A Library of
Thinking Bugs

Cognitive distortions, thinking errors & mental traps - catalogued
as observable objects. Study them from the outside, before they get inside.

Explore 163 thinking bugs across 12 families

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All or Nothing Thinking

You sort life into black-and-white categories - so "not perfect" becomes "totally failed."

cbt black and white thinking perfectionism self-criticism

Magnification or Minimization

You blow things way out of proportion or shrink them.

cbt catastrophizing negative thinking

You lock onto one negative detail and drop the rest of the picture.

cbt negative thinking self-criticism

Discounting Positives

You insist your positive qualities don't count.

cbt negative thinking self-criticism

Instead of saying, "I made a mistake," you tell yourself, "I'm a jerk" or "I'm a loser".

cbt black and white thinking perfectionism self-criticism

Personalization

You take external events as proof that something is wrong with you.

cbt self-criticism relationships negative thinking

Fortune Telling

You predict a bad future with certainty the facts do not support.

cbt jumping to conclusions overthinking anxiety

You assume that people are reacting negatively to you.

cbt jumping to conclusions people pleasing relationships

Overgeneralization

You turn one bad event into an always/never rule about yourself, others, or the future.

cbt negative thinking thinking errors anxiety

Should Statements

You use "shoulds," "shouldn'ts," "musts," "oughts," and "have tos".

cbt perfectionism self-criticism thinking errors

You blame yourself for something you weren't entirely responsible for.

cbt self-criticism thinking errors negative thinking

You explain setbacks by assigning fault to others - and lose the part of the story you can still influence.

cbt relationships thinking errors

Emotional Reasoning

You reason from your feelings: "I feel like an idiot, so I must be one."

cbt anxiety overthinking thinking errors

Need for Approval

You believe you must be liked, accepted, or validated by important people.

rebt people pleasing relationships self-criticism

Need to Succeed

You treat achievement as a condition for worth - so ordinary setbacks feel like identity collapses.

rebt perfectionism at work self-criticism

People Must Treat Me Fairly

You demand fair treatment from others - and treat ordinary unfairness as an intolerable breach.

rebt black and white thinking relationships thinking errors

Life Must Be Fair

You demand that life, luck, and circumstances treat you justly - and stall when they do not.

rebt thinking errors overthinking relationships

You turn bad events into total catastrophes: terrible, horrible, and unbearable.

rebt catastrophizing anxiety overthinking

Can't-Stand-It Thinking

You tell yourself discomfort, delay, effort, or uncertainty are unbearable.

rebt anxiety catastrophizing thinking errors

Avoidance of Discomfort

You avoid effort, uncertainty, frustration, or emotional pain because facing them feels too hard.

rebt procrastination anxiety

You rate your whole self as bad, defective, or worthless because of mistakes, flaws, or failure.

rebt perfectionism self-criticism thinking errors

You turn someone's flaw or frustration into a global verdict on who they are.

rebt relationships groups thinking errors

You treat mistakes as unacceptable - and let flawless results decide your worth.

rebt perfectionism self-criticism at work

Availability Heuristic

You judge the probability of events by how easily examples come to mind.

cognitive catastrophizing social media decision biases

Confirmation Bias

You favor information that confirms your preexisting beliefs.

cognitive cognitive biases social media

You see past events as having been more predictable than they actually were.

cognitive cognitive biases at work

Illusory Correlation

You perceive a link between two things when the connection is weak, absent, or random.

cognitive cognitive biases groups

You rate an argument by whether you like the conclusion - validity gets confused with agreement.

cognitive cognitive biases

Illusory Truth Effect

Hearing a claim again makes it feel more true - familiarity gets mistaken for evidence.

cognitive social media cognitive biases

Cognitive Dissonance

You feel discomfort from holding conflicting beliefs or behaviors.

cognitive ego cognitive biases decision biases

System Justification

You defend existing social arrangements as fair, natural, or inevitable - even when they harm you or your group.

cognitive black and white thinking groups at work

You can remember events that did not happen - or remember real events in ways that never occurred - and still feel sure.

cognitive cognitive biases relationships

Pseudocertainty Effect

A staged "sure thing" can make you accept risks you would reject if the whole gamble were shown at once.

cognitive decision biases money biases anxiety

Cognitive Miser

You conserve mental effort by default - quick categories and shortcuts first, slow analysis only if something forces it.

cognitive cognitive biases at work

Law of the Instrument

You over-rely on a familiar tool or method, even when it may not be suitable.

cognitive at work decision biases

Overconfidence Effect

Your certainty outruns your accuracy - you are surer than your hit rate deserves.

