Free to Air: What are your biases and heuristics?

Most of us live in a world of full inboxes, shifting deadlines and a confusing array of acronyms and buzzwords. We often need heuristics (a mental shortcut or rule of thumb) and biases as a way of navigating the swirling sea of information, decisions and choices while quickly sorting the "chaff from the wheat" in our daily lives.

If life is the study of attention, then what we pay attention to is intimately related to what we think about most, which is based on various predilections and predispositions of our three-tiered brain.

Heuristics and biases are ubiquitous because they are innate to the human animal. They apply to customers, colleagues, executives, investors and any other category to which we assign human beings.

To better understand how people's distortions, shortcuts and biases affect how you market to various stakeholders, you should be aware of people's thinking patterns and perceptual filters, including your own.

The biases and heuristics that are most relevant to this discussion include anchoring and adjustment, availability bias and confirmation bias.

Various independent lines of research suggest that to explain or describe an event, people anchor on the first number or evidence they hear. Witness the countless examples of professionals using strategic anchoring to cut a better deal or bring you closer to their position.

Many corroborating studies demonstrate that in areas of ambiguity or uncertainty people often latch on to random flashes of certainty or confidence.

The other part of this heuristic is the act of insufficient adjustments or calibrations from an anchor (which may or may not be credible). We typically see this adjustment played out in various negotiation situations.

For example, the buyer will anchor the seller on a bad-faith offer (e.g. low-ball them), hoping the seller will make an insufficient adjustment, with the buyer then coming out ahead.

This scenario can also be played out with a seller anchoring the buyer to an unrealistic price, hoping the buyer thinks that a legitimate concession is being made when conceding a deal.

When the anchor issue pertains to a price, however, we have to take into account the price-quality relationship and the work of social psychologists demonstrating the law of perceptual consistency, which compels people to convince themselves that the more expensive item is actually better, even if it's not.

Net, Net: Become more aware of the heuristic of anchoring and adjustment and how it can help or hurt you in reaching your objectives with various stakeholders.

(This is the first of a two-part series.)

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