Action bias

What it is

Preferring to do something, even something useless or harmful, over doing nothing in uncertain situations.

Related

• Illusion of control bias
  Doing something makes us feel in control, whether or not it helps.
• Omission bias bias
  These are a pair: a bias toward acting, and a bias against the harm of acting.

Appears in

• The 99 thinking errors in Rolf Dobelli's The Art of Thinking Clearly#43: Action bias

References

• Wikipedia: Action bias en.wikipedia.org
• The 99 thinking errors in Rolf Dobelli's The Art of Thinking Clearly en.wikipedia.org
• Wikipedia: List of cognitive biases en.wikipedia.org
• Wikipedia: Cognitive bias codex en.wikipedia.org

More in “Deciding and acting: incentives, loss and commitment”