Two interesting biases I have learned today | #DailyBlink49
Change can be a scary thing for many people, which is perhaps why many tend to prefer that things simply stay the way they are. I was going through an article about deep work where I learned about two cognitive biases we humans have. 1. Status quo bias 2. Optimism bias
From an article:
1. Status quo bias:
The term “status quo bias” was first introduced by researchers William Samuelson and Richard Zeckhauser in 1988. In a series of controlled experiments, Samuelson and Zeckhauser found that people show a disproportionate preference for choices that maintain the status quo.2 Participants were asked a variety of questions, for example, in which they had to take the role of the decision-maker in situations faced by individuals, managers, and government officials.
Based on the results, the research showed a strong status quo bias in the responses. When making an important choice, people are more likely to pick the option that maintains things as they are currently.
A status quo bias minimizes the risks associated with change, but it also causes people to miss out on potential benefits that might even outweigh the risks.
2. Optimism bias
The optimism bias is essentially a mistaken belief that our chances of experiencing negative events are lower and our chances of experiencing positive events are higher than those of our peers.
This phenomenon was initially described by Weinstein in 1980, who found that the majority of college students believed that their chances of developing a drinking problem or getting divorced were lower than that of other students.3 At the same time, the majority of these students also believed that their chances of positive outcomes like owning their own home and living into old age were much higher than their peers.
You can learn several other biases and psychology here:
