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• What Is the Planning Fallacy? | Definition & Examples

What Is the Planning Fallacy? | Definition & Examples

Published on 11 August 2023 by Kassiani Nikolopoulou . Revised on 28 August 2023.

The planning fallacy occurs when we underestimate how long it will take us to complete a future task. Despite knowing that similar tasks have generally taken longer than planned, we hold overly optimistic expectations and believe that next time will be different. Because we make unrealistic plans, we often end up running out of time, money, or energy.

The planning fallacy can impact any type of task and lead to several issues, including missed deadlines, increased costs, and frustration for both individuals and organisations.

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Table of contents

What is the planning fallacy, why does the planning fallacy occur, planning fallacy example, how to avoid the planning fallacy, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about the planning fallacy.

The planning fallacy refers to a phenomenon in which people underestimate the amount of time needed to complete a project or task because they are too optimistic about how things will unfold. The planning fallacy occurs due to two main errors: overestimating positive outcomes and underestimating time, costs, or risks of future actions.

Despite being aware that our past predictions were too optimistic, we often insist that our current predictions are realistic, and we don’t adequately anticipate the possible setbacks that can arise. In other words, when it comes to planning, we tend to repeat our mistakes.

The planning fallacy applies to both small and big tasks, as well as individual and group projects. It also generalises across personality traits and cultures. For example, even though conscientious people tend to manage their time better than procrastinators, both groups typically underestimate how long it will take them to get things done.

It is important to note that actor-observer differences, similar to the actor-observer bias , are at play when it comes to estimating time: people will generally anticipate that they will finish their own tasks earlier than they actually do, while they are more realistic and accurate when it comes to the tasks of others.

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The planning fallacy occurs due to a combination of different factors, including:

• Optimism bias . People tend to overestimate the likelihood of positive events and underestimate the likelihood of negative events. When we start a project, we are more likely to think that things will go well because this helps us to stay motivated.
• Self-serving bias . When we think about our past failures to complete a task or project as planned, we are more likely to blame our shortcomings on external circumstances rather than personal factors (i.e., we focus on reasons that had nothing to do with us). The opposite happens when we recall our successes: we tend to believe that we are solely responsible. Because of this, we tend to focus on our successes and downplay or ignore our failures when estimating how long future tasks will take.
• Taking the “inside view”. When we are planning, we tend to focus on the fine details of the specific project (the inside view), rather than the big picture (the outside view). For example, when preparing to write a research paper, we will start listing all the subtasks that need to be accomplished (e.g., the sources we will use, the people we need to contact). Since this paper is different from others we have written before, we may not see the previous assignment as being relevant. However, our failures to meet our deadlines in the past come from more general factors, like falling ill or scheduling difficulties with our interviewees. If we recognised this, we would be able to preempt some of these obstacles in the future.
• Social pressure . Individuals may feel pressured to provide overly optimistic estimates due to a desire to impress others, meet expectations, or avoid appearing incompetent. This is especially true in fast-paced, competitive work environments where showing enthusiasm is prized over being critical. Organisations often strive to project a positive image externally, creating a culture of unrealistic optimism that leads to missed deadlines and budget overruns.

Large scale projects often overrun their projected costs and timelines due to the planning fallacy.

The Big Dig was the most expensive highway and tunnel project in the US and was developed in response to the traffic congestion in the city of Boston. The project was originally estimated to be completed in 1998 and cost around $2.8 billion.

However, the project was plagued by a series of challenges including engineering difficulties, unexpected discoveries of historical artifacts like sunken ships and buried houses, and the use of substandard materials. As a result, the project experienced delays and cost overruns and was not completed until December 2007 with a total cost of nearly $15 billion.

Overcoming the planning fallacy is not easy. However, we can try to mitigate its effect in the following ways:

• Take the “outside view”.  Instead of getting absorbed into the details of the task at hand, we should consider how similar projects fared in the past. Data from comparable projects can serve as a base rate that you can use to make a more realistic plan. For example, you can pinpoint patterns of delays and challenges and adjust your estimates accordingly.
• Ask for objective third-party feedback . When we are deeply engaged in a project it might be difficult to take a critical standpoint. For this reason, we need to seek input from individuals unrelated to the project. They can help us identify potential pitfalls that might have been overlooked or check how realistic our plans are.
• Create contingency plans . Instead of assuming everything will go smoothly, identify various scenarios that could arise and develop strategies to address them if they occur. By factoring in potential obstacles and delays, you increase the likelihood of staying on track.

If you want to know more about fallacies , research bias , or AI tools , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

• Generative AI
• Deep learning
• Machine learning
• Supervised vs unsupervised learning
• Data mining
• Reinforcement learning
• Sunk cost fallacy
• Straw man fallacy
• Slippery slope fallacy
• Red herring fallacy
• Appeal to pity 
• Appeal to emotion

Research bias

• Implicit bias
• Framing bias
• Cognitive bias
• Optimism bias
• Hawthorne effect
• Affect heuristic

The planning fallacy and procrastination are not the same thing. Although they both relate to time and task management, they describe different challenges:

• The planning fallacy describes our inability to correctly estimate how long a future task will take, mainly due to optimism bias and a strong focus on the best-case scenario.
• Procrastination refers to postponing a task, usually by focusing on less urgent or more enjoyable activities. This is due to psychological reasons, like fear of failure.

In other words, the planning fallacy refers to inaccurate predictions about the time we need to finish a task, while procrastination is a deliberate delay due to psychological factors.

A real-life example of the planning fallacy is the construction of the Sydney Opera House in Australia. When construction began in the late 1950s, it was initially estimated that it would be completed in four years at a cost of around $7 million.

Because the government wanted the construction to start before political opposition would stop it and while public opinion was still favorable, a number of design issues had not been carefully studied in advance. Due to this, several problems appeared immediately after the project commenced.

The construction process eventually stretched over 14 years, with the Opera House being completed in 1973 at a cost of over $100 million, significantly exceeding the initial estimates.

Sources for this article

We strongly encourage students to use sources in their work. You can cite our article (APA Style) or take a deep dive into the articles below.

Nikolopoulou, K. (2023, August 28). What Is the Planning Fallacy? | Definition & Examples. Scribbr. Retrieved 9 September 2024, from https://www.scribbr.co.uk/fallacy/the-planning-fallacy/

Buehler, R., Griffin, D. W., & Ross, M. (1994). Exploring the “planning fallacy”: Why people underestimate their task completion times. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67 (3), 366–381. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.67.3.366

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Why do we underestimate how long it will take to complete a task?

Planning fallacy, what is the planning fallacy.

The planning fallacy describes our tendency to underestimate the amount of time it will take to complete a task, as well as the costs and risks associated with that task—even if it contradicts our experiences.

Where this bias occurs

John, a university student, has a paper due in one week. John has written many papers of a similar length before, and it generally takes him about a week to get it done. Nonetheless, as he is dividing up his time, John is positive that he can finish the assignment in three days, so he puts off starting. In the end, he doesn’t have the paper finished in time, and needs to ask for an extension.

Related Biases

• Optimism Bias

Individual effects

Just as the name suggests, the planning fallacy can lead to poor planning, causing us to make decisions that ignore the realistic demands of a task (be it time, money, energy, or something else). It also leads us to downplay the elements of risk and luck; instead, we focus only on our own abilities—and an overly optimistic assessment of our abilities at that.

