From the 1970’s, researchers have documented many ‘cognitive biases’ shown to be universal across cultures.  These biases provide ‘heuristics’ or shortcuts for making decisions or arriving at conclusions.  Sometimes they are correct but often they are misleading or wrong.

There’s a list of them in Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases

Some common biases or tendencies are:

Availability heuristic — focusing on the most memorable or emotionally-charged association

Framing effect – different reactions to the same thing based on how it is introduced

Fundamental attribution error – credit ourselves for our success but blame the situation for our failures; and the opposite for others: blame others for their failures and assume their successes are ‘just good luck’

Mere exposure effect —tendency for people to express undue liking for things simply because they are familiar with them.

Confirmation bias – seeking out opinions and facts that support our own beliefs and hypotheses