Have you ever been absolutely certain you “knew it all along”? Or found yourself buying something you didn’t really need just because it was on sale? Maybe you’ve noticed how quickly people rally around their group’s opinion, or how often first impressions stick no matter what happens later. These aren’t random quirks of personality—they’re examples of cognitive bias at work.

Cognitive biases are the hidden mental shortcuts that your brain uses to make quick decisions. They help us survive in a fast-moving world, but they also bend, twist, and sometimes completely distort the way we think. These shortcuts shape how you see yourself, how you judge others, and how you navigate relationships, money, politics, and even your own memories.

In this fascinating book, Ezra Thorne takes you on a journey into the mind, breaking down the top ten most influential biases that affect us every single day. Each chapter explores a different trick of the brain, showing you how it works, why it exists, and how it quietly shapes your choices:

– Hindsight Bias: The “I knew it all along” illusion that rewrites your memory after an event.
– Confirmation Bias: The mental filter that makes you notice only what supports your beliefs.
– Anchoring Effect: Why first impressions and initial numbers carry so much weight.
– Availability Heuristic: How vivid memories and repeated news stories trick us into misjudging reality.
– In-Group Bias: