Psychology Cheat Sheet

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Name One-Liner Category

1. 👀 Hick's Law More options leads to harder decisions Information

2. 💼 Confirmation Bias People look for evidence that confirms what they think Information

3. 👁 Priming Previous stimuli influence users' decision Information

4. 🚛 Cognitive Load Total amount of mental effort that is required to complete a task Information

5. ⚓️ Anchoring Bias Users rely heavily on the first piece of information they see Information

6. 👉 Nudge Subtle hints can affect users' decisions Information

7. 🍰 Progressive Disclosure Users are less overwhelmed if they're exposed to complex features later Information

8. 🎯 Fitts's Law Large and close elements are easier to interact with Information

9. 🐠 Attentional Bias Users' thoughts filter what they pay attention to Information

10. 💔 Empathy Gap People underestimate how much emotions influence user behaviors Information

11. ⛵️ Visual Anchors Elements used to guide users' eyes Information

12. 🌶 Von Restorff Effect People notice items that stand out more Information

13. 🎖 Visual Hierarchy The order in which people perceive what they see Information

14. 🔭 Selective Attention People filter out things from their environment when in focus Information

15. ✈️ Survivorship Bias People neglect things that don't make it past a selection process Information

16. 🕶 Banner Blindness Users tune out the stuff they get repeatedly exposed to Information

17. 🍒 Juxtaposition Elements that are close and similar are perceived as a single unit Information

18. 🚦 Signifiers Elements that communicate what they will do Information

19. 🎭 Contrast Users' attention is drawn to higher visual weights Information

20. 🚨 External Trigger When the information on what to do next is within the prompt itself Information
Name One-Liner Category

21. 🕺 Decoy Effect Create a new option that's easy to discard Information

22. 🎪 Centre-Stage Effect People tend to choose the middle option in a set of items Information

23. 🖼 Framing The way information is presented affects how users make decisions Information

24. 🍣 Law of Proximity Elements close to each other are usually considered related Information

25. 🍬 Tesler's Law If you simplify too much, you'll transfer some complexity to the users Information

26. 🧨 Spark Effect Users are more likely to take action when the effort is small Information

27. 🥏 Feedback Loop When users take action, feedback communicates what happened Information

28. 😻 Expectations Bias People tend to be influenced by their own expectations Information

29. 🚆 Aesthetic-Usability Effect People perceive designs with great aesthetics as easier to use Information

30. 👥 Social Proof Users adapt their behaviors based on what others do Meaning

31. 🦄 Scarcity People value things more when they're in limited supply Meaning

32. 💭 Curiosity Gap Users have a desire to seek out missing information Meaning

33. 🖲 Mental Model Users have a preconceived opinion of how things work Meaning

34. 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Familiarity Bias People prefer familiar experiences Meaning

35. 👼 Halo Effect People judge things (or people) based on their feelings towards one trait Meaning

36. ☎️ Miller’s Law Users can only keep 5±2 items in their working memory Meaning

37. 🍱 Unit Bias One unit of something feels like the optimal amount Meaning

38. 🌊 Flow State Being fully immersed and focused on a task Meaning

39. 🕹 Skeuomorphism Users adapt more easily to things that look like real-world objects Meaning

40. 🤝 Singularity Effect Users care disproportionately about an individual as compared to a group Meaning

41. 🎁 Reciprocity People feel the need to reciprocate when they receive something Meaning

42. 👑 Authority Bias Users attribute more importance to the opinion of an authority figure Meaning

43. 🏺 Pseudo-Set Framing Tasks that are part of a group are more tempting to complete Meaning

44. 🎰 Variable Reward People especially enjoy unexpected rewards Meaning

45. 🎊 Group Attractiveness Effect Individual items seem more attractive when presented in a group Meaning
Name One-Liner Category

46. 🚰 Curse of Knowledge Not realizing that people don't have the same level of knowledge Meaning

47. 🎉 Aha! moment When new users first realize the value of your product Meaning

48. 📮 Self-Initiated Triggers Users are more likely to interact with prompts they setup for themselves Meaning

49. ✏️ Survey Bias Users tend to skew survey answers towards what's socially acceptable Meaning

50. 🎭 Cognitive Dissonance It's painful to hold two opposing ideas in our mind Meaning

51. 🥅 Goal Gradient Effect Motivation increases as users get closer to their goal Meaning

52. 💫 Feedforward When users know what to expect before they take action Meaning

53. 💈 Occam’s Razor Simple solutions are often better than the more complex ones Meaning

54. 🎗 Noble Edge Effect Users tend to prefer socially responsible companies Meaning

