Biases in Making Choices
This is a word copy of an article that was published in Etc: A Review of General Semantics 73, October 2016, pp. 314-320. (The journal is a bit behind and this was actually published October 2018.) The purpose of the article was not to propose new theories but just to put some of these cognitive biases together and apply them to choice-making. And, as usual, the insights of General Semantics make a lot of confusing things a lot clearer.
Making choices is not an easy task. It regularly
creates stress and regret. Everyone wants to make the right choices or at least
what we imagine the right choice might be.
The process is
complicated and made less effective than might be because of a variety of cognitive
biases that impair logical thinking and analysis and lead to errors of judgment,
misevaluations, and bad choices. The trick is to identify the biases and to
confront them with more logical, more mindful, analysis.
Here we single out just
five of the many biases (the ambiguity bias, the bandwagon bias, the anchoring
bias, the confirmation bias, and the status quo bias), explaining how they
operate, offering some examples, and proposing counter measures you can take to
help reduce the influence of these biases.
The Ambiguity Bias
All choices involve some degree of ambiguity—there is
always some unknown factor that can alter the effectiveness of the choice. The
ambiguity bias leads you to select the choice that is least ambiguous, the
choice that is most certain (Ellsberg, 1961, 2001; Chew, Ebstein, & Zhong,
2012).
For example, assume
you’re buying a used car and you’re trying to decide between two very similar
cars—one has 70,000 miles and the other has a broken mileage counter and so may
have fewer or more miles than 70,000. All other things being equal, you’d be
more likely to choose the one with known mileage even if it’s high.
Consider a student selecting
a course taught by two professors; one has average ratings on
Ratemyprofessor.com and the other is unrated.
It’s likely that the student would select the professor who has a rating,
even though it’s just average.
Or consider selecting a
restaurant from the reviews on Yelp. Of the nearby choices, one has a 3-star
rating and the other is unrated. More than likely you’d chose the 3-star
restaurant.
In all of these cases,
you figure that the known average (or even below average) is better than the unknown
which could be a lot worse. Of course, if the professor’s rating as horrible
and the restaurant is given no stars, you’d likely go with the unknown. But,
when things are at the acceptable level of tolerance, you’d likely choose the
known.
It’s interesting to note
in this connection that cultures differ widely in their tolerance of ambiguity
(Hofstede, Hofstede, & Minkov, 2010).
Persons from Singapore, Jamaica, Denmark, Sweden, Hong Kong, and other
high ambiguity tolerant cultures are more tolerant of uncertainty and ambiguity
while persons from Greece, Portugal, Guatemala, Uruguay, Belgium, and other low
ambiguity tolerant cultures are less so and experience greater discomfort when
situations are ambiguous. Students from low ambiguity tolerant cultures, for
example, will want assignments that are clear and specific and will feel
uncomfortable with ambiguous assignments; students from high ambiguity tolerant
cultures will respond in opposite ways.
The
antidote to the ambiguity bias is—when possible—to reduce the ambiguity so that
all choices can be examined more objectively. When that’s not possible—as in
the case of the broken mileage counter—you’d need to make inferences based on
other factors—the wear of the tires, the condition of the seats, the dings, and
so on—that might help you better estimate mileage. And the student might reduce
uncertainty by sitting in on a class or two with each instructor before making
a decision.
The Bandwagon Bias
The term bandwagon
seems to have been used, originally, in reference to the wagon that carried the
band in the circus. Later, politicians would use a wagon with a band to promote
their candidate and urged voters to jump on the bandwagon in support their
candidate.
As a
cognitive bias, the bandwagon bias refers to the very common tendency to go
with the crowd, to believe what others believe and to do what others do
(Nelson, 2016). Going along with the crowd reduces the stress on choice making.
Even if you make the wrong choice, you have lots of company and that’s
comforting. As business leader Lei Jun put it: “Things get much easier if one
jumps on the bandwagon of existing trends.” But that’s obviously not always the
most effective choice.
And,
it’s not just the majority that influence us; it’s also the attractiveness of
the other people. This attractiveness bias leads you to follow and to be
influenced by those you consider attractive. That is, you’re more likely to believe
and act in the way attractive people do than the way unattractive people do.
It’s one of the reasons that clothing models are all above average in
attractiveness. It’s also one of the reasons that political polls are so
important and so influential; you want to vote for and support a winner, not a
loser and so polls may influence
voters more than report voter
preferences. In groups, this tendency is referred to a groupthink, the tendency
to agree with the majority and to not voice opposition (Janis, 1983; Richmond,
McCroskey, & McCroskey, 2005).