Systemic effects

The planning fallacy affects everybody, whether they are a student, a city planner, or the CEO of an organization. When it comes to large-scale ventures, from disruptive construction projects to expensive business mergers, the livelihoods of many people (not to mention a whole lot of money) are at stake, and there are widespread economic and social consequences of poor planning.

How it affects product 

The planning fallacy can create issues at any stage of product development. For many companies, a major concern is budgeting new ventures. Whether it's a need for additional resources, changes in material costs, or unexpected technical challenges, costs can escalate far beyond initial budgets. 

Though findings are mixed, various techniques have been proposed to avoid the planning fallacy during product development. Instructing those involved in a particular project to imagine both the “best case” as well as possible pitfalls and obstacles can be effective. However, it is also likely that individuals will still be hesitant to incorporate negative information. More successfully, encouraging individuals to imagine aggregate sets of events rather than making predictions based on a sole instance can mitigate the fallacy’s effects. For example, in the context of a project timeline, a team would want to look at temporal data for similar ventures rather than one past project. 13

The planning fallacy and AI

When provided with accurate data, artificial intelligence can help to limit the effects of the planning fallacy. For example, machine learning models can be trained on past project data to predict the duration and costs of similar projects. Researchers have already formed mathematical models in order to account for human biases in planning and optimism. 14 The inclusion of AI could not only speed this process along, but provide a more accurate and integrated approach to planning. 

While AI can aid in mitigating the planning fallacy, it's crucial to remember that AI models themselves can be overly optimistic or biased based on the data they're trained on. This can create an entirely new version of the planning fallacy wherein we trust AI predictions prior to critically evaluating them – trusting them as an entirely unbiased source. 

Why it happens

We prefer to focus on the positive.

The planning fallacy stems from our overall bias towards optimism, especially when our own abilities are concerned. 11,12 In general, we are oriented towards positivity. We have optimistic expectations of the world and other people; we are more likely to remember positive events than negative ones; and, most relevantly, we tend to favor positive information in our decision-making processes. 1,2

When it comes to our own capabilities, we are particularly bad at making accurate judgments. Take one study that asked incoming university students to estimate how they would perform academically compared to their classmates. On average, participants believed they would outperform 84% of their peers. 3 Of course, this estimate may have been accurate for some students, but it is mathematically impossible for everybody to be in the top 16%.

All of this means that when we set out to plan a project, we are likely to focus on imagined successful outcomes rather than potential pitfalls, and we are likely to overestimate how capable we (and our team members) are of meeting certain goals. While enthusiasm is certainly important for any venture, it can become problematic if it comes at the expense of being realistic.

We become anchored to our original plan

Anchoring is another type of cognitive bias that plays a big role in the planning fallacy. Coined by Muzafer Sherif, Daniel Taub, and Carl Hovland, anchoring is the tendency to rely too heavily on initial information when we are making decisions. 6 When we draw up a plan for a project, we are biased to continue thinking about those initial values—deadlines, budgets, and so on.

Anchoring is especially problematic if our original plans were unrealistically optimistic. Even if our initial predictions were massively inaccurate, we still feel tethered to those numbers even as we try to reassess. This leads us to make insufficient adjustments to our plans as we go along, preferring to make minor tweaks rather than major changes (even if major changes are necessary).

We write off negative information

Even if we do take outside information into account, we have a tendency to discount pessimistic views or data that challenges our optimistic outlook. This is the flip side of our positivity bias: our preference for affirmative information also makes us reluctant to consider the downsides.

In the business world, one example of this is known as competitor neglect, which describes how company executives fail to anticipate how their rivals will behave because they are focused on their own organization. 3 For example, when a company decides to break into a fast-growing market, it often forgets to consider its competitors are likely to do the same, leading to an underestimation of risk.

More generally, we often make attribution errors when considering our successes and failures. Whereas we tend to ascribe positive outcomes to our talents and hard work, we attribute negative outcomes to factors beyond our control. This makes us less likely to consider previous failures: we believe those instances were not our fault, and we convince ourselves that the external factors that caused us to fail will not reoccur. 4

We face social pressure

Organizational pressure to finish projects quickly and without problems is a major reason that the planning fallacy can be so detrimental. Workplace cultures can often be highly competitive, and there may be costs for individuals who voice less enthusiastic opinions about a project or who insist on a longer timeline than others. At the same time, executives might favor the most overly optimistic predictions over others, incentivizing individuals to engage in inaccurate, intuition-based planning.

Why it is important

The planning fallacy has consequences for both our professional and personal lives, nudging us to invest our time and money in ill-fated ventures and keeping us tethered to those projects for far too long. Research has demonstrated how widespread this bias is: In the business world, it has been found that more than 80% of start-up ventures fail to achieve their initial market-share targets. 3 Meanwhile, in classrooms, students report finishing about two-thirds of their assignments later than expected. 4  

In some fields, such as venture capital, high failure rates are often ascribed to normal levels of risk and seen as proof that the system is working as it should. However, cognitive scientists such as Dan Lovallo and Daniel Kahneman believe that these figures have much more to do with cognitive biases such as the planning fallacy. 3 If more people were aware of the planning fallacy, they could take steps to counteract it, such as the ones described below.

How to avoid it

Merely being aware of the planning fallacy is not enough to stop it from happening. 5 Even if we have this knowledge, we still risk falling into the trap of believing that this time, the rules won’t apply to us. Most of us strongly prefer to follow our gut, even if its forecasts have been wrong in the past. What we can do is plan around the planning fallacy and build steps into the planning process that can help us avoid it.

Take the outside view

When planning, we use two “types” of information: singular information and distributional information. Singular information is evidence related to the specific case under consideration, whereas distributional information is evidence related to similar tasks completed in the past. 5 These perspectives are also referred to as the inside and outside views, respectively. 3

Ideally, both singular and distributional information should be considered when planning. The planning fallacy is likely to arise when we rely solely on the inside view—that is when we disregard external information about how likely we are to succeed and instead trust our intuitive guesses about how costly a project will be. Unfortunately, this is exactly what many of us tend to do. Because planning is an inherently future-oriented process, we are inclined to look forward, rather than backward, in time. This leads us to disregard our past experiences. 4

Supplementing planning processes with distributional (outside) data, wherever possible, is a solid way to temper expectations for a project. 3 If an organization or individual has completed similar projects in the past, they can use the outcomes of those previous experiences to set goals for new ones. It is just as useful to look outside one’s own experiences and see how others have fared. The main point is to make a deliberate effort not to rely solely on intuition.

Set implementation intentions

Another strategy for combating the planning fallacy is illustrated by a study from the Netherlands, where study participants were given a writing assignment and told to complete it within a week. The participants were split into two groups. Both groups were instructed to set goal intentions, indicating what day they intended to start writing the paper and what day they believed they would finish. However, the second group also set implementation instructions, specifying what time of day and in what location they would write. They were asked to visualize themselves following through on their plan.

Researchers found that setting specific implementation intentions resulted in significantly more realistic goal-setting. 7 At the same time, doing so did not lessen the participants’ optimism; on the contrary, they were even more confident in their ability to meet their goals. They also reported fewer interruptions while they were working. This may be because the process of thinking through the specifics of completing the task at hand resulted in a stronger commitment to following through with one’s plan. These results show that optimism is not incompatible with realism as long as it is combined with a carefully thought-out plan.

