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Cognitive biases...

Were we entirely rational, our conclusions would be grounded in logic and based on evidence objectively weighed? Unfortunately, belief formation is also affected by unconsciousfeatures of human psychology.

For example, we tend to evaluate an argument based on whether we agree with it rather than on criteria of logic. Is the following specimen good reasoning?...

-Alldogs are animals
-Some animals are German shepherds
-Therefore some dogs are German Shepherds

It isn't. You might as well conclude some dogs are cats. After all, all dogs are animals and someanimals are cats.

The tendency to evaluate reasoning by how believable its conclusion seems is known as belief bias.
Some cognitive biases involve heuristics; general rules we unconsciously follow inestimating probabilities. An example is the availability heuristic, which involves unconsciously assigning a probability to a type of event on the basis how often one thinks of events of that type.The availability heuristic may explain how easy it is to make the mistake known as generalizing from anecdote. Generalizing from anecdote happens when one accepts a sweeping generalization based ona single vivid report.

Another source of skewed belief is the bandwagon effect, which refers to an unconscious tendency to align one's thinking with that of other people. The bandwagon effect ispotentially a powerful source of cognitive distortion.

Marketers understand the bandwagon effect. They know that getting people to believe that a product is popular generates further sales.Political propagandists also know we have an unconscious need to align our beliefs with the opinions of other people. Thus, they try to increase support for a measure by asserting that everyone
Likes it,or -and this is even more effective.

It also should come as no surprise that we find it easier to form negative opinions of people who don't belong to our club, church, party, nationality, or...