Definitions

Recent events and trends are easier to remember and discern than either events in the distant past or unknown events that will occur in the future. Rather than studying the past or accepting the fact that, despite our best efforts, we are often useless at predicting future events (both require effort), we fall prey to Recency Bias.

Recency Bias (or, Recency Effect Bias): the tendency to weigh recent events more heavily than earlier events. Often classified as one of many different decision-making errors, or biases, and closely related to the human tendency towards Cognitive Ease, i.e. the preference for readily accessible cognitive information (memory, pattern-matching, explanation, interpretation etc.) over the less accessible cognitions only available through the hard work of “thinking, analysing and deciding”[1].

At a more specific level, a particular example of Recency Bias can be demonstrated by limitations in human memory capacity, as shown by the Recency Effect.