The subjective feeling that information is flowing smoothly and processing is effortless, which increases confidence, liking, and perceived truth—regardless of actual validity.
When System 1 processes information easily, we experience cognitive ease and feel confident; when processing is difficult (cognitive strain), we're more skeptical. Cognitive ease is influenced by factors like repetition, clear fonts, simple language, rhyming, and good mood. The problem is that ease of processing is not correlated with accuracy—a false statement repeated frequently feels truer than a true statement heard once. This explains why repeated statements seem more valid (mere exposure effect), why clear fonts are more persuasive, and why simple explanations feel more correct than complex ones, even when simplicity has no relationship to truth.
The statement 'Woes unite foes' feels truer than 'Woes unite enemies' because the rhyme creates cognitive ease. Similarly, a stock with a pronounceable ticker symbol (like KAR) is judged as a better investment than one with a difficult ticker (like RDO), even though the name is irrelevant to performance.
If something feels easy to understand and process, it's probably true—actually, cognitive ease is influenced by surface features (repetition, clarity, simplicity) that have no relationship to truth.
Why does cognitive ease increase perceived truth, even when ease of processing has no relationship to actual validity?
Cognitive ease is influenced by factors like repetition, clear fonts, simple language, _____, and good mood.
The slow, deliberate, effortful mode of thinking that allocates attention to complex computations, self-control, and conscious reasoning.
Mental ModelThe fast, automatic, intuitive mode of thinking that operates effortlessly and generates impressions, intuitions, and feelings without conscious control.
Mental ModelJudging the frequency or probability of events by how easily examples come to mind, leading to overestimation of vivid or recent events.
Mental ModelJudging probability by how much something resembles a typical case while ignoring base rates, sample size, and statistical principles.
Mental ModelThe tendency to rely too heavily on an initial piece of information (the anchor) when making subsequent judgments, even when the anchor is arbitrary or irrelevant.
Mental ModelThe principle that losses loom psychologically larger than equivalent gains, with losing something feeling roughly twice as bad as gaining the same thing feels good.
PrincipleA descriptive model of decision-making under risk showing that people evaluate outcomes relative to a reference point, are loss-averse, and weight probabilities non-linearly.
FrameworkSystem 1's tendency to construct the most coherent story possible from currently available information without considering what's missing or questions not asked.
PrincipleThe subjective feeling that information is flowing smoothly and processing is effortless, which increases confidence, liking, and perceived truth—regardless of actual validity.
The statement 'Woes unite foes' feels truer than 'Woes unite enemies' because the rhyme creates cognitive ease. Similarly, a stock with a pronounceable ticker symbol (like KAR) is judged as a better investment than one with a difficult ticker (like RDO), even though the name is irrelevant to performance.
If something feels easy to understand and process, it's probably true—actually, cognitive ease is influenced by surface features (repetition, clarity, simplicity) that have no relationship to truth.
Cognitive Ease is explored in depth in "Thinking, Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman. Distilo provides a deep AI-powered analysis with key insights, audio narration, and practical frameworks.