Enemies of Rational Thought (habits, not just journalists)

A nice summary from The Five Enemies of Rational Thought by Neel Burton.

The enemies of rational thought can take one of several overlapping forms, including formal fallacy and informal fallacy, cognitive bias, cognitive distortion, and self-deception. If these are difficult to define, they are even more difficult to distinguish.

Examples:

Formal fallacy - "It is a deductive argument with an invalid form, for example: Some A are B. Some B are C. Therefore, some A are C. If you cannot see that this argument is invalid, complete A, B, and C with ‘insects’, ‘herbivores’, and ‘mammals’. Insects are clearly not mammals!"

Informal fallacy - "Informal fallacies often turn on the misuse of language, for example, using a key term or phrase in an ambiguous way, with one meaning in one part of the argument and another meaning in another part (fallacy of equivocation). Informal fallacies can also distract from the weakness of an argument, or appeal to the emotions rather than to reason."

Cognitive bias - "For example, a person who buys a $10,000 watch instead of a $1,000 watch because “you can really tell the difference in quality” is not only hiding his (unrecognized) craving to be loved, but also disguising it as an ego-enhancing virtue, namely, a concern for quality. Whereas formal and informal fallacies are more about faulty reasoning, self-deception is more about hiding from, or protecting, oneself."

Cognitive distortion - Cognitive bias is sloppy, although not necessarily faulty, reasoning: a mental shortcut or heuristic intended to spare us time, effort, or discomfort, often while reinforcing our image of the self or the world, but at the cost of accuracy or reliability. For example, in explaining the behaviour of other people, our tendency is to overestimate the role of character traits over situational factors—a bias, called the correspondence bias or attribution effect, that goes into reverse when it comes to explaining our own behaviour.

Self-deception - "Cognitive distortion involves interpreting events and situations so that they conform to and reinforce our outlook or frame of mind, typically on the basis of very scant or partial evidence, or even no evidence at all. Common cognitive distortions in depression include selective abstraction and catastrophic thinking. Selective abstraction is to focus on a single negative event or condition to the exclusion of other, more positive ones, for example, “My partner hates me. He gave me an annoyed look three days ago (even though he spends all his spare time with me).” Catastrophic thinking is to exaggerate the consequences of an event or situation, for example, “The pain in my knee is getting worse. When I’m reduced to a wheelchair, I won’t be able to go to work and pay the mortgage. So, I’ll end up losing my house and dying in the street.”"