Use the segmentation effect for better estimates

A related strategy involves breaking up big projects into their component parts, and then planning for the completion of the smaller subtasks instead of the project as a whole. As bad as we are at estimating the amount of time required for relatively large tasks, research has shown that we are much better at planning for small ones: often, our estimates are remarkably accurate, and at worst, they are overestimates. 9 This is, therefore a much safer strategy: In practice, it’s much better to overestimate the amount of time needed for a project than to allocate too little.

How it all started

The planning fallacy was first proposed by Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky , two foundational figures in the field of behavioural economics. In a 1977 paper, Kahneman and Tversky argued that, when making predictions about the future, people tend to rely largely on intuitive judgments that are often inaccurate. However, the types of errors that people make are not random, but systematic, indicating that they result from uniform cognitive biases.

In this paper, Kahnemany & Tversky brought up planning as an example of how bias interferes with our forecasts for the future. “Scientists and writers,” they said, apparently drawing from experience, “are notoriously prone to underestimate the time required to complete a project, even when they have considerable experience of past failures to live up to planned schedules.” They named this phenomenon the “planning fallacy” and argued that it arose from our tendency to ignore distributional (outside) data. 5

Example 1 – The Sydney Opera House

Now one of the most iconic man-made structures in the world, the construction of the Sydney Opera House was mired with delays and unforeseen difficulties that caused the project to drag on for a decade longer than planned. The original projected cost was $7 million; by the time it was done, it had cost $102 million. 4

The Australian Government insisted that construction begin early, wanting to break ground, while public opinion about the Opera House was still favorable and funding was still in place. However, the architect had not yet completed the final plans, leading to major structural issues that had to be addressed down the road, slowing the project down and inflating the budget. One major problem: the original podium was not strong enough to support the House’s famous shell-shaped roof and had to be rebuilt entirely.

Joseph Cahill, the politician who had championed the Opera House, rushed construction along out of fear that political opposition would try to stop it. 9 In his enthusiasm, he disregarded criticisms of the project and relied on intuitive forecasts for its costs. While the building, when it was eventually finished, was beautiful and distinctive, it would have been prudent to slow down and take the outside view in planning.

Example 2 –  The Canadian Pacific Railway

In 1871, the colony of British Columbia agreed to become a part of Canada. In exchange for joining the Confederation, it was promised that a transcontinental railway connecting BC to Eastern Canada would be completed by 1881. 4 In the end, the railway was not completed until 1885 and would require an additional $22.5 million in loans than originally predicted. 10

In initially planning the railway, its proponents had apparently not considered how difficult it would be to build through the Canadian Shield, as well as through the mountains of BC. Additionally, there was an inadequate supply of workers to build the railroad in British Columbia. The railroad was eventually built by around 15,000 Chinese laborers, who worked in extremely harsh conditions for very little pay.

The planning fallacy describes how we are likely to underestimate the costs of a project, such as how long it will take and how much it will cost.

The human brain is generally biased towards positivity, leading us to make overly optimistic predictions about our projects, as well as to disregard information that contradicts our optimistic beliefs. Once we have set unrealistic plans, other biases, such as anchoring, compel us to stick with them. Pressure from team members, superiors, or shareholders to get things done quickly and smoothly also makes it more costly for us to revise our plans partway through a project.

Example #1 – The Sydney Opera House

The Sydney Opera House is a famous example of the planning fallacy because it took 10 years longer and nearly $100 million more to complete than was originally planned. One major reason was the government’s insistence on starting construction early, despite the fact that plans were not yet finished.

Example #2 – The Canadian Pacific Railway

The Canadian Pacific Railway was finished four years late and more than $20 million over budget, largely because of a failure to plan for the difficulties of building through mountain ranges and over the Canadian Shield. 

The planning fallacy is best avoided by incorporating outside information into the planning process rather than relying solely on intuition. Other strategies, such as setting specific intentions to implement a plan, envisioning oneself carrying out the plan, and segmenting large projects into smaller subtasks, can also help generate more accurate estimates of how costly something will be.

Related TDL articles

Why you might not be sticking to your plans.

This article explores a few reasons why people often fail to follow through with their plans, including the planning fallacy. Another potential explanation is the Dunning-Kruger effect, which describes how people with low ability tend to overestimate their own skills. The author also discusses the importance of planning for less-than-ideal scenarios, as well as setting implementation intentions.

The Key to Effective Teammates Isn’t Them. It’s You.

As discussed above, one reason the planning fallacy is so common is because of pressures in the workplace and other environments to overachieve, and to always strive for perfection. This article discusses the importance of being authentically ourselves, at work and elsewhere. When we act in a way that prioritizes genuine social connection over our own egos, we help others feel safe to do the same. By checking in with ourselves and our motivations, asking ourselves whether we are acting in accordance with our values and beliefs, we can create an atmosphere more accepting of imperfections.

Case studies

From insight to impact: our success stories, is there a problem we can help with.

• Ackerman, C. E. (2019, April 7). Pollyanna principle: The psychology of positivity bias. PositivePsychology.com. https://positivepsychology.com/pollyanna-principle/
• Hoorens V. (2014) Positivity Bias. In: Michalos A.C. (eds) Encyclopedia of Quality of Life and Well-Being Research. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-0753-5
• Lovallo, D., & Kahneman, D. (2003, July). Delusions of success: How optimism undermines executives’ decisions. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2003/07/delusions-of-success-how-optimism-undermines-executives-decisions
• Buehler, R., Griffin, D., & Ross, M. (1994). Exploring the “planning fallacy”: Why people underestimate their task completion times. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67(3), 366-381. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.67.3.366
• Kahneman, Daniel; Tversky, Amos (1977). “Intuitive prediction: Biases and corrective procedures” (PDF). Decision Research Technical Report PTR-1042-77-6. In Kahneman, Daniel; Tversky, Amos (1982). “Intuitive prediction: Biases and corrective procedures”. In Kahneman, Daniel; Slovic, Paul; Tversky, Amos (eds.). Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases. Science. 185. pp. 414–421.
• Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1982). Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases. Judgment under Uncertainty, 3-20. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511809477.002
• Koole, S., & Van’t Spijker, M. (2000). Overcoming the planning fallacy through willpower: Effects of implementation intentions on actual and predicted task-completion times. European Journal of Social Psychology, 30(6), 873-888. https://doi.org/10.1002/1099-0992(200011/12)30:6<873::aid-ejsp22>3.0.co;2-u
• Forsyth, D. K., & Burt, C. D. (2008). Allocating time to future tasks: The effect of task segmentation on planning fallacy bias. Memory & Cognition, 36(4), 791-798. https://doi.org/10.3758/mc.36.4.791
• Construction begins. (n.d.). Sydney Opera House. https://www.sydneyoperahouse.com/our-story/sydney-opera-house-history/construction-begins.html
• Lavallé, O. (2008, March 6). Canadian Pacific railway. The Canadian Encyclopedia. https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/canadian-pacific-railway
• Optimism bias. (2019, August 22). The Decision Lab. https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/optimism-bias/
• Dunning–Kruger effect. (2020, July 22). The Decision Lab. https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/dunning-kruger-effect/
• Buehler, R., Griffin, D., & Ross, M. (2002). Inside the planning fallacy: The causes and consequences of optimistic time predictions. Heuristics and biases: The psychology of intuitive judgment, 250-270.
• Yamini, S., & Marathe, R. R. (2018). Mathematical model to mitigate planning fallacy and to determine realistic delivery time. IIMB Management Review , 30 (3), 242–257. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iimb.2018.05.003

About the Authors

Dan is a Co-Founder and Managing Director at The Decision Lab. He is a bestselling author of Intention - a book he wrote with Wiley on the mindful application of behavioral science in organizations. Dan has a background in organizational decision making, with a BComm in Decision & Information Systems from McGill University. He has worked on enterprise-level behavioral architecture at TD Securities and BMO Capital Markets, where he advised management on the implementation of systems processing billions of dollars per week. Driven by an appetite for the latest in technology, Dan created a course on business intelligence and lectured at McGill University, and has applied behavioral science to topics such as augmented and virtual reality.

