For those working the field of mediation and negotiation, cognitive biases are to be reflected upon regularly and dismissed at our peril. In the following slides I explore the relevance of some of these biases. The intention of these slides is not to be an exhaustive list of all cognitive biases but rather to highlight some of the ones I feel to be most important.
Anchoring Bias
Anchoring describes the common on human tendency to rely too heavily on the first piece of information offered i.e. the “anchor” when making decisions. Once an anchor is set, other judgements are made by adjusting away from that anchor and there is a biased towards interpreting other information around the anchor. For example, the initial price offered for a used car sets the standard for the rest of the negotiations so that prices lower than the initial price seem more reasonable even if they are still higher than what the car is really worth.
Confirmation Bias
A confirmation bias is the tendency to favour information that actually confirms your existing beliefs, even if those beliefs are incorrect. The bias can cause you to seek out information that validates your preconceptions and almost always ignore or distort any contradictory data that goes against your current line of thinking.
Frequency Illusion
The frequency illusion (also known as the Baader-Minehof phenomenon) is the tendency to notice instances of a particular phenomenon once one starts to look for it, and to therefore believe erroneously that the phenomenon occurs frequently. For example, if one is thinking about buying a new Audi car, suddenly the roads and car parks are full of Audi cars.
Choice-Supportive Bias
Choice-supportive bias is the tendency to retroactively ascribe positive attributes to an option one has selected. This involves the tendency to remember ones choices as better than they actually were, where people tend to over attribute positive features to options they chose and negative features to options not chosen.
Framing Effect
The Framing Effect is a cognitive heuristic in which people tend to reach conclusions based on the “framework” within which a situation is presented. People react to a particular choice in different ways depending on how it is presented: e.g. as a loss or as a gain. People tend to avoid risk when a positive frame is presented but seek risks when a negative frame is presented.
Cognitive Dissonance
The term cognitive dissonance is used to describe feelings of discomfort that result from holding two conflicting beliefs. When there is a discrepancy against beliefs and behaviours, something must change in order to eliminate or reduce dissonance.
Hindsight Bias
Hindsight bias is the inclination, after an event has occurred, to see the event as having been predictable despite their having been little no or little objective prior basis for predicting it. It is the tendency to interpret events as being more predictable then they actually was which can falsely depict a deal as being simpler than reality.