Free to Air: Reshape decisions to meet goals and objectives

Availability bias is related to the concept of mindshare – or how much people are thinking about your idea, product, company or position, as well as the source of their thinking. The information most available to us often comes from the media. People tend to diagnose problems or issues based on what they've experienced most recently.

For example, if you know someone who was recently involved in a plane crash or you see one on television, you are likely to predict that they happen more frequently than they actually do.

In another example, there is a direct relationship with the number of people you know who smoke (fill-in-the-blank here), and the overall number of people you think smoke. People often generalise their experience without an understanding of base rates (e.g., plane crashes versus car crashes) or sample size (e.g., I know two people that smoke, therefore…).

There are two types of availability bias.

Recency Effect: The Income Tax authorities in India often convict people for tax evasion in the month just prior to the month in which taxes are to be paid to make it a memorable and recent event for people scheduled to pay taxes the following month. With regard to sales and marketing, sales people typically recommend products on which they have been trained most recently. For example, product managers want to get consistent mindshare with each salesperson so their specific product is top-of-mind (or readily available) when the salesperson is in front of a prospect.

Vividness: A single vivid experience is highly memorable and available to the mind for what could be an indefinite amount of time. These are also called flashbulb memories, which often leave an indelible mark on the psyche. Examples of this type might include seeing a plane crash, being involved in a riot, or watching a bizarre and out-of-place commercial or event.
Become aware

Net, Net: Become more aware of how you can use the availability bias to your advantage in creating more mindshare and memory hooks.

Confirmation Bias: Confirmation bias (sometimes referred to as overconfidence bias) revolves around people's fondness for evidence that confirms rather than challenges their current beliefs.

Basically, if people are wrong, they lose the sense of control they need to predict, dominate, and manage their world. When people's beliefs or values are challenged with non-confirming evidence, they often choose to disregard, dispute, or dilute the evidence.

Numerous studies have shown that people will often "read over" a section in the newspaper that is in conflict with their beliefs, without being aware that they are doing it.

Focus groups and other types of marketing research often attempt to understand the beliefs or characteristics that make people subscribe to a brand or product to determine if a company's messaging is aligned with or confirms the different belief sets.

One of the problems with the confirmation bias is that people become so dogmatic and rigid in their viewpoint that they aren't open to competing explanations or to adapting their position in light of new facts or interpretations.

Combat method

One method of combating confirmation bias is to actively elicit all the non-confirming evidence for a particular position. It's also helpful to assume that what other people say is true, and then to follow their thinking to its logical conclusion.

For example, maybe the market for your product is smaller than you've assumed, what is the evidence "for" and "against," and how would you deal (contingency planning) with the "smaller market" situation should it arise (e.g., scenario planning).

Alfred Sloan, former CEO and chairman of General Motors, would often delay a decision when he couldn't find any opposition to it. He believed that if there was no dissent, the issue hadn't been sufficiently analysed (i.e., watch out for a roomful of "yes" people).

Net, Net: Challenge your beliefs and positions by looking for non-confirming evidence or assume that a differing viewpoint is true and determine what that will mean to your plan going forward.

We know that most people do not think or behave like the classical "economic man"— logical, rational and objective. With so many things vying for people's attention, we are constantly filtering our experience using heuristics and biases in order to more easily sift, sort and decide. By understanding people's irrational patterns, we can begin to understand the drivers behind certain behaviours.

You may begin to look differently at initial offers or prices, on the effect of recent events, and on searching for non-confirming evidence to what seems like a bulletproof idea, initiative, or strategy. By putting heuristics and biases in the light, and by making people, including yourself, aware of them, you can begin to reshape and reframe the decision criteria into criteria that better meet your goals and objectives.

The writer is a media and entertainment professional, and president of Network Productions FZ LLC, Dubai.