Mirror Fallacy

 

Called out by a kind, frank friend: the personal tendency to assume during conversation that a listener is just like oneself — e.g., knows about switch-contact bounce and how to diagonalize a matrix, loves to run on strange new trails to unknown destinations before dawn, strives for self-awareness and non-attachment, etc.

In response to the 2011 Edge.org challenge question, "What Scientific Concept Would Improve Everybody's Cognitive Toolkit?", neuroscientist Christian Keysers nominates what he calls the "Mirror Fallacy": the notion that other people feel and think just the way we would in their circumstances.

Not Always So!

(see Wikipedia's Projection Bias, Cognitive Traps for Intelligence Analysis and List of Cognitive Biases; cf. Big Biases (2014-01-09), Negative Thinking Patterns (2015-08-28), ...) - ^z - 2016-03-10