Cognitive biases test
Page 1 of 4: Background
This test is based on a variety of studies from cognitive science and behavioral economics, with a particular emphasis on cognitive biases. Cognitive biases are known human tendencies that can lead to bad judgment, self-defeating decisions, and irrational beliefs. Fortunately, you can learn to make better decisions by honing your skills. At the end of this report we’ll point you to free resources that can help you improve your decision-making weaknesses and expand upon your strengths.
Please note: rationality and IQ are not the same. Even people of exceptionally high IQ are routinely affected by cognitive biases, and fall for common decision-making traps.
Your Results
First, let’s take a look at your across-the-board results. We’ll get to your specific strengths and weaknesses in a moment. Your reasoning style is:
Most Free Spirits like to seek out new experiences; they prefer to enjoy these experience on an emotional level without poring over or analyzing them. They tend to enjoy the more colorful and artistic parts of everyday life. Approximately 21% of the populace are Free Spirits.
You are Intuitive: You tend to trust your intuitions — you size up situations quickly and stick with your judgments once you’ve made them. This tendency can be useful when you need to think on your feet, or when you’re using a skill that you’ve already honed to perfection.
You are Subjective: People and stories interest you more than facts and figures do; you focus on the essence of ideas over the details. Your mind is more qualitative than quantitative. This trait lets you focus on the big picture over the nitty-gritty.
You are Carefree: You tend to live in the moment. You don’t waste a lot of emotional energy fretting about the future. Instead, you focus on getting the most out of life right now.
You are Open: You’re not an aggressive skeptic or naysayer. You tend to consider information without immediately disputing it unless given clear reason to do so. Proving people wrong is not a high priority for you.
You racked up 33.33% of the highest possible rationality score!
Your total rationality score (out of 100%)
Your score
Median user score
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100
Please note that while this report is based on ideas from peer-reviewed cognitive science research and our own independent test-population studies, the short length of this test prevents it from being considered a scientifically valid measurement tool. However, most users have reported finding their results report very useful, and we think you will too.
Before we continue with your report, a brief interjection…
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Page 2 of 4: Performance
Here’s how you performed in each of four important sub-areas:
Your subscale performances (out of 100%)
Your quantitative reasoning score
Your future-based reasoning score
Your evidence evaluation score
Your cognitive awareness score
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Your quantitative reasoning score: 31.25%
Your future-based reasoning score: 43.75%
Your evidence evaluation score: 31.25%
Your cognitive awareness score: 31.25%
Quantitative Reasoning
Your ability to mentally manipulate numbers and other quantitative information. The question you answered earlier about the doughnut-making machines checked your Quantitative Reasoning, for example. It tested your ability to determine each machine’s doughnut-making rate based on the statement “it takes 2 such machines 2 minutes to make 2 doughnuts.” Each machine takes 2 minutes to make 1 doughnut, so it’d take 150 machines just 2 minutes to make 150 doughnuts.
Your quantitative reasoning subscale performance (out of 100%)
Your score
Average score
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100
Future-Based Reasoning
Your ability to think clearly and make accurate predictions about the future. For instance, the question you answered earlier about the high school term paper checked your Future-Based Reasoning. It tested your ability to realistically budget time for upcoming projects based on past experience with similar projects. Since the average past paper in the question took 3 weeks and it’s exceedingly rare that such long-term projects take significantly less time than similar past ventures, the question awarded full points only if you chose to budget 3 weeks or more.
Your future-based reasoning subscale performance (out of 100%)
Your score
Average score
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Evidence Evaluation
Your ability to evaluate outside information and theories for accuracy. For example, the question you answered earlier about the fictional BacoNation fast food sandwich checked your Evidence Evaluation. The question reported that the BacoNutcase ad campaign produced a $16 million increase in BacoNation sales, but the sales of the sandwich had fluctuated by nearly as much in the recent past without an ad campaign. Since the connection between the ad campaign and the sales increase was dubious, the question awarded full points if you answered that the ads were only somewaht likely to have driven the sales up.
Your evidence evaluation subscale performance (out of 100%)
Your score
Average score
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100
Cognitive Awareness
Your ability to analyze your own intuitions and to override them when they mislead you. The question you answered earlier about Bill the fireman checked your Cognitive Awareness, for instance. It tested your ability to override the natural human tendency to focus on a single explanation for uncertain situations; the wording implied that Bill may have died of smoke inhalation, but in fact, there are many different ways to die in a burning building. The question awarded you more points if you reported considering a larger number of possiblities before settling on the most likely explanation.
Your cognitive awareness subscale performance (out of 100%)
Your score
Average score
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How did we arrive at these scores? You may be wondering about how we reached these results. The process is pretty simple, actually. Remember those 21 quiz questions you answered earlier? Each one evaluates your command of a certain reasoning skill — for example, the question about writing term papers as a high school student was one of 2 questions that tested your ability to make predictions about future projects based on your experience with similar projects in the past. We then assigned you your reasoning style by comparing your responses to data from many hundreds of users.
Page 3 of 4: Strengths and Weaknesses
This quiz also assessed your abilities across 7 specific reasoning skills. You were found to be especially strong at 0 of them, in the average range at 2 of them, and on the weaker side in 5 of them.
Number of strong, average-range, and weaker reasoning skills
Strong skills
Normal-range skills
Weaker skills
0.0
1.0
2.0
3.0
4.0
5.0
6.0
You can learn about the ones you were especially strong or weak at below:
You may have a considerable tendency to fixate on the first explanation you come up with for unclear or uncertain situations.
- This tendency, which we call Explanation Freeze, can lead you to unnecessarily fret over frightening possiblities or to ignore problems.
- If you train yourself to come up with more than one explanation in such situations, you can subvert Explanation Freeze — which can lead to lower anxiety levels and better preparation for the future.
- Click here for a free tool that’ll teach you more about Explanation Freeze and how to combat it.
It looks like you frequently cause problems for yourself by repeating your mistakes.
- As do a lot of people! But learning from your mistakes so that you don’t keep suffering from their consequences is a valuable skill, and like many things in life, it’s largely a matter of strategy.
- Click here for a handy free tool that’ll walk you through the process of devising a strategy that’ll help you bounce back from your mistakes and avoid repeating them down the line.
It appears that you may have a sharp tendency to underestimate the time and resources your projects will require.
- This tendency, known as the Planning Fallacy, is one of the most common and best-documented cognitive biases out there — which also means that cognitive scientists have developed tactics for fighting it. Lucky us!
- If you learn to use these tactics, you’ll be better able to budget your time and resources for the projects you care about most.
- Click here for a free tool that’ll teach you more about the Planning Fallacy and what you can do to counteract it.
You may be frequently confused or misled by tricky or deceptive arguments.
- Arguments of this sort often depend on bits of rhetorical sleight-of-hand that are known as rhetorical fallacies.
- Fortunately, if you learn to identify rhetorical fallacies, it’s easy to counteract them — which will make you a better writer, thinker, and debater.
- Click here for a free tool that’ll teach you to identify and counter six common rhetorical fallacies.
It seems that you may frequently over- or under-value your time.
- You already know that your time is valuable. But in many situations, it’s useful to know exactly how much money an hour of your time is worth to you, and you may not have a clear idea of what that value is.
- Click here to use a handy free tool that’ll help you come up with a general estimate for the value of an hour of your time, given your schedule and earnings; it’ll help you avoid waste and use your time to the fullest.
Other standard-level skills
In addition to the especially strong and weak skills mentioned above, we’ve found that you have a standard level of skill at the following areas. Click on any skill to try out a free program that will teach you to improve in that area:
Resisting the Sunk Cost Fallacy.
Understanding how evidence should affect your confidence in a theory.
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