked down to $120 feels like a steal; why judges granted 65% of paroles in the morning and almost none before lunch; why half the people counting basketball passes never see the gorilla; why fortunes drowned in Monte Carlo betting on red 'because it was due'.

The explanations, examples and antidotes are our own original writing; nothing is copied from books or papers. Works fully offline, no accounts, in 12 languages.

This app is for education and reflection. It is not medical, psychological or financial advice.