cognitive ego decision biases at work

You overestimate how likely bad outcomes are - and call the tilt realism.

cognitive negative thinking anxiety overthinking

Negativity Bias

Bad weighs more than good - so one criticism, loss, or threat can outweigh several good things of equal size.

cognitive negative thinking self-criticism cognitive biases

Overestimating the likelihood of positive outcomes.

cognitive cognitive biases anxiety

Curse of Knowledge

Once you know something, it gets hard to imagine what it is like not to know it - so you skip steps others still need.

cognitive overthinking at work groups

Dunning-Kruger Effect

Overestimating one's abilities or knowledge in areas where one is less competent.

cognitive ego at work decision biases

Illusion of Explanatory Depth

You feel you understand how something works - until you try to explain the causal steps and the gaps show.

cognitive ego overthinking at work

Bias Blind Spot

You spot bias in other people's motives and arguments easily, but give your own side a pass.

cognitive ego cognitive biases

You experience your view as plain reality - so disagreement looks like bias, ignorance, or bad faith in other people.

cognitive ego groups relationships

Illusion of Control

You overestimate how much your actions influence outcomes that are largely chance, other people, or noise.

cognitive ego decision biases investing

Illusion of Conscious Will

You trust the feeling that you consciously willed an action as proof that your thought caused it.

cognitive cognitive biases self-criticism

Self-Handicapping

You put obstacles in your own path before a test - so failure can be blamed on the obstacle, not your ability.

cognitive ego perfectionism procrastination

Just-World Hypothesis

You believe that people get what they deserve in life.

cognitive black and white thinking groups relationships

Egocentric Bias

You treat your own viewpoint, knowledge, and contribution as more central than a fair outside tally would show.

cognitive ego relationships cognitive biases

Hostile Attribution Bias

You read ambiguous behavior as intentional hostility - a bump becomes a slight before you have evidence.

cognitive jumping to conclusions relationships groups

Actor-Observer Bias

You explain your own behavior with situations - and other people's behavior with character.

cognitive ego relationships groups

Reactive Devaluation

You devalue proposals or solutions simply because they come from an opposing party.

cognitive groups relationships decision biases

False Consensus Effect

You overestimate how much others agree with your beliefs or behaviors.

cognitive people pleasing groups cognitive biases

Base Rate Fallacy

You combine prior odds and new evidence wrong - case detail hijacks the probability the math would give.

cognitive decision biases

Focusing Effect

You overweight whatever factor is currently in the spotlight and underweight the rest of life that will actually fill your days.

cognitive decision biases at work

Self-Enhancement Bias

You see yourself as above average on the traits you care about - even when the math cannot hold that many winners.

cognitive ego groups cognitive biases

Affect Heuristic

A quick good-or-bad feeling can set both "how risky" and "how beneficial" - before the numbers get a vote.

cognitive decision biases anxiety money biases

You treat sequence or correlation as proof that A made B happen - without ruling out rivals.

logical decision biases

You knock down a weaker, weirder version of someone's claim - and treat the win as if you answered the real one.

logical black and white thinking groups thinking errors

You treat a modest first step as the start of an inevitable slide to a extreme end - without showing the links.

logical catastrophizing overthinking anxiety

False Dichotomy

You frame a choice as either/or when real alternatives, blends, or partial paths still exist.

logical black and white thinking thinking errors decision biases

Circular Reasoning

You assume the conclusion inside the premises - so the argument only restates what it claimed to prove.

logical cognitive biases self-criticism

Appeal to Emotion

You treat a strong feeling as proof - or use emotion to replace evidence in an argument.

logical anxiety cognitive biases

You react differently to the same information depending on how it is presented.

logical decision biases money biases

You let one positive trait influence your overall judgment of a person or thing.

logical people pleasing at work relationships

Status, title, or a lab coat can make a claim feel true - before you check whether the argument earns it.

logical at work groups decision biases

Base Rate Neglect

A vivid case detail feels more real than how common the outcome is in the population.

judgment decision biases anxiety

You judge the quality of a decision by its result - even when luck, not process, wrote the ending.

judgment decision biases at work

Misinformation Effect

Details you learn after an event can weave into what you remember - until the later story feels like something you saw.

judgment social media decision biases

Serial Position Effect

You remember the first and last items in a series best - and the middle is where details go to die.

judgment decision biases at work

First information gets extra weight - openings stick, set the frame, and color everything that follows.

judgment decision biases relationships at work

The last thing you heard often weighs more than the middle - freshness masquerades as importance.

judgment decision biases at work social media

Planning Fallacy

You underestimate the time, costs, and risks of future actions while overestimating the benefits.

