Norm Bias

The cognitive tendency to unconsciously favor, trust, and perceive as correct those ideas, behaviors, and people that align with the dominant social norms of one's group or culture. It creates a mental shortcut where "normal = good/safe/true." This bias makes it difficult to even see alternative ways of thinking as legitimate, framing them automatically as threats, errors, or absurdities before they are evaluated on their own merits.

Example: In a corporate culture that values aggressive confidence, a quiet, reflective contributor's ideas are consistently overlooked in meetings due to Norm Bias. Their style doesn't match the "norm" of how good ideas are presented, so the ideas themselves are filtered out as weak, regardless of their actual quality.

by Abzugal Nammugal Enkigal February 4, 2026

Normativity Bias

The bias where only one's own views, behaviors, or ways of being are considered "normal"—everything else is deviant, strange, or wrong. Normativity Bias is the cognitive foundation of prejudice, of ethnocentrism, of every system that treats difference as deficit. It's the assumption that how I live is not just how I live but how people should live, and that those who live differently are not just different but wrong. Normativity Bias is invisible to those who hold it because their way of being feels not like a choice but like reality. They don't see their own culture; they see the world. Everyone else has a culture; they have normality.

Example: "He couldn't understand why other cultures did things differently. To him, his way wasn't a way; it was just 'normal.' Normativity Bias meant he never had to examine his own assumptions—they weren't assumptions, they were just reality. Other people were strange; he was just... normal. The bias was invisible to him, which is how it maintained its power."

by Dumu The Void February 20, 2026

Cognitive Normativity Bias

A bias where one's own cognitive processes—how one thinks, learns, reasons, remembers—are taken as the universal standard, and any deviation is seen as error or deficiency. Cognitive Normativity Bias is what makes linear thinkers assume that nonlinear thinkers are confused, what makes verbal thinkers assume that visual thinkers are disorganized, what makes fast processors assume that slow processors are stupid. It's the assumption that there is one right way to think, and that way is whatever way you think. This bias is especially common in educational settings, where one cognitive style is privileged and all others are accommodated (if they're lucky) or pathologized (if they're not). The cure is recognizing that cognition is diverse, that different minds work differently, and that difference is not deficit.

Example: "He thought in images, not words. His teacher thought in words, not images. Cognitive Normativity Bias meant the teacher saw his visual thinking as a problem to fix, not a different way of knowing. 'You need to learn to think clearly,' she said, meaning 'you need to think like me.' He never did, but he learned that his mind was 'wrong.' The bias had done its work: making difference feel like failure."

by Dumu The Void February 20, 2026