The
antidote here is to recognize that the majority—however attractive--can be
wrong. “Even when the experts all agree,” noted Bertrand Russell, “they may
well be mistaken.” A good example of this is seen in the bystander bias where a
group of people, even while witnessing a crime, may do nothing (Darley & Latané,
1968), a bias articulated after observing that a crowd of people did nothing
while a woman was being murdered. More important, perhaps, is to recognize that
other people are not you. They have different needs, wants, motivations,
objectives, talents, and so on. What is right for them—however, many or however
attractive—is not necessarily right for you.
The Anchoring Bias
The anchoring bias, as you can guess from its name,
leads you to focus on just one bit of information about the choices and to
ignore or give less importance to other factors. It anchors your thinking to
one aspect; usually, it’s the first impression (McElhany, 2016; Dean, 2013).
Often it takes the form
of anchoring decisions to what you’re used to or what you expect based on past
experiences. For example, let’s say you’re a college student and have worked at
a variety of fast food restaurants for $13 an hour. Now, you’re offered a job
at $14 an hour and so you take it. You take it because you’ve anchored your pay
at $13 and the increase of a dollar is seen as a reason to take the new job.
The anchoring bias leads
you to evaluate your choices according to some baseline. For example, in buying
a house, the anchoring figure is the asking price and it is around this asking
price that negotiations will take place. The same is true for a car; the
sticker price is the baseline; it’s the anchor.
The
antidote here is to examine the negatives of your focus and the positives of
the other aspects of the choice. Recognizing that the anchor is in fact an
anchor and is getting in the way of your impartial examination of other choices
is likely to help reduce the effect of this bias. And, of course, you can
always try to reset the anchor: I’m
looking for a BMW 5 for X-amount; what can you do for me?
The Confirmation Bias
Umberto Eco once wrote that “followers of the occult
believe in only what they already know, and in those things that confirm what
they have already learned.” In reality most people, though not occult
followers, seek confirmation for their beliefs; they operate with the
confirmation bias, a bias that leads you (sometimes consciously and sometimes
unconsciously) to seek confirmation of your selected choice (Cherry, 2017). Whatever
choice you want to be right will lead you to seek reasons why that is the right
choice and why the other possible choices are not as good. It leads you, in
fact, to seek out confirming evidence and to ignore evidence that is
disconfirming.
And
so, if you decide you want to marry Chris, you’ll look for reasons why Chris
would be an appropriate life partner. If your preconception is that German cars
are the best, you’ll focus on evidence that supports this
preconception—advertisements for Audi and Mercedes or talks with those who are
pleased with their German cars. At the same time, you’d avoid ads for Lexus and
Hyundai and dismiss or minimize any positive reactions from those who like cars
that are not German.
The problem with the
confirmation bias is that it leads you to limit your information search to
confirming evidence and to avoid evidence that would disconfirm your
preconceived choice. And, of course, it is exactly this disconfirming evidence
that can lead to a more careful, thorough, and unbiased analysis.
The
antidote here is to analyze your choice by actively seeking disconfirming
evidence. If you decide to buy a BMW, look for evidence against this choice—you
already likely have evidence as to why you should buy it; you need to balance
that evidence with other evidence, especially contradictory evidence. One
simple way to do this is to read positive reviews of other choices and negative
reviews of your selected choice. Listing—literally making a list—the negative
aspects of your choice and the positive aspects of other choices, can help
balance the evaluation. Taken too far, however, and you’ll never make a choice
at all.
The Status Quo Bias
The status quo bias leads
you to make decisions that essentially retain what you already have (Samuelson
& Zeckhauser, 1988; Henderson, 2016). The status quo bias leads you to
choose the familiar over the unfamiliar. The well-known adage—Better the devil you know, than the devil
you don’t know—captures the status quo bias and also supports the ambiguity
bias where you prefer the known to the unknown.
In many cases, you make a
decision to not make a decision or not to change and simply stick with what you
have. The emotional advantage here is that not making a choice doesn’t seem
like making a choice and so it enables you (1) to avoid the stress of making a
choice and (2) to avoid the regret that follows many choices.
Not surprisingly, you’re
more likely to want to remain with the status quo when there is an
overabundance of choices. When there are too many possible choices, the entire
process can appear too confusing and too complex. And here the status quo feels
a lot more comfortable than going through the process of examining all these
potential choices and, perhaps, making a mistake in the process.
Examples of the status
quo bias are all around us—retaining your current insurance without looking for
less expensive policies or retaining your cell phone service or simply renewing
without examining alternative plans. The status quo bias also seems a likely
reason why so many unhappy couples stay together. It’s easier to remain with
the status quo and endure the unhappiness.
The status quo bias is
closely related to another natural tendency and that is the risk avoidance
bias; you want to avoid risk. Because you’re probably like most people and risk
aversive, staying with the status quo enables you to avoid losing something—a
partner, money, a job, for example. Even though a change may well bring
additional benefits, it may also lead you to incur a loss and losing (say,
money) is more distressing and unpleasant than gaining money is enjoyable
Ellsberg, 1961, 2001). The potential benefits of a decision to change are seen
as less important, less consequential than the potential downsides or negative
effects of a decision to change that may turn out to be a poor one.
Another closely related
bias is the omission bias. The negative impact of a wrong choice is less if it
was a choice to do nothing and more if it was a choice to do something, that
is, to change the status quo (Schwartz, 2016). So, for example, the fear of a
child becoming ill leads many parents to not have their children vaccinated for
any of a variety of viruses. If the child does get sick, the negative impact
would be greater if some action was taken than if no action was taken. One of
the problems with this way of thinking is that the weight of the evidence is
clearly on the side of doing something (that is, getting vaccinated) and
against doing nothing (that is, not getting vaccinated). Yet, the omission bias
persists (Ritov & Baron, 1990).
Recognizing that you may
be influenced by this bias—bringing it to a mindful state—will help reduce its
effects. Perhaps it will also help to recall Ronald Reagan’s observation that
“status quo, you know, is Latin for ‘the mess we’re in’.” Or, equally
appropriate, is leadership theorist Warren Bennis’ claim that “the manager
accepts the status quo, the leader challenges it.” Visualizing what things
would be like if changes were made may also prove of value.
All of these cognitive biases are based on faulty
assumptions. So:
·
To combat the ambiguity bias: Don’t assume
you know or can know everything. Everything is to some degree ambiguous and the
goal should be to reduce uncertainty as much as possible.
·
To combat the bandwagon bias (and its
related attractiveness bias and bystander bias): Don’t assume that the majority
is always right.
·
To combat the anchoring bias: Don’t assume
that what comes first is necessarily the most important.
·
To combat the confirmation bias: Don’t
assume that your beliefs aren’t getting in the way of logical analysis.
·
To combat the status quo bias (and its
related risk avoidance bias and omission bias): Don’t assume that doing nothing
is necessarily the best choice or that taking risks is necessarily a bad
choice.
References
Cherry,
K. (2017). What is a confirmation bias? Retrieved February 3, 2018 from
https://www.verywell.com/what-is-a-confirmation-bias-2795024
Chew,
S. H., Epstein, R. P., & Zhong, S. (2012). Ambiguity aversion and
familiarity bias: Evidence from behavioral and gene association studies. Journal of Risk and Uncertainty 44,
1-18.
Dean,
J. (2013). Anchoring effect: How the mind is biased by first impressions. Psyblog. Retrieved February 3, 2018 from
http://www.spring.org.uk/2013/05/the-anchoring-effect-how-the-mind-is-biased-by-first-impressions.php.
Ellsberg, D. (2001). Risk, ambiguity, and
decision. New York: Taylor & Francis, 2001.
Henderson,
R. (2016). How powerful is status quo bias? Psychology
Today. Retrieved February 3, 2018 from
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/after-service/201609/how-powerful-is-status-quo-bias
Hofstede,
G., Hofstede, G., & Minkov, M. (2010). Cultures
and organizations: Software of the mind (3rd ed.). NY: McGraw-Hill.
Janis, I.
(1983). Victims of group thinking: A psychological study of foreign policy
decisions and fiascoes (2nd ed.). Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.
Nelson,
K. (2016), Bandwagon effect—cognitive biases (Pt. 8). Retrieved February 3,
2018 from
https://evolveconsciousness.org/bandwagon-effect-cognitive-biases-pt-8/.
Richmond,
V. P., McCroskey, J. C., & McCroskey, L. L. (2005). Organizational
communication for survival: Making work, work. Boston, MA: Allyn &
Bacon.
Schwartz, B.
(2016). The paradox of choice: Why more is less. Revised edition.
New York: HarperCollins.
Samuelson,
W., & Zeckhauser, R. (1988). Status quo bias in decision making. Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, 1,
7-59.
*Joseph
A. DeVito is Professor Emeritus, Hunter College of the City University of New
York.
