A picture is worth a thousand words, but a lousy picture is worth a thousand lousy, poorly considered words.

Conservatism: Failure to change (or changing slowly) one’s own mind in light of new information/evidence.

Recency: The most recent events dominate those in the less recent past, which are downgraded or ignored.

Anchoring: Predictions of the future are unduly influenced by initial information, which is given more weight than it deserves.

Illusory correlations: Belief that patterns are evident and/or that two variables are causally related when they are not.

Optimism, wishful thinking: People’s preferences for future outcomes affect their predictions of such outcomes.

Underestimating uncertainty: Excessive optimism, illusory correlation, and the need to reduce anxiety result in underestimating the uncertainty of future events.

Adapted from Spyros G. Makridakis, “Forecasting, Planning, and Strategy for the 21st Century,” 1990.