What Is Recency Bias? | Definition & Examples

Recency bias is the tendency of recent events to receive more weight in our thinking when we make decisions about a future course of action. Because they are recent, some events loom large in our consciousness as we consider likely future outcomes.

Recency bias example
Recency bias can be seen in people’s attitude to flying. Although airplanes remain one of the safest forms of transport, news reports of an air disaster can affect people’s willingness to fly, or how anxious they are when flying.

The recency of the event makes flying seem less safe.

Our brains are more likely to recall recent events than past ones, and these can override our ability to analyze clearly.

What is recency bias?

Recency bias is one form of cognitive bias that affects our perception of future events based on things that have happened recently. It leads us to believe that events that have happened recently are more likely to be repeated than is actually probable.

The consequence of this bias is that, instead of thinking analytically about a choice or decision, we are influenced by recent events. Recency bias can affect many areas of life. After a minor car accident where a driver pulled out in front of me despite good visibility, I was nervous for months that any car waiting to pull out would do the same. The immediacy of the accident was more potent than the previous decades of experience that showed driver tend not to pull out in front of me.

Recent events, especially if they are prominent in our minds or the news, influence our choices, rather than a logical appraisal of the situation.

What causes recency bias?

Our brains retain incredible amounts of information, including facts, memories, and opinions. To help us function quickly and effectively, we keep recent events in our short-term memory. It is quickly and readily accessible to us, and most of the time, this is an efficient use of our cognitive power.

However, it does mean we can over-rely on that recent data, and the recency bias is a form of the availability heuristic. Because recent events are more available to us, as they are in our short-term memories, they are given more prominence in our calculations than they deserve. Recency bias is connected with the recency effect. The recency and the primacy effect form what is known as the serial position effect.

Note
Some researchers make a distinction between recency effect and recency bias, but more often they are used interchangeably. Where there is a distinction, then recency bias describes how poor decisions are made by people over-relying on recent experiences and observations, while recency effect describes how we learn, with the most-recent data being recalled more easily.

Recency bias examples

The prominence given to recent events by the recency bias phenomenon can lead us to misinterpret data. For instance, it is easy to confuse climate and weather.

Recency bias example
A friend is discussing your new photovoltaic panel installation and the general trend toward “green” energy. He expresses skepticism about the human impact on climate change and says that “global warming” seems to have passed your area by, as the past few summers have been cool and rainy.

Recency bias has made the recent weather in your area more prominent in your friend’s mind than the more detailed statistical evidence across the globe and across time. The latter clearly shows persistent climate change, with a general warming of the Earth’s temperatures.

In the workplace, recency bias can lead to an employee’s assessment being based on recent performance, rather than over the longer term.

Recency bias in the workplace example
Consider Benedetta, who has had a poor quarter in her position as a sales manager. At her annual review, Benedetta’s manager easily recalls her disappointing recent figures. The recency bias phenomenon leads the manager to assume that  Benedetta has performed badly. But data from the whole year clearly shows that she has been one of the company’s leading salespeople.

This, in turn, can lead to the halo effect or horn effect, which also skews our perception of people. To avoid this, managers need to use longer-term data to assess performance.

What is the difference between recency bias and primacy bias?

The serial position effect describes how our ability to recall an item in a series (e.g., a list of words) depends on that item’s position in the series. Both recency bias and primacy bias are part of the serial position effect.

While recency bias leads us to recall the last items on a list more easily, primacy bias leads us to recall the first items we encounter.

The practical application of the serial position effect is that if we want people to remember information, we need to place it either at the beginning or the end of our interaction with them.

Frequently asked questions about recency bias

What is the opposite of recency bias?

The opposite of recency bias is primacy bias. According to primacy bias, we tend to remember the first item or items we encounter (e.g., the first few people we meet at a networking event). This means that the ones we meet in the middle of the meeting are least likely to stick in our minds.

Is recency bias a problem?

Recency bias can be a problem in a number of situations, because it causes us to give undue weight to recent events when making decisions. As a result, those decisions can overlook longer-term data, and produce bad decision-making processes.

For example, a recent airplane crash might be in your mind as you fly, and will make you more nervous or anxious than the situation warrants. The recent accident makes little difference to the overall very good safety record of air travel, but because it is fresh in your mind, it enjoys greater importance.

Similarly, a few unsuccessful job applications can lead you to feel there is no point in applying when your dream job comes up, even though over the years you have been successful in changing positions.

What is a real-life example of recency bias?

Recency bias can be found in many areas of life. Sports fans might have an unrealistic view of their team’s chances in an upcoming game based on their most recent result. So a recent win might make the fans optimistic, even though in general the team has performed poorly.

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Trevor Marshall, MSc

Trevor has a BA in English Literature & Language and an MSc in Applied Social Studies. He has been a teacher for 25 years, with 15 years experience teaching ESL alongside 1st language students.