Biases – 5 Second Insights
Aesthetics influence
After being exposed to images that are aesthetically pleasing, individuals are more easily influenced.
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We assume optimistic people will succeed
We are biased towards thinking that optimistic people will perform better at tasks than pessimistic people, even when the odds are clearly the same.
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Effort does not equal quality
A cognitive bias, called the Effort Heuristic, occurs when we assume something that has the appearance of hard work and effort means it is also high quality. For example, detailed, lengthy documents are assumed to be well researched, valid and of high quality.
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Humans can’t really estimate
Research shows that when people estimate the likelihood of two unrelated statistics, the scores tend to correlate.
For example, if people guess there are 20,000 orange cars in America, they also tend to guess there are around 20,000 sets of twins too. This effect occurs because the first number anchors the second.
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What you fear won’t kill you
People tend to avoid risks that they fear rather than those that are statistically more likely. For example, people are more likely to die falling out of bed than from a shark attack. Yet people will consider a shark attack riskier than going to bed at night.
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Is it ‘all going to work out’?
Some people think the world is predictable and just, and others believe it is random. Believing in a just world can lead to people not taking control of their fate or assuming it will somehow just “work out” for them. It can also lead you to think that people deserve what happens to them even when it is completely out of control.
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Karma
When people are awaiting the outcomes of events out of their control (e.g. the lottery or job offer) they are more likely to cooperate with others. On some level, they may believe that the outcome will be more favourable if they cooperate.
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It’ll take longer than you think
People tend to underestimate how long it takes to complete tasks—called the planning fallacy. It is more pronounced when individuals estimate in groups or when people are in a position of power.
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Be patient with learners
People tend to underestimate the time it takes to learn a new skill. After they learn the skill, they tend to overestimate how quickly it will take others to learn the skill.
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Are they just over-confident?
People are more likely to believe someone who is confident, called the ‘confidence heuristic’.
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