judgment procrastination at work decision biases

Affective Forecasting Error

You mispredict how future events will make you feel - usually expecting stronger emotions that fade faster than you expect.

judgment overthinking decision biases at work

Pro-Innovation Bias

You overvalue an innovation's benefits while underestimating its limitations or risks.

judgment decision biases at work social media

Overconfidence Bias

You trust your skill, knowledge, or edge more than the evidence warrants - so you skip checks and underprepare.

judgment ego decision biases investing

You prefer to wipe out one small risk completely - even when cutting a larger risk would do more good.

judgment catastrophizing anxiety decision biases

Harm from doing nothing feels more acceptable than similar harm from acting - so you leave risky defaults in place.

judgment procrastination anxiety decision biases

Status Quo Bias

You stick with the current option because it is current - even when switching would likely be better.

judgment procrastination decision biases money biases

Neglect of Probability

You treat a vivid outcome as if possibility alone were enough - and skip how likely it actually is.

judgment catastrophizing anxiety decision biases

Exponential Growth Bias

You treat compounding as roughly linear - so doublings, interest, and "slow then sudden" curves arrive as surprises.

judgment decision biases money biases investing

Your caring and spending barely scale with size - so 2,000 harms can feel almost like 200.

judgment decision biases groups

Identifiable Victim Effect

A named or pictured victim may attract more help than an otherwise comparable anonymous victim.

judgment decision biases groups social media

Motivated Reasoning

You rationalize your decisions based on what you want to believe.

judgment ego social media cognitive biases

Survivorship Bias

You focus on successful cases while ignoring failures, leading to overestimation of success.

judgment decision biases money biases at work

Choice Overload

Too many options can freeze you, lower satisfaction, and make "not choosing" feel safer than picking.

judgment procrastination decision biases at work

A cohesive group suppresses dissent and critical testing so that unanimity feels like correctness.

social groups at work cognitive biases

Bandwagon Effect

You adopt beliefs or actions because others are doing the same.

social groups social media decision biases

Spiral of Silence

You stay quiet because you think your view lacks support, which can make the apparent majority look stronger than it is.

social people pleasing groups social media

You favor members of your own group over those in outgroups.

social groups cognitive biases self-criticism

Outgroup Homogeneity

They look like one type - while we look like varied people with nuance.

social black and white thinking groups cognitive biases

You assign a whole group fixed traits - then treat the person in front of you as a reprint of the cartoon.

social jumping to conclusions groups cognitive biases

Stereotype Threat

Pressure from a negative group stereotype can interfere with your performance - even when you reject the stereotype.

social self-criticism at work groups

Ultimate Attribution Error

You explain outgroup failures as character and outgroup successes as luck - while giving your side the kinder story.

social ego groups jumping to conclusions

Moral Credential Effect

You are more likely to engage in morally questionable behavior after establishing your moral credentials.

social ego groups decision biases

The Attractiveness Bias

You judge people's competence, character, and worth by how they look - and you almost certainly believe you don't.

social people pleasing relationships cognitive biases

Spotlight Effect

You overestimate how much other people notice your appearance, mistakes, and awkward moments.

social people pleasing self-criticism anxiety

Illusion of Transparency

Your feelings, intentions, and nerves feel obvious to others - so you overestimate how much they can read.

social people pleasing relationships anxiety

Self-Serving Bias

Wins become proof of your skill - losses become proof of bad luck, unfair rules, or someone else's mistake.

emotional ego at work cognitive biases

Strong bodily and emotional states can rewrite what seems wise, likely, or worth doing - then look alien once they cool.

emotional decision biases anxiety

When status or competence feels threatened, you protect your self-image instead of updating.

emotional ego at work groups

Wishful Thinking

You treat wanting something as evidence it is true - desire puts on a lab coat.

emotional overthinking decision biases anxiety

Intolerance of Uncertainty

Not knowing feels unbearable - so you chase certainty with worry, checking, avoidance, or premature decisions.

emotional anxiety overthinking

Anxiety Sensitivity

You fear the sensations of anxiety themselves - as if a racing heart or short breath meant catastrophe.

emotional anxiety catastrophizing overthinking

Fundamental Attribution Error

You overemphasize personal characteristics and ignore situational factors in judging others' behavior.

perceptual ego groups relationships

Contrast Effect

What you just saw rewrites what this feels like - so the same person, price, or performance can look cheap, harsh, or dull against a different backdrop.

perceptual decision biases relationships

Source Confusion

You remember the content but misfile where it came from - seen, heard, imagined, or inferred get swapped.

perceptual jumping to conclusions social media cognitive biases

When choice feels threatened, the forbidden option gets more attractive - and you push back to reclaim freedom.

