Cognitive bias influences your views, distorts your memories, and rules your daily choices, often without your knowledge. In this blog, you will see 10 stealthy cognitive biases that silently run your life. You will soon be able to recognize them, stop being influenced by them, and take control once again!
Read more: Heal With Faith: 6 Islamic Insights
Confirmation Bias
You are likely to look for information that confirms your belief system, and reject anything that contradicts it. This is commonly known as confirmation bias. If you believe success comes down to pure luck, you are not likely to pay attention to stories of diligence and hard work. This potential to ignore inconvenient truths will block personal and spiritual evolution. Islam obliges us to seek out truth even at the expense of our comfort: “O you who have believed, be persistently standing firm in justice, witnesses in justice …” (An-Nisa 4:135). Truth will always come before ego. Your soul requires truth, not comfort.
Anchoring Bias
Your brain hangs on to the very first piece of information—it becomes your “anchor.” Even if that anchor is inaccurate, it still influences all your decisions going forward. Say a $100 item is (not so) magically marked down to $70; it then feels like quite a deal—even though it is still worth a mere $70. This heuristic does not have any restrictions on shopping. It applies to how you perceive people, make decisions, and eventually self-evaluate. Islam requires clarity in our actions, not illusions. Your decisions must be related to the truth, not shenanigans.
Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) stated:
“Deliberation is from Allah, haste is from Shaytan.” (Tirmidhi)
The Halo Effect
It’s common to presume someone is skilled at multiple things simply because they are skilled in one – it is a cognitive bias, known as the halo effect. For instance, a good speaker may look truthful, when in fact they might not be. This same bias can distort your judgment, create dissatisfaction, or even lead to human betrayal. Try to always consider the entirety of the situation.
The Qur’an does suggest: “And let not the hatred of a people prevent you from being just.” (Surah Al-Ma’idah 5:8)
Self-Serving Bias
When you achieve the outcome you wanted, you credit yourself for the success, but throw everything else under the bus. This is a way to keep your ego intact while suppressing any self-awareness. When things go wrong or go badly, please try to shift to self-reflection and self-growth. Instead of asking yourself, Who can I blame? Ask what I can leverage or learn out of this? Islam promotes an ethos of humility and internal accountability.
“And whatever misfortune befalls you, it is because of what your own hands have earned.” (Surah Ash-Shura 42:30)
Availability Heuristic
You think that thing may be more prevalent just because you can remember it more easily—especially with emotional events. A news story about a crash will scare you even though, statistically speaking, flying is safer than driving. The impact of social media also makes everything worse by replaying dramatized facts. Islam values balance and tawakkul (trust in Allah). Fear must never overtake fact or faith.
The Dunning-Kruger Effect
You may know less than you think. The less you know, the greater your confidence. With so many falling into financial scams in 2024 by trusting fake or dubious “experts” on social media, we should all be worried about our confidence and feelings of knowledge confused with competence in expertise, as they quickly lost their lifetime savings by not fact-checking their choices and decisions, but trusting their blind overconfidence was enough. Islam cautioned against overinflated confidence in knowledge, but we must recognize that wisdom only exists with humility.
“Above every knowledgeable, there is One more knowledgeable.” (Surah Yusuf 12:76)
Sunk Cost Fallacy
Too often, we keep on doing something because we have put time, effort, or money into it, even if it is the wrong thing or failing. That is the sunk cost fallacy, and that is why people get stuck in bad friendships or terrible jobs. They believe that if they leave, they are wasting every moment that they have spent there. But in Islam, that would never be encouraged because it would always be better for them to walk away from the harm, even if it is more difficult.
The Prophet (PBUH) left Ta’if, even though he loved it, after the problems took place.
Part of being on our personal growth means walking away.
Groupthink
After much reflection, even if the group is wrong, you go along to protect yourself from conflict. This is commonly known as groupthink. The pressure suppresses your opinion and leaves room for regret. There was a 2023 survey, which revealed that 64% of youth have hidden their opinions online because of the fear of rejection. But Islam encourages sincerity and courage; if the truth leads to your being alone, so be it!
“And let there be [arise out of] you a group that guides to all that is good, enjoin what is right,” (Surah Aal-e-Imran 3:104)
Negativity Bias
The mind places more emphasis on the negative than the positive. One harmful word outweighs ten good ones, and this thought style causes sadness, anxiety, and low self-esteem, Healing begins when you combat that thought style. The Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) was consistently optimistic. He said, “Amazing is the affair of the believer… all of it is good.” Islam wants us to think of hope, not hurt.
“If the Hour (the end) comes while one of you is planting a tree, let him complete it.” (Musnad Ahmad)
His statement captures the meaning of hope — even in darkness.
The Spotlight Effect
You feel like you are in a fishbowl, scrutinizing everyone else’s perceived opinion of you–whether it’s about your flaws, mistakes, or simply how you look. The truth is that most of the time, people are busy worrying about themselves, so they are not thinking about you. This is called the spotlight effect, which causes you to question how others perceive you–which leads to stress and social anxiety.
In a study published recently in popular media in 2025, 78% of teens felt that they worried others would judge them on social media, yet most of it is imaginary judgment that exists only in their heads. Islam teaches us to be humble, have quiet confidence, and to have faith in ourselves for ourselves, not for world approval (Ahmed, 2021).
Allah said, “Use. Whoever humbles himself before Allah, then He will raise him.”(Sahih Muslim).
Summary on From Within
Your inner life is a garden—leave it as it is and see how unkind biases sprout like weeds. Healing starts when you notice what you are thinking. You begin to change when you no longer ignore your mental patterns. Allah invites us to look inward: Why do I react that way? You step toward understanding. Both our faith and the best of psychology urge us to stop, look inward, and let what we find there help us unfold into something kinder and stronger.
“And in yourselves, do you not reflect?”* (Adh-Dhariyat 51:21). When you ask: Why do I think this?
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