Dr. Sekoul Krastev

Sekoul is a Co-Founder and Managing Director at The Decision Lab. He is a bestselling author of Intention - a book he wrote with Wiley on the mindful application of behavioral science in organizations. A decision scientist with a PhD in Decision Neuroscience from McGill University, Sekoul's work has been featured in peer-reviewed journals and has been presented at conferences around the world. Sekoul previously advised management on innovation and engagement strategy at The Boston Consulting Group as well as on online media strategy at Google. He has a deep interest in the applications of behavioral science to new technology and has published on these topics in places such as the Huffington Post and Strategy & Business.

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IResearchNet

Planning Fallacy

Planning fallacy definition.

The planning fallacy refers to a specific form of optimistic bias wherein people underestimate the time that it will take to complete an upcoming task even though they are fully aware that similar tasks have taken longer in the past. An intriguing aspect of this phenomenon is that people simultaneously hold both optimistic beliefs (concerning the specific future task) as well as more realistic beliefs (concerning relevant past experiences). When it comes to planning the future, people can know the past and yet be doomed to repeat it.

Planning Fallacy Evidence and Causes

The most direct evidence for the planning fallacy comes from studies in which people predict how long an upcoming project will take to complete, report completion times for similar projects in the past, and subsequently carry out the project. For example, university students reported that they typically completed their writing assignments about a day before the due date, but predicted that they would complete their current summer essay more than a week before it was due. They tended to finish the essay, as usual, about a day before the deadline. The tendency to underestimate completion times has been observed for a wide variety of activities ranging from daily household chores to large-scale industrial projects.

Why would people repeatedly underestimate how long their tasks will take to complete? According to cognitive explanations, the bias results from the kinds of information that people consider. When generating a task-completion prediction, people’s natural inclination is to plan out the specific steps that they will take to successfully complete the project. The problem with this approach is that events don’t usually unfold exactly as planned. Given the vast number of potential impediments, there is a great likelihood that people will encounter unexpected problems, delays, and interruptions. When people focus narrowly on a plan for successful task completion, they neglect other sources of information—such as past completion times, competing priorities, and factors that may delay their progress—that could lead to more realistic predictions.

This cognitive explanation has been supported by studies in which individuals describe their thoughts while predicting when they will finish an upcoming project. Most descriptions focus on specific future plans whereas very few descriptions mention relevant past experiences or potential problems. In addition, experimental studies have shown that people who are instructed to develop a detailed future plan for a task make more optimistic predictions than those who are not. These findings imply that people’s unrealistic predictions are caused, at least in part, by their tendency to focus narrowly on a plan for successful task completion.

Motivation can also play a role, by guiding the cognitive approach that people take. For example, strong desires to finish tasks early may increase people’s focus on future plans and decrease their focus on past experiences, resulting in highly optimistic predictions. The interplay between motivation and cognition was illustrated in a field study. Taxpayers who expected an income tax refund, and were thus strongly motivated to file their tax return early, estimated they would file their return about 10 days earlier on average than did taxpayers who did not expect a refund. In fact, the two groups did not differ in when they filed their returns, which was much later than either group had predicted. Incentives for early task completion appear to increase people’s attention to future plans and reduce attention to relevant past experiences—the very pattern of cognitive processes that fuels the planning fallacy.

Planning Fallacy Moderating Factors and Strategies

Given the potential costs of unrealistic predictions, researchers have attempted to identify factors that may limit their occurrence. The findings suggest that the bias is remarkably robust. It appears for a wide range of tasks and activities, it generalizes across individual differences in personality and culture, and it appears for group predictions as well as individual predictions. One factor that does appear to have a great influence, however, is whether people’s predictions involve their own tasks or those of others. When people make predictions about others’ tasks, rather than their own, they are less prone to underestimate completion times. This actor-observer difference makes sense given the cognitive and motivational causes of the planning fallacy. Observers typically do not have access to the wealth of information that actors possess about their future plans and circumstances, making it difficult for observers to generate a detailed future plan. Also, neutral observers do not generally share the same motivations as actors (e.g., to complete the task promptly), and thus may be less inclined to focus selectively on information that supports an optimistic forecast. Whenever it is important to avoid unrealistic predictions, then, individuals may be well advised to consult with neutral observers.

Researchers have also examined strategies that individual forecasters can use to avoid underestimating their own completion times. One strategy involves linking past experiences with specific plans for an upcoming task. Specifically, before generating a task-completion prediction, forecasters are asked to recall when they typically finish projects, and then to describe a plausible scenario that would result in the upcoming project being done at the usual time. This procedure should prevent people from either ignoring past experiences or denying the relevance of those experiences, and it has been shown to eliminate the usual optimistic bias. Another strategy that can be effective is to break down a multifaceted task into its smaller subcomponents, and consider how long each of the subcomponents will take.

References:

• Buehler, R., Griffin, D., & Ross, M. (1994). Exploring the “planning fallacy”: Why people underestimate their task completion times. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67,366-381.
• Buehler, R., Griffin, D., & Ross, M. (2002). Inside the planning fallacy: The causes and consequences of optimistic time prediction. In T. D. Gilovich, D. W. Griffin, & D. Kahneman (Eds.), Heuristics and biases: The psychology of intuitive judgment (pp. 250-270). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
• Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1979). Intuitive prediction: Biases and corrective procedures. In D. Kahneman, P. Slovic, & A. Tversky (Eds.), Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases (pp. 414-421). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

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The Planning Fallacy

By David Brooks

• Sept. 15, 2011

When the Nobel Prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman was a young man, he led a committee to write a new part of the curriculum for Israeli high schools. The committee worked for a year, and Kahneman asked his colleagues how long they thought the rest of the project would take. Their estimates were around two years.

Kahneman then asked the most experienced among them how long such work took other curriculum committees. The gentleman pointed out that roughly 40 percent of the committees never finished their work at all.

But what about those that did finish? The gentleman reported that he had never seen a committee finish in less than seven years and never in more than 10.

This was bad news. They might fail to finish a task that they thought would be done in three years. At best, the project might consume eight or nine years. Yet this information didn’t affect those on the team at all. They carried on, assuming that though others might fail or dally, surely they wouldn’t.

As it turned out, their project took eight years to finish. By the time it was done, the Ministry of Education had lost interest, and the curriculum was never used.