perceptual overthinking decision biases relationships

Representativeness Heuristic

You judge the probability of something based on how closely it matches a stereotype or prototype.

perceptual decision biases groups

Mere Exposure Effect

Repeated contact can make something feel likable, safe, or "right" - even when you never compared it on merit.

perceptual social media relationships decision biases

Rosy Retrospection

The past looks warmer than it felt at the time - memory keeps the highlight reel and loses the friction.

perceptual cognitive biases self-criticism anxiety

Fixed Self Illusion

You treat yourself as one solid, permanent thing - and then let labels and self-ratings stick to it.

perceptual ego self-criticism thinking errors

The same facts in a different order can produce a different verdict - because sequence changes what gets weight.

behavioral decision biases at work

Vertical Line Failure

You persist with a failing linear plan because abandoning the steps feels harder than admitting they are not working.

behavioral decision biases at work

Search Satisficing

You stop searching when you hit "good enough" - even when a little more search would find something meaningfully better.

behavioral decision biases at work

Diagnosis Momentum

An early label sticks and keeps rolling - so later facts get read through the first frame instead of reopening the case.

behavioral jumping to conclusions anxiety decision biases

You rely too heavily on the first piece of information encountered.

behavioral decision biases money biases at work

You revert to common diagnoses after a rare one was in play - even when the rare fit still looks better.

behavioral overthinking anxiety decision biases

Limited time, limited stock, or exclusive access makes something feel more valuable - even when the limit is a sales tactic.

behavioral money biases social media decision biases

Scarcity Mindset

When money, time, or bandwidth feels short, attention tunnels onto the urgent fire - and longer-term options drop out of the frame.

behavioral decision biases money biases anxiety

Labor creates love - you overvalue what you built, assembled, or customized, even when the result is ordinary.

behavioral decision biases at work money biases

Congruence Bias

You test a hypothesis in ways that can only confirm it - and skip the cheap checks that could kill it.

reasoning overthinking at work decision biases

Blind Spot Bias

You can audit other people's logic but your own reasoning chain still feels clean.

reasoning ego decision biases at work

System 1 and System 2 Thinking

You switch between fast, intuitive thinking and slow, deliberate reasoning - and trouble starts when the fast draft ships as final.

reasoning decision biases at work

Semmelweis Reflex

You reject new information or evidence simply because it contradicts established norms or beliefs.

reasoning decision biases at work groups

You treat a category as if it had a fixed inner essence - so one label seems to explain everything about a person, group, or thing.

reasoning black and white thinking groups cognitive biases

Algorithmic Authority Bias

You treat rankings, feeds, or AI output as proof something is true.

digital social media cognitive biases at work

Virality as Truth

You confuse popularity (likes, shares, views) with accuracy or importance.

digital social media cognitive biases

Outrage Amplification

You mistake emotional intensity for evidence - anger, fear, or disgust become proof that something is true, urgent, or malicious.

digital catastrophizing social media groups

Doomscroll Determinism

Because you see endless bad news, you conclude the world is mostly getting worse - and the feed becomes your forecast.

digital social media catastrophizing anxiety

Infinite-Scroll Time Distortion

A bottomless feed can weaken your sense of duration - "just a minute" becomes an hour you cannot account for.

digital procrastination social media decision biases

Notification Urgency Bias

A badge, ping, or banner feels like an emergency - so you interrupt important work for low-stakes alerts.

digital social media cognitive biases at work

Context Collapse Mind Reading

You infer intent and character from a post stripped of tone, audience, and context - and treat the fragment as the whole story.

digital jumping to conclusions people pleasing social media

Screenshot Epistemology

You treat cropped screenshots or clips as sufficient evidence - without checking the original source, timing, edits, or missing context.

digital social media cognitive biases groups

Metric Fixation (KPI Morality)

You treat what's measurable - followers, streaks, engagement - as what matters most.

digital perfectionism at work decision biases

Parasocial Overconfidence

You feel you know a public figure well enough to infer their motives from curated fragments - as if repeated viewing were personal acquaintance.

digital social media cognitive biases relationships

Comparison Feed Distortion

Curated highlight reels become your social baseline - so ordinary life feels like falling behind.

digital social media self-criticism negative thinking

Synthetic Consensus

Bots, brigades, and fake engagement make a view look widely shared - so you treat manufactured agreement as the public.

digital social media cognitive biases groups

Privacy Fatalism

"I'm already tracked, so nothing matters" - fatalism that turns a real problem into an excuse for zero protection.

digital procrastination social media decision biases

AI Oracle Fallacy

You treat fluent AI output as vetted expertise and confuse clarity with correctness.