55. 🧿 Hawthorne Effect Users change their behavior when they know they are being observed Meaning

56. 🏒 Hindsight Bias People overestimate their ability to predict outcomes after the fact Meaning

57. 🎏 Law of Similarity Users perceive a relationship between elements that look similar Meaning

58. 🌓 Law of Prägnanz Users interpret ambiguous images in a simpler and more complete form Meaning

59. 🐘 Streisand Effect When trying to censor information ends up increasing awareness of that information Meaning

60. 🔦 Spotlight Effect People tend to believe they are being noticed more than they really are Meaning

61. 🗓 Fresh Start Effect Users are more likely to take action if there's a feeling of new beginnings Meaning

62. 🧗‍♂️ Labor Illusion People value things more when they see the work behind them Time

63. 🚶‍♂️ Default Bias Users tend not to change an established behavior Time

64. 🏦 Investment Loops When users invest themselves, they're more likely to come back Time

65. 🕯 Loss Aversion People prefer to avoid losses more than earning equivalent gains Time

66. 👞 Commitment & Consistency Users tend to be consistent with their previous actions Time

67. 🏝 Sunk Cost Effect Users are reluctant to pull out of something they're invested in. Time

68. 🌛 Decision Fatigue Making a lot of decisions lowers users' ability to make rational ones Time

69. 🌋 Reactance Users are less likely to adopt a behavior when they feel forced Time

70. 🥽 Observer-Expectancy Effect When researchers' biases influence the participants of an experiment Time
Name One-Liner Category

71. 🌱 Weber's Law Users adapt better to small incremental changes Time

72. 🔨 Law of the Instrument If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail Time

73. 🍭 Temptation Bundling Hard tasks are less scary when coupled with something users desire Time

74. 🎈 Parkinson’s Law The time required to complete a task will take as much time as allowed Time

75. 🎩 Dunning-Kruger Effect People tend to overestimate their skills when they don't know much Time

76. 🌤 Affect Heuristic People's current emotions cloud and influence their judgment Time

77. 📉 Hyperbolic Discounting People tend to prioritize immediate benefits over bigger future gains Time

78. 💳 Cashless Effect People spend more when they can't actually see the money Time

79. ⌚️ Chronoception People's perception of time is subjective Time

80. 🌚 Self-serving bias People take credits for positive events and blame others if negative Time

81. 🥬 Pareto Principle Roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes Time

82. 🔍 Discoverability The ease with which users can discover your features Time

83. 🔫 Backfire Effect When people's convictions are challenged, their beliefs get stronger Time

84. 🌈 False Consensus Effect People overestimate how much other people agree with them Time

85. 🚋 Bandwagon Effect Users tend to adopt beliefs in proportion of others who have already done so Time

86. 🧙‍♂️ Barnum-Forer Effect When you believe generic personality descriptions apply specifically to you. Time

87. 🐍 Second-Order Effect The consequences of the consequences of actions Time

88. 🛋 IKEA Effect When user partially create something, they value it way more Time

89. 🧚‍♂️ Planning Fallacy People tend to underestimate how much time a task will take Time

90. 🏕 Provide Exit Points Invite users to leave your app at the right moment Memory

91. 🎢 Peak-End Rule People judge an experience by its peak and how it ends. Memory

92. 👅 Sensory Appeal Users engage more with things appealing to multiple senses Memory

93. 🧩 Zeigarnik Effect People remember incomplete tasks better than completed ones Memory

94. 🧤 Endowment Effect Users value something more if they feel it's theirs Memory

95. 🛍 Chunking People remember grouped information better Memory


Name One-Liner Category

96. 📸 Picture Superiority Effect People remember pictures better than words Memory

97. 📌 Method of Loci People remember things more when they're associated with a location Memory

98. 🧭 Shaping Incrementally reinforcing actions to get closer to a target behavior Memory

99. 💚 Delighters People remember more unexpected and playful pleasures Memory

100. 💛 Internal Trigger When users are prompted to take action based on a memory Memory

101. 💾 Recognition Over Recall It's easier to recognize things than recall them from memory Memory

102. 🏰 Storytelling Effect People remember stories better than facts alone Memory

103. 👹 Negativity Bias Users recall negative events more than positive ones Memory

104. ⏰ Availability Heuristic Users favor recent and available information over past information Memory

105. 🌌 Spacing Effect People learn more effectively when study sessions are spaced out Memory

106. 🏁 Serial Position Effect It's easier for users to recall the first and last items of a list Memory

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—Dan Benoni & Louis-Xavier Lavallée

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