Biases

Hindsight Bias

Be aware.

Fundamental Attribution Error

Give them the benefit of the doubt.

Self-serving Bias

Self-serving Bias

Take responsibility.

Belief Bias

Think before acting.

Stay tuned for next week, when we'll bring you an analysis on the Dunning-Kruger Effect and its association with the common "Elo Hell"

There is a reason why summoners act the way they do. It’s not because of their genes, but because of how they were raised and how humans interact. Today we take a look at the few biases that elucidate our actions in League of Legends.We’ve all been in that situation before where we know that the enemy is in the bush, but we still check it anyways. This is also known as face-checking. There’s a reason why summoners do this and it is called. Hindsight Bias, sometimes called the “I-knew-it-all-along” effect, is the inclination to see past events as being predictable.We all know that Xin Zhao is in the bush, but our minds are telling us to check it to make sure. We think that “oh I can kill him” or “even if I get jumped I’ll still be able to escape.” However, that is rarely the case. Often times we overlook our prior knowledge and act upon instinct but instead we should examine the situation and react accordingly. Instead of going into the bush place a ward or even grab a teammate and fight him.Time after time, people will get angry at teammates for having a poor game. Commonly, you will hear “why be a jungle twitch if you are not going to gank?” or “gg top is a noob and fed”. Sometimes this is attributed to a poor player, but more often than not, it is because they are in a bad situation. The tendency to assume the worst is because of the, which is the tendency for people to over-emphasize personality-based explanations for behaviors observed in others while under-emphasizing the role and power of situational influences on the same behavior. Instead of calling someone out, next time take a look at the whole picture and put yourself in the other person’s shoes. The jungler could have gotten counter-jungled and is now two levels behind. Think about the situation they are in before jumping to conclusions.Conversely, imagine being in a bad situation yourself, one where you’re the one feeding the enemy team. Your jungler proceeds to call you a noob and you retaliate by stating that you are simply in a bad spot and could use a hand. All hell breaks lose, with the jungler throwing around insults and statistics to back up his theory on how you are a noob. He states “I have 120 cs and you have only 90 cs.”What’s happening here is, he is talking about his success in-game over his failures.is the tendency to claim more responsibility for successes than failures. It may also manifest itself as a tendency for people to evaluate ambiguous information in a way beneficial to their interests. Even though he may be flaunting over how many minion kills he has, he does not realize that he has never ganked any lanes and doesn’t have any control over dragon and baron.Far too many times, we associate our previous knowledge in our conclusions. Last game there was a Soraka that fed, therefore all Sorakas feed. There are many times we assume this and that is because of. Belief Bias is when one's evaluation of the logical strength of an argument is biased by their belief in the truth or falsity of the conclusion. Consequently, our perception of Soraka is that she is a feeder. However, that is not the case because all Sorakas do not feed. That is like saying “All dogs are animals, all animals have four legs, all dogs have four legs.” That just does not make sense and the same thing applies to League of Legends.All in all, these are the few biases that are naturally occurring in League of Legends. So the next time you play, take time to really be reasonable but most importantly having fun.Image by Tim Buckley