Prejudices and prejudices are the so-called «human factor», which affects the perception of information (distorting it) and the decision-making process (taking it away from the objective), often depriving a person of common sense. The ability to recognize these «noises» in the process of problem analysis and decision making can significantly improve the quality of decisions made.
Behavioral biases that affect the decision-making process:
- anchoring — the tendency to over-rely on single data when making a decision
- herd instinct/bandwagon effect — the tendency to do or believe in something just because a lot of other people do or believe the same thing
- hindsight bias — the tendency to see events that happened in the past as more predictable than they actually were before they happened.
- wishful thinking — the tendency to believe what one would like to believe rather than what follows from facts and rational reasoning
- escalation of commitment — a phenomenon in which a person increases investment (money, time, other resources) in a previously made decision, despite the fact that new evidence suggests that this decision was probably wrong
- confirmation bias — the tendency to choose from the entire array of information for analysis only that which confirms the analyst’s initial (conscious or subconscious) attitude
- contrast effect — an increase or decrease in the weight or other characteristics of an object in the process of comparing it with a recently seen contrasting object
- disconfirmation bias — the tendency to critically examine information that contradicts previous beliefs and readily accept information that confirms previous beliefs
- endowment effect — a person tends to value more what he directly owns
- hyperbolic discounting is the tendency to favor an earlier payment over a later one. The closer to the present moment both payments are, the stronger this preference becomes.
- illusion of control — the tendency for people to believe that they can control or at least influence events that they cannot actually influence
- impact bias — the tendency for people to overestimate the expected duration or intensity of the impact of a current or likely event
- just-world phenomenon — the tendency to believe that the world is fair and therefore people get what they deserve
- risk avoidance (risk/loss aversion) — the tendency to avoid risk at all costs, even in the face of a highly probable positive outcome in case of accepting a moderate risk
- mere exposure effect — the tendency to over-like (prefer) something just because the object appears familiar
- color psychology (color psychology) — the effect of exposure to different colors on emotional mood and thinking
- planning fallacy — the tendency to underestimate the amount of time it takes to complete a task
- pseudocertainty effect — the tendency to avoid risk when the expected events are positive, but take risks to avoid the expected negative events
- rosy retrospection — the tendency to give a more positive assessment of long-past events than at the moment when these events directly occurred
- selective perception — the effect of expectations on perception
- status quo bias — the desire of people to ensure that the state of affairs remains relatively stable over time
- Van Restorff effect — a tendency according to which objects (things, ideas) that stand out from others are more likely to remain in memory
- Zeigarnik effect — the tendency to remember incomplete or interrupted tasks better than completed ones