Sunday, November 16, 2014

Decision-Making Biases

The most prominent assumption is that decision-makers are rational. What's the truth? How does it correspond to the reality? Every day world proves that people make mistakes (and they will). Sometimes, however, being irrational is a good thing. I remember that once in a class we had a negotiation where we had to agree on a very important contractbetween two companies. Although bluffing might have been stupid, I lied about having second offer from different company to threaten the opposite party, so they become anchored and set their price lower. That was one of the decision-making biases - risk seeking. Individuals will take irrational risks when the potential payoff is unusually large. They could have not believed me. I could have lost the entire contract... But they did believe me and we agreed, although it was irrational for them to make a deal.

Another bias I (this time) suffered from was my very first negotiation in this course. I was so much anchored, so much closed minded that I couldn't see that there's no payoff from the deal we had. That is called "Escalation of Commitment" and I will remember that good lesson 'til the rest of my life.

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