In his forthcoming book, “Thinking, Fast and Slow” (I’ll write more about it in a couple of weeks), Kahneman calls this the planning fallacy. Most people overrate their own abilities and exaggerate their capacity to shape the future. That’s fine. Optimistic people rise in this world. The problem comes when these optimists don’t look at themselves objectively from the outside.

The planning fallacy is failing to think realistically about where you fit in the distribution of people like you. As Kahneman puts it, “People who have information about an individual case rarely feel the need to know the statistics of the class to which the case belongs.”

Over the past three years, the United States has been committing the planning fallacy on stilts. The world economy has been slammed by a financial crisis. Countries that are afflicted with these crises typically experience several years of high unemployment. They go deep into debt to end the stagnation, but the turnaround takes a while.

This historical pattern has been universally acknowledged and universally ignored. Instead, leaders in both parties have clung to the analogy that the economy is like a sick patient who can be healed by the right treatment.

The Democrats, besotted by the myth that the New Deal ended the Great Depression, have consistently overestimated their ability to turn the economy around. They regard the Greek crackup as a freakish, unlucky break, even though this sort of thing is a typical feature of a financial crisis.

Republicans, who should know better, also have an inflated sense of the power of government. In the presidential debates, Rick Perry, Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman argue about which one oversaw the most job creation during his term as governor, as if governors have an immediate and definable impact on employers’ hiring decisions.

The reality, of course, is that the economy is not a patient. It is a zillion, zillion interactions. Government is not a doctor. Most of the time, it is a clashing collective enterprise that is occasionally able to produce marginal change, for good and for ill.

Democrats should be learning about the limits of social policy. As in the war on poverty, as in the effort to transform American schools, as in the effort to create prosperity in the developing world, it is really hard to turn around complex systems.

Republicans should be reflecting on the fact that if a Republican president were in office right now, and even if he or she did sensible things, the economy would still be in the dumps. It would be Republicans losing “safe” Congressional seats in special elections.

The key to wisdom in these circumstances is to make the distinction between discrete good and systemic good. When you are in the grip of a big, complex mess, you have the power to do discrete good but probably not systemic good.

When you are the president in a financial crisis, you have the power to pave roads and hire teachers. That will reduce the suffering of real people who would otherwise be jobless. You have the power to streamline regulations and reduce tax burdens. That will induce a bit more hiring and activity. These are real contributions.

But you don’t have the power to transform the whole situation. Your discrete goods might contribute to an overall turnaround, but that turnaround will be beyond your comprehension and control.

Over the past decades, Americans have developed an absurd view of the power of government. Many voters seem to think that government has the power to protect them from the consequences of their sins. Then they get angry and cynical when it turns out that it can’t.

The Planning Fallacy: An Inside View

Here you go again - frantically working to beat the deadline for a project you thought would be done long ago. Why didn't you see this coming? Why do you repeatedly underestimate how long it will take you to get things done?

This familiar experience, known as the planning fallacy, has been explored by social psychologists since the term was coined by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky in 1979.  The planning fallacy refers to an optimistic prediction bias in which people underestimate the time it will take them to complete a task, despite knowing that similar tasks have typically taken them much longer in the past. An intriguing aspect of the planning fallacy is that people simultaneously hold optimistic expectations concerning a specific future task along with more realistic beliefs concerning how long it has taken them to get things done in the past. When it comes to plans and predictions, people can know the past well and yet be doomed to repeat it.

The best evidence for the planning fallacy comes from studies that follow people into the future. In such studies, people predict how long it will take them to complete an upcoming project and also report how long it has taken them to complete very similar projects in the past. Finally, they carry out the project and report exactly when they completed it.

Typically, participants in these studies exhibit the planning fallacy. For example, university students typically acknowledge that they have typically finished past assignments very close to their deadlines, yet they insist that they will finish the next project well ahead of the new deadline. Then, predictably, they go on to finish the next project (as usual) right at the deadline.

The planning fallacy is remarkably robust. It appears for small tasks like daily household chores (such as cleaning), as well as for large-scale infrastructure projects such as building subways.  It generalizes across individual differences in personality and culture, and it applies both to group and individual projects. For example, conscientious people often get things done well before procrastinators, but both groups typically underestimate how long it will take them to get things done.

So why do people repeatedly underestimate how long tasks will take? Why don't they learn from past experience and adjust their estimates accordingly?

Kahneman and Tversky proposed that, as people think about how they will complete a task, they are inclined to take an "inside view" in which they focus on the specifics of the task at hand, paying special attention to its unique features. For example, people imagine and plan out the specific steps they will take to carry out the target project. The problem is that events usually don't unfold exactly as people imagine. Even when people create a thoughtful mental scenario in advance, they will likely encounter unexpected obstacles, delays, and interruptions. People could usually make more realistic predictions by taking an "outside view" in which they base their predictions on their prior experiences. However, people typically overlook this approach, in part, because they feel that their previous experiences are not relevant to the new task.

Dozens of studies have supported the inside-outside explanation of the planning fallacy. They have also taken research on the planning fallacy in new directions. Researchers have come up with strategies that can help to reduce or avoid the planning fallacy. Here are three types of strategies that may help people make more realistic predictions for upcoming projects.

1. Take the outside view.

Several interventions aim to overcome people's failure to base their predictions on historical precedent. For example, "reference class forecasting" is a step-by-step procedure that involves comparing the current project with similar projects the person has completed in the past. This technique requires the person to identify a set of similar tasks they’ve worked on in the past, to plot out how long each task took, and then to compare the task they currently hope to complete with all the past outcomes. This painstaking approach allows them to estimate the most likely outcome this time. And, most importantly, this procedure has been shown to improve forecast accuracy for large-scale construction projects and may have similar benefits among people trying to make predictions about personal projects.  Of course, the time it takes people to use this labor-intensive technique may not always be worth the investment of time and energy.  This technique may be more useful to subway builders than to subway sandwich makers. 

2. Alter the inside view.

Given that people often base their predictions on an idealized and optimistic scenario for the task at hand, researchers have developed interventions that prompt people to think “outside the box” as they form their plans. Specific strategies include decomposing the plan into smaller steps (unpacking), generating the plan in reverse-chronological order (backward planning), and visualizing the plan from the perspective of an observer (third-person imagery). Each of these strategies can help people focus less narrowly on their hopes and plans and to consider factors that might delay their progress – such as potential obstacles, injuries, temptations, distractions, interruptions, and competing offers on how to use one’s time.

3. Make plans and predictions that influence behavior.

An alternative path to more accurate predictions is to generate plans and predictions that are strongly binding.  For example, getting people to form "implementation intentions" at the time of prediction – making them commit to performing parts of the task at specific times and on specific dates – makes people more likely to carry out those actions, and thus less prone to the planning fallacy.  This is why I gave myself a separate deadline for writing each section of this blog. 

We have learned a great deal about the planning fallacy in the past two decades. However, if I were to predict that future progress on this intriguing bias will be faster than past progress, you’d be right to call me on it. So I’ll just say that I hope that our continued research on this problem will continue to yield new insights – and perhaps help you arrive at more realistic plans and predictions for your next major project.

For Further Reading:

Buehler, R., Griffin, D., & Peetz, J. (2010). The planning fallacy: Cognitive, motivational, and social origins. In M. P. Zanna & J. M. Olson (Eds.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 43, pp. 1-62). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.

