TED Conference via Flickr.

Elon Musk Thinks Every Child Should Learn About These 50 Cognitive Biases

Whatever you think of Elon Musk’s many Twitter scandals, sometimes odd public utterances, and past tax bills, one thing is for sure. The guy is clearly able to achieve the near impossible when it comes to engineering and innovation.

It’s a skill he himself attributes to clear thinking. While others look around and see what other people are trying, or assume they can move the status quo only so much, Musk is a firm believer in what he calls “first principles thinking,” or focusing solely on the basic truths and constraints of whatever field he’s working in, and building up from there.

Thinking like this might come relatively easily to a mind like Musk’s, but according to an absolute avalanche of psychological research, the rest of us often struggle to be as clear-headed. We get emotional, fear others’ judgment, or simply screw up our mental math thanks to the brain’s many inherent bugs and biases. Could we all get a little more Musk-like in our thinking if we learned about the quirks that often trip us up as kids?

Musk appears to think so. He recently took to Twitter to declare that cognitive biases “should be taught to all at a young age.” His post included a (not super easy to read) graphic laying out 50 common biases, thinking errors, and irrational human tendencies that kids should be alerted to, which I’ve laid out in list from below.

Do you agree that we’d all be a little better prepared for life if we learned them all in school?

1. Fundamental Attribution Error. When someone else is late, it’s because they’re lazy. When you’re late, it was the traffic.
2. Self-Serving Bias. Attributing all your successes to skill or effect and all your screw ups to bad luck or a bad situation.
3. In-Group Favoritism. We tend to favor those in our in-group versus those who are different from us.
4. Bandwagon Effect. Everyone likes to jump on a trendy bandwagon.
5. Groupthink. Also just what it sounds like. Going along with the group to avoid conflict. The downfall of many a large organization.
6. Halo Effect. Assuming a person has other positive traits because you observed they have one. Just because…