Off the top of my head 💭 — Availability bias
I work more than you, more-is-less & less-is-more mind games, and trending illusions.
Hello there 👋 Welcome to 10x your mind 🧠.
It’s week 5 of this newsletter. Each week, we learn to dodge a cognitive bias.
In case this is your first email from me or if you didn’t get a chance to read the prior editions, please check them out here:
Week 1 — I see only what I believe 👀—Confirmation bias
Week 2 — I knew it all along 🤓—Hindsight bias
Week 3 — Gullible, me? No way! 🤷🏻♀️— Anchoring bias
Week 4 — Happy times ahead 🌈 — Optimism Bias
If you’re more of a listener than a reader, stay tuned for the audio version of this post coming tomorrow. I’ll send you an email asa it’s up.
The easier something is to remember, the more it feels right. The harder something is to remember, the more it feels wrong.
We tend to make decisions based on what’s readily available mentally. We decide based on the quickest examples that come to our minds.
Just like fast foods aren’t the best foods, the fastest examples popping up in our heads aren’t always the best ones 🤯!
The mental mistake of making a decision based on immediate and easy examples that come to mind is called the availability bias.
Relying too much on things off the top of your head can lead to wrong beliefs, as follows.
I work more than you!
When spouses are asked about their individual contributions in keeping the place tidy, taking the garbage out, contributing to their kids’ growth, etc., both remember their individual effort and contribution more than their partner’s.
In a joint project, we overestimate our own contribution and underestimate the contribution of the other person.
The same holds true in work environments.
Members of a project team remember their hard work more than that of their team members.
It’s no wonder then that members of a collaborative team often feel that they have done more than their share. They also feel that others are not as thankful as they should be for their individual contributions.
“You will occasionally do more than your share, but it is useful to know that you are likely to have that feeling even when each member of the team feels the same way.”
— Daniel Kahneman
To be an effective leader, you need to understand this bias well.
When you are leading a team, you don’t just need to recognize individual contributions. You also need to acknowledge that everyone feels that they did more than their share.
The mere realization that ‘there is more than 100% of the credit to be distributed’ is enough. It diffuses tensed situations arising from thoughts like “My work isn’t appreciated enough”, “I did more than my share”, etc.
‘More is less’ and ‘less is more’ mind games
When you hear about something, examples of that thing pop up in your mind instantly. If you hear the word ‘movie’, you think of the latest movie you saw or heard about. If you hear the word ‘friend’, images of your friends flash in your mind.
If you instantly think of ten friends, you feel, “I have many friends.” If you struggle to name five friends, you’ll be thinking, “I don’t have many friends.”
For your mind,
More examples in less time is a vote of confidence 👍
Fewer examples in more time is a vote of doubt 👎
So far so good.
Now comes the tricky part—when your mind is challenged to increase the number of examples.
e.g, Name 20 close friends.
The first few come easy. The next few need some effort. More examples, more the effort.
Availability bias is a game of these two playing in our minds:
Number of examples
Ease of recall
When complexity arises, our mind tends to give more weight to the ease of recall than to the number of examples.
You are more likely to feel “I have a lot of friends” soon after naming 5 friends.
You are less likely to feel “I have a lot of friends” soon after naming 20 friends!
An experiment conducted by German psychologist Norbert Schwarz showed that people who listed 12 examples of their assertive behavior rated themselves as less assertive. People who listed 6 examples of their assertive behavior rated themselves as more assertive!
Let’s say I ask you for your advice, “Please tell me 15 ways in which I can improve this newsletter”.
You can easily think of a few ways but coming up with 15 ideas is a cognitive strain! Then, if I ask you to rate this newsletter, you are likely to give it a higher rating. “I’m struggling to find 15 ways to improve it so it must be good.”
Instead, if I ask you for 3 ways to improve this newsletter and then ask you to rate it, you are likely to give it a lower rating. “I came up so easily with ways she can improve, she must be doing a terrible job.”
If examples play such an important role in decision-making, it’s important to understand what brings them to our minds in the first place.
As you’d guess, personal experiences play a major role in making lasting impressions. So do the experiences of your family and friends.
My sister was in Bhuj when an earthquake (6.9 on the Richter scale) struck the beautiful, little town of Gujrat, India in 2001. My entire family, especially her, became sensitive to taking safety measures years after the disaster, although the risks were the same as before.
Soon after 9/11, airport security measures ramped up. Although air travel became much safer, flight occupancy dropped big time.
Besides personal experiences, there’s another major source that feeds examples to our mind—media.
It’s tough to escape the trending illusions and false impressions that media creates. Let’s have a look at some interesting examples:
The Alar scare 🍎
In 1989, a news report claimed that Alar, a chemical used to harvest apples, caused cancer. They also claimed that children were at greater risk. They showed apples with skull images on top and dying children in cancer wards.
Research reviews over the past 16 years had shown that alar was safe for humans but the story went viral anyway.
Apple sales dropped. The apple industry suffered over 100 million dollars in losses.
Shark attacks 🦈
Shark attacks are rare, especially the deadly ones. The average number of annual incidents of unprovoked shark attacks is just 72 worldwide.
Jaws, a thriller film was released in 1975. It’s about a human-eating, giant white shark that attacks beachgoers. The film was a blockbuster. If you watched it, it’s hard to forget the scary shark fin approaching swimmers in the sea while the deadly music is playing in the background.
After the film, the idea of unprovoked shark attacks stuck with people. The number of people swimming in the sea suddenly dropped. The media exploited this fear and more stories were published.
The idea of sharks as killing machines still resides in our minds, decades after the film!
Easy venture capital for female founders 👩🏻💼
In Feb 2021, Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd became the youngest female CEO to ever take a company public. The social media buzzed with her baby on the hip NASDAQ pic among the yellow confetti and balloons.
Along with it came the illusion that it’s easier for a company with a female founder to fundraise.
As a female founder describes, the headlines of women-led IPOs and unicorns receive a lot of media attention. It makes us easily recall these success stories.
The harsh reality, as she notes, is different. Since 2011, the only-women teams are receiving just 1.8% to 2.7% of the total capital invested in venture-backed startups in the US.
Trading decisions
People make trading decisions based on recent headlines, expecting these events to be more frequent than they actually are. During a market crash, they adopt a negative view, thinking the bearish trend will continue 📉.
During asset bubbles, when prices reach super high levels, people still continue to buy under the false belief that the bullish trend will continue 📈.
Our brains are wired to pay more attention to the recent events as old events fade in memory. That’s why the availability bias is also called the recency bias.
Dodging the availability bias
As with other biases, the first step to dodging this bias is to be aware of it.
If you are aware that you can be experiencing recency bias, you can make the right call.
For investors, the best way to dodge this bias