Buehler, R., Griffin, D., & Ross, M. (1994). Exploring the "planning fallacy": Why people underestimate their task completion times. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67 , 366-381.   

Flyvbjerg, B., Garbuio, M., & Lovallo, D. (2009). Delusion and deception in large infrastructure projects: Two models for explaining and preventing executive disaster. California Management Review, 51 , 170-193.

Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1979). Intuitive prediction: Biases and corrective procedures. TIMS Studies in Management Science, 12 , 313-327.  

Roger Buehler is a social psychologist who studies the planning fallacy and thought he’d be done with this research long ago.

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Understanding and Overcoming the Planning Fallacy

We all know what it’s like to fall victim to the planning fallacy — an overly optimistic expectation of one’s own abilities that leads to overwork, cost overrun, and missed deadlines. 

People aren’t perfect, and no matter how good you are at your job and how long you’ve been doing it, you’ll never be able to perfectly estimate how long it will take to complete a task. While you’ll never be able to overcome the planning fallacy fully, you can face it head-on. 

This post will provide strategies and tools to lessen your chances of experiencing planning fallacy. Let’s get started. 

What is the planning fallacy? 

Why does the planning fallacy occur, negative effects of the planning fallacy, strategies to overcome the planning fallacy, the final fallacy, boost your team’s efficiency with hubstaff's productivity tools.

The planning fallacy refers to a phenomenon where one’s excess optimism causes them to overestimate their abilities and not allow themselves enough time to complete a task. In other words, the planning fallacy is a procrastinator’s worst nightmare: running out of time due to poor planning and too much confidence in one’s abilities.  

According to Decision Lab , behavioral economics experts Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky first coined the planning fallacy in a 1977 paper. They argued that most of us make plans for the future based on intuition rather than raw, tangible data. 

( Source: The New Yorker )

If you’re like most of us, you’re probably bubbling with examples from your own life where the planning fallacy has led to your undoing. If, for some reason, you’re not part of that shared human experience, here are some examples of the planning fallacy. 

Examples of the planning fallacy 

• Procrastinating at work. You may have had a blog post that you could have started earlier in the week, and now you’re scrambling to finish. It could be a meeting you keep pushing back, and now you have much more to discuss. The possibilities are endless with this example. 
• Paying taxes. In the United States, we have about three and a half months to do our taxes. However, about two-thirds of us wait until the final weeks . About 10-15% of us have to file an extension . 
• Submitting college applications. With so many adults suffering from the planning fallacy, why would high school students be any different? Studies have found that 1 in 4 prospective college students failed to finish at least one college application. 
• Buying plane tickets. We all know that the longer you wait to secure those plane tickets, the more the prices increase. Studies show that 28 to 35 days in advance is the sweet spot, but many wait longer and spend significantly more. 

These examples probably feel pretty familiar to you by this point. But if the planning fallacy is such a shared human experience, why do we continue to fall victim to it? 

The planning fallacy primarily occurs when positive outcomes are overestimated, and project scope is underestimated. But why do we continue to do this to ourselves? 

Well, maybe it’s worth looking to the guy who won the Nobel Prize in 2002 for discovering the concept. To me, Daniel Kahneman says it all with this quote: 

“An investment said to have an 80% chance of success sounds far more attractive than one with a 20% chance of failure.”

When it comes to the economy, we’re all salespeople. Selling concepts like the one above has become second nature to us. Whether you’re a consultant, a salesperson, or working on an in-house team, you’ve probably put statistics like Kahneman’s through the optimism machine without thinking about it. But of course, if projects fail, you can’t help but refer back to these moments. 

Beyond the basics, a few other phenomena contribute to the planning fallacy. 

Optimism bias

According to the BBC, over 80% of the global population possesses some optimism bias or the tendency to overestimate positive and negative outcomes. Many scientists cite optimism as a crucial evolutionary factor, and studies have shown that successful people tend to be overly optimistic . 

Still, there are concerns about optimism bias. The Decision Lab describes it well when they state that the real issue with optimism bias is a false sense of control that can be detrimental to one’s long-term well-being. 

Present bias 

Present bias is the tendency to prefer and seek immediate rewards over long-term planning. Think back to Kahneman’s example here. The immediate reward of selling a key stakeholder on a project often outweighs the long-term issue that a project has a 20% chance of failure. That’s present bias in a nutshell. 

Let’s say you can successfully sell stakeholders with that optimistic spin Kahneman talked about. While you might ride the high of that immediate gratification for a while, it might not be sustainable. One of the other ways planning fallacy can hamper us is by creating an overly optimistic sense of motivation. 

When you budget time for projects, you must consider motivation, burnout , work-life balance , and other human factors. 

Other factors that contribute to planning fallacy

Beyond the core issues mentioned above, there are a few other vital contributors to consider. 

• Social pressure. Nobody likes a pessimistic person, right? Pessimists and even realists get a bad rap, even from psychologists in the experimental social psychology space. Social pressure to be optimistic often leads to false confidence.
• Resource constraints. Sometimes, we need to do our job with the tools we have. A lack of resources should derail projects, but sometimes, we have no choice but to win new business and make do with what we have. 
• Competitive environment. Hypercompetitive work environments are ripe with the potential to see the planning fallacy in full force. If you find yourself in a toxic environment where you need to force success, it comes with the territory. 

It’s weird to see optimism and negativity associated with one another in the same sentence, right? Unfortunately, that happens with issues stemming from the planning fallacy. Below are a few examples of adverse effects tied to the planning fallacy.

1. Project delays, budget overruns, and scope creep

In the advertising space, there’s an adage known as “under promise, over deliver.” The planning fallacy is the inverse of this adage. When you’ve over-promised a deadline, don’t be surprised if you start to under-deliver in the form of project delays. 

Underestimating time often translates to underestimating costs. Projects that take longer than expected typically require additional resources, leading to budget overruns and financial strain on the organization. 

When teams need to make up for lost time, they’ll start to see their budget take a hit. As they scramble to add more resources to keep with an overly optimistic deadline, costs will begin to sore.

With more money poured into a sinking project, you’ll see scope creep in the form of added admin work, more meetings, and a slew of other issues. 

2. Resource misallocation and poor decision-making

The planning fallacy impairs critical thinking and decision-making processes. Overconfident and unrealistic plans lead to poor strategic decisions, impacting the overall success of projects.

Once delays, cost overruns, and scope creep start chipping away at a project’s chances of success, those involved will begin to make mistakes. Resource misallocation is a big one. With not enough time to complete a project’s core objectives, it’s easy to make mistakes about where to allocate resources. 

3. Decreased productivity

When timelines are consistently underestimated, it can lead to rushed work, errors, and rework. This decreases overall productivity and hampers the quality of output. It also leads to one of the biggest issues of all. 

4. Increased stress and morale issues

Consistently unrealistic deadlines can create a high-stress work environment. Employees may feel pressured and overworked, leading to decreased morale, lower job satisfaction, and higher turnover rates .

5. Client and stakeholder dissatisfaction

Remember the concept of present bias mentioned above? This is where it really comes back to bite us. Promising an unlikely positive outcome puts more than just your team in jeopardy. 

Repeatedly missing deadlines can erode trust and confidence among clients and stakeholders. This dissatisfaction can harm the organization’s reputation and affect future business opportunities. 