digital social media cognitive biases at work

Prompt Overtrust

You trust the answer because you trusted your prompt - as if clever wording could guarantee a true or complete result.

digital social media cognitive biases at work

Automation Complacency

You over-trust automated summaries and recommendations and skip verification.

digital social media cognitive biases at work

Hallucination Anchoring

An AI-generated claim heard first becomes an anchor, even after corrections.

digital social media cognitive biases at work

Deepfake Cynicism (Liar's Dividend)

"Anything could be fake" becomes an excuse to dismiss real evidence.

digital social media cognitive biases groups

You feel losses more sharply than equivalent gains, and that asymmetry steers you away from good bets and toward bad holds.

money catastrophizing money biases decision biases

Sunk Cost Fallacy

You continue a behavior or endeavor because of previously invested resources.

money money biases decision biases investing

Mental Accounting

You sort money into separate mental buckets and then spend, save, or risk each bucket by different rules.

money money biases decision biases investing

You react to the number on the paycheck or price tag and miss what that number actually buys.

money money biases decision biases at work

Relative Income Trap

You feel rich or poor mainly by rank against peers - so raises and upgrades fail to satisfy once the reference group moves too.

money money biases self-criticism social media

Disposition Effect

You sell what is up and hold what is down because paper gains feel safe to bank and paper losses feel too painful to admit.

money investing money biases decision biases

Hyperbolic Discounting

You prefer smaller, immediate rewards over larger, delayed ones - especially when "now" is close.

money procrastination money biases decision biases

Denomination Effect

The same total feels harder to spend as one large bill than as many small ones - so form, not only value, steers the wallet.

money money biases decision biases investing

Mere Ownership Effect

You value things more simply because you own them - even when an identical item would look ordinary if it belonged to someone else.

money money biases decision biases anxiety

Payment Decoupling

Frictionless payment separates the purchase from the felt cost, so spending rises without the usual brake.

money money biases decision biases social media

Pain-of-Paying Blind Spot

You fail to notice that spending should hurt more - so purchases pass without the brake you think you have.

money money biases decision biases social media

Subscription Inertia

Auto-renewals keep charging because canceling takes effort - so unused services quietly become a permanent line item.

money procrastination money biases decision biases

Zero-Price Effect

The word free switches your brain into a different mode - and you overvalue the free option while ignoring what it costs you.

money money biases decision biases social media

House Money Effect

After a win, profits feel like play money - so you take risks you would never take with your paycheck.

money money biases decision biases anxiety

Naive Diversification

You "diversify" by splitting evenly across whatever options are in front of you - even when those options overlap or do not match your risk needs.

money money biases decision biases

You buy because others are winning and you cannot stand missing the move - not because the asset fits your plan.

money investing social media money biases

When the numbers might hurt, you stop looking - and bills, balances, and portfolio problems grow in the dark.

money procrastination money biases anxiety

Gambler's Fallacy

You treat independent random events as if a streak is "due" to reverse - as if chance keeps a fairness ledger.

money investing decision biases overthinking

Hot-Hand Fallacy

You believe that a person who has experienced success is more likely to continue having success.

money investing decision biases overthinking

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12 Families

Browse by category

Each family of thinking bugs shares a common mechanism and flavor of distortion.

CBT Thinking Errors

Classical distortions from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

REBT Irrational Beliefs

Rigid demands and catastrophic evaluations that fuel misery

Cognitive Distortions

The broadest family of reality-bending thought patterns

Logical Fallacies

Structural errors that corrupt otherwise valid reasoning

Judgment Errors

Heuristics and biases that systematically warp decisions

Social Thinking Traps

Patterns that distort how we read people and groups

Emotional Pitfalls

Letting feelings override evidence and reason

Perceptual Biases

How selective attention shapes what we perceive as real

Behavioral Traps

Action patterns driven by irrational underlying assumptions

Deeper flaws in how conclusions are formed from evidence

Digital Distortions

Modern bugs amplified by screens and social media

Biases that distort spending, investing, and financial decisions

Three steps

From catalog to clearer thinking

Study thinking bugs as objects, learn to spot them in your own mind, then practice replacing them with balanced alternatives.

1

Observe

Browse the catalog. Each thinking bug is a named, defined object with examples and real-world patterns - so you can study distortion from the outside.

2

Identify

The more familiar you are with these patterns, the faster you catch them in your own thoughts - in the moment, or when you look back.

3

Reframe

Replace distorted thoughts with balanced alternatives. Reframing App is a CBT-inspired, AI-powered reframing tool for working with the thinking bugs in this catalog.