Now that you’ve seen the potential pitfalls of falling victim to the planning fallacy let’s examine some strategies for overcoming it. 

By now, you’re probably feeling pretty down about optimism and maybe already considering reading some Nietzsche , getting into the fetal position, and becoming a raging pessimist — but fear not. There are ways to overcome the excess optimism of the planning fallacy. 

1. Implement buffer time

It’s okay to keep your optimism. If you think you can complete a project in four weeks and want to set that goal for yourself, that’s a great challenge to help you grow in your career. However, if stakeholders ask you how long the project will take, it’d probably be wise to build in some buffer time and give them a five to six-week estimate. 

2. Use historical data to encourage realistic optimism 

The Decision Lab also coined the term Reference class forecasting (RCF), a technique used to predict future outcomes by analyzing comparable historical events. It draws on decision-making theories under conditions of uncertainty. 

According to Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, the real issue behind the planning fallacy is a tendency to choose intuition over tangible data. In the late 1970s, it was easier to accept leaning on one’s intuition. But in the modern digital landscape, we have a wealth of workforce analytics data at our fingertips to help predict and complete a future task. 

There’s no need to discourage optimism in the workplace when planning future tasks. With the right tools, you can create a culture of realistic optimism that helps your team back their optimism with realistic stats.   

3. Use time tracking, project management, and workforce analytics tools

The best way to gain historical data is to start tracking time. Time tracking is one of the most simple corrective procedures that a company can take to combat the planning fallacy. Fortunately, we know quite a bit about that. 

Tools like Hubstaff allow you to: 

• Track time and see real-time spending for each team member from your dashboard.
• See time spent on specific websites, apps, and even meetings with productivity data and the Insights add-on . 
• Track time to Tasks or to your favorite project management tools to set realistic deadlines, gauge project spend, and prevent scope creep for better project planning. 
• Create, automate, and email invoices, expense reports, and 20+ reports to key stakeholders. 

This might seem like a shameless plug, but we really believe in the power of using a workforce management tool. After all, we built this tool to solve our own time management issues. Nonetheless, let’s get back on track. 

Other key strategies for overcoming the planning fallacy

With better project scoping, historical data, and the tools to help you plan future tasks, you’re well on your way to preventing issues stemming from the planning fallacy to achieve a more cohesive, productive team.

That said, there are a few additional things that can help, like: 

• Seeking external feedback. If you’re guilty of excess optimism, maybe find one of your more realistic, honest colleagues, friends, or family who can test you a bit to help you find more realistic deadlines.
• Apply the Eisenhower Matrix. Productivity methods like the Eisenhower Matrix help you sort your work into four categories: Do, Schedule, Delegate, and Delete. This way, you can increase productivity and continue to provide optimistic deadlines. 

• Adopt Agile methodologies. You’re in for a bad time if you manage large infrastructure projects based purely on intuition. The best project managers embrace Agile and use the right tools . 
• Improve Communication. There is a balance between optimistic and pessimistic communication. If you’re struggling to find it, check out our guide to strong communication for tips. 
• Set SMART Goals. SMART goals are Specific, Measurable, Attainable (that’s the important one here), Relevant, and Time Bound. Ensuring they meet these criteria is crucial if you feel overly optimistic about goals or similar tasks. 

Even with the right tools and strategies in place, there’s plenty of room for error in task completion times, how long projects take, and project spend any time we plan in our professional or personal lives. The key is to prepare for future tasks to go awry. 

With contingency plans and robust time tracking and workforce analytics solutions in place, you can use historical data to make informed decisions and limit the impact planning fallacy can have on your day-to-day life. 

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• DOI: 10.1016/S0065-2601(10)43001-4
• Corpus ID: 149432835

The Planning Fallacy

• R. Buehler , D. Griffin , Johanna Peetz
• Published 2010

56 Citations

Planning for the near and distant future: how does temporal distance affect task completion predictions, does the planning fallacy prevail in social infrastructure projects empirical evidence and competing explanations.

• Highly Influenced
• 10 Excerpts

The Effects of Previous Misestimation of Task Duration on Estimating Future Task Duration

The effect of construal level on predictions of task duration, the role of deliberative versus implemental mindsets in time prediction and task accomplishment, mental time travel: a conceptual overview of social psychological perspectives on a fundamental human capacity, on the psychology of self-prediction: consideration of situational barriers to intended actions, from origami to software development: a review of studies on judgment-based predictions of performance time., how fast can you (possibly) do it, or how long will it (certainly) take communicating uncertain estimates of performance time., think twice and then: combining or choosing in dialectical bootstrapping, 131 references, the social implications of planning: how public predictions bias future plans, planning, personality, and prediction: the role of future focus in optimistic time predictions☆, how long will it take power biases time predictions, inside the planning fallacy: the causes and consequences of optimistic time predictions., overcoming the planning fallacy through willpower : effects of implementation intentions on actual and predicted task-completion times, exploring the "planning fallacy": why people underestimate their task completion times., if you don't want to be late, enumerate: unpacking reduces the planning fallacy, exploring the time prediction process: the effects of task experience and complexity on prediction accuracy, the simulation heuristic, biases and fallacies, memories and predictions: comment on roy, christenfeld, and mckenzie (2005)., related papers.

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The Planning Fallacy in Action

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Other reasons include, the role of software in eliminating the planning fallacy, we’ve forgotten how long it took last time., how the planning fallacy affects you today, how to stop the planning fallacy, use software to help predict work.

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An Economic Model of the Planning Fallacy

People tend to underestimate the work involved in completing tasks and consequently finish tasks later than expected or do an inordinate amount of work right before projects are due. We present a theory in which people underpredict and procrastinate because the ex-ante utility benefits of anticipating that a task will be easy to complete outweigh the average ex-post costs of poor planning. We show that, given a commitment device, people self-impose deadlines that are binding but require less smoothing of work than those chosen by a person with objective beliefs. We test our theory using extant experimental evidence on differences in expectations and behavior. We find that reported beliefs and behavior generally respond as our theory predicts. For example, monetary incentives for accurate prediction ameliorate the planning fallacy while incentives for rapid completion aggravate it.

For helpful comments, we thank Roland Benabou, Wolfgang Pesendorfer and seminar participants at New York University, Northwestern University, Princeton University, Purdue University, and the 2006 Whitebox Advisors Conference at Yale University, although we remain responsible for all errors, omissions, and typos. Brunnermeier acknowledges financial support from the National Science Foundation (SES 140-6139) and the Sloan Foundation. The views expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

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• How to write an argumentative essay | Examples & tips

How to Write an Argumentative Essay | Examples & Tips

Published on July 24, 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on July 23, 2023.

An argumentative essay expresses an extended argument for a particular thesis statement . The author takes a clearly defined stance on their subject and builds up an evidence-based case for it.

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Table of contents

When do you write an argumentative essay, approaches to argumentative essays, introducing your argument, the body: developing your argument, concluding your argument, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about argumentative essays.

You might be assigned an argumentative essay as a writing exercise in high school or in a composition class. The prompt will often ask you to argue for one of two positions, and may include terms like “argue” or “argument.” It will frequently take the form of a question.

The prompt may also be more open-ended in terms of the possible arguments you could make.

Argumentative writing at college level

At university, the vast majority of essays or papers you write will involve some form of argumentation. For example, both rhetorical analysis and literary analysis essays involve making arguments about texts.

In this context, you won’t necessarily be told to write an argumentative essay—but making an evidence-based argument is an essential goal of most academic writing, and this should be your default approach unless you’re told otherwise.

Examples of argumentative essay prompts

At a university level, all the prompts below imply an argumentative essay as the appropriate response.

Your research should lead you to develop a specific position on the topic. The essay then argues for that position and aims to convince the reader by presenting your evidence, evaluation and analysis.

• Don’t just list all the effects you can think of.
• Do develop a focused argument about the overall effect and why it matters, backed up by evidence from sources.
• Don’t just provide a selection of data on the measures’ effectiveness.
• Do build up your own argument about which kinds of measures have been most or least effective, and why.
• Don’t just analyze a random selection of doppelgänger characters.
• Do form an argument about specific texts, comparing and contrasting how they express their thematic concerns through doppelgänger characters.

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An argumentative essay should be objective in its approach; your arguments should rely on logic and evidence, not on exaggeration or appeals to emotion.

There are many possible approaches to argumentative essays, but there are two common models that can help you start outlining your arguments: The Toulmin model and the Rogerian model.

Toulmin arguments

The Toulmin model consists of four steps, which may be repeated as many times as necessary for the argument:

• Make a claim
• Provide the grounds (evidence) for the claim
• Explain the warrant (how the grounds support the claim)
• Discuss possible rebuttals to the claim, identifying the limits of the argument and showing that you have considered alternative perspectives

The Toulmin model is a common approach in academic essays. You don’t have to use these specific terms (grounds, warrants, rebuttals), but establishing a clear connection between your claims and the evidence supporting them is crucial in an argumentative essay.

Say you’re making an argument about the effectiveness of workplace anti-discrimination measures. You might:

• Claim that unconscious bias training does not have the desired results, and resources would be better spent on other approaches
• Cite data to support your claim
• Explain how the data indicates that the method is ineffective
• Anticipate objections to your claim based on other data, indicating whether these objections are valid, and if not, why not.

Rogerian arguments

The Rogerian model also consists of four steps you might repeat throughout your essay:

• Discuss what the opposing position gets right and why people might hold this position
• Highlight the problems with this position
• Present your own position , showing how it addresses these problems
• Suggest a possible compromise —what elements of your position would proponents of the opposing position benefit from adopting?

This model builds up a clear picture of both sides of an argument and seeks a compromise. It is particularly useful when people tend to disagree strongly on the issue discussed, allowing you to approach opposing arguments in good faith.

Say you want to argue that the internet has had a positive impact on education. You might:

• Acknowledge that students rely too much on websites like Wikipedia
• Argue that teachers view Wikipedia as more unreliable than it really is
• Suggest that Wikipedia’s system of citations can actually teach students about referencing
• Suggest critical engagement with Wikipedia as a possible assignment for teachers who are skeptical of its usefulness.

You don’t necessarily have to pick one of these models—you may even use elements of both in different parts of your essay—but it’s worth considering them if you struggle to structure your arguments.

Regardless of which approach you take, your essay should always be structured using an introduction , a body , and a conclusion .

Like other academic essays, an argumentative essay begins with an introduction . The introduction serves to capture the reader’s interest, provide background information, present your thesis statement , and (in longer essays) to summarize the structure of the body.

Hover over different parts of the example below to see how a typical introduction works.

The spread of the internet has had a world-changing effect, not least on the world of education. The use of the internet in academic contexts is on the rise, and its role in learning is hotly debated. For many teachers who did not grow up with this technology, its effects seem alarming and potentially harmful. This concern, while understandable, is misguided. The negatives of internet use are outweighed by its critical benefits for students and educators—as a uniquely comprehensive and accessible information source; a means of exposure to and engagement with different perspectives; and a highly flexible learning environment.

The body of an argumentative essay is where you develop your arguments in detail. Here you’ll present evidence, analysis, and reasoning to convince the reader that your thesis statement is true.

In the standard five-paragraph format for short essays, the body takes up three of your five paragraphs. In longer essays, it will be more paragraphs, and might be divided into sections with headings.

Each paragraph covers its own topic, introduced with a topic sentence . Each of these topics must contribute to your overall argument; don’t include irrelevant information.

This example paragraph takes a Rogerian approach: It first acknowledges the merits of the opposing position and then highlights problems with that position.

Hover over different parts of the example to see how a body paragraph is constructed.

A common frustration for teachers is students’ use of Wikipedia as a source in their writing. Its prevalence among students is not exaggerated; a survey found that the vast majority of the students surveyed used Wikipedia (Head & Eisenberg, 2010). An article in The Guardian stresses a common objection to its use: “a reliance on Wikipedia can discourage students from engaging with genuine academic writing” (Coomer, 2013). Teachers are clearly not mistaken in viewing Wikipedia usage as ubiquitous among their students; but the claim that it discourages engagement with academic sources requires further investigation. This point is treated as self-evident by many teachers, but Wikipedia itself explicitly encourages students to look into other sources. Its articles often provide references to academic publications and include warning notes where citations are missing; the site’s own guidelines for research make clear that it should be used as a starting point, emphasizing that users should always “read the references and check whether they really do support what the article says” (“Wikipedia:Researching with Wikipedia,” 2020). Indeed, for many students, Wikipedia is their first encounter with the concepts of citation and referencing. The use of Wikipedia therefore has a positive side that merits deeper consideration than it often receives.

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An argumentative essay ends with a conclusion that summarizes and reflects on the arguments made in the body.

No new arguments or evidence appear here, but in longer essays you may discuss the strengths and weaknesses of your argument and suggest topics for future research. In all conclusions, you should stress the relevance and importance of your argument.

Hover over the following example to see the typical elements of a conclusion.

The internet has had a major positive impact on the world of education; occasional pitfalls aside, its value is evident in numerous applications. The future of teaching lies in the possibilities the internet opens up for communication, research, and interactivity. As the popularity of distance learning shows, students value the flexibility and accessibility offered by digital education, and educators should fully embrace these advantages. The internet’s dangers, real and imaginary, have been documented exhaustively by skeptics, but the internet is here to stay; it is time to focus seriously on its potential for good.

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

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An argumentative essay tends to be a longer essay involving independent research, and aims to make an original argument about a topic. Its thesis statement makes a contentious claim that must be supported in an objective, evidence-based way.

An expository essay also aims to be objective, but it doesn’t have to make an original argument. Rather, it aims to explain something (e.g., a process or idea) in a clear, concise way. Expository essays are often shorter assignments and rely less on research.

At college level, you must properly cite your sources in all essays , research papers , and other academic texts (except exams and in-class exercises).

Add a citation whenever you quote , paraphrase , or summarize information or ideas from a source. You should also give full source details in a bibliography or reference list at the end of your text.

The exact format of your citations depends on which citation style you are instructed to use. The most common styles are APA , MLA , and Chicago .

The majority of the essays written at university are some sort of argumentative essay . Unless otherwise specified, you can assume that the goal of any essay you’re asked to write is argumentative: To convince the reader of your position using evidence and reasoning.

In composition classes you might be given assignments that specifically test your ability to write an argumentative essay. Look out for prompts including instructions like “argue,” “assess,” or “discuss” to see if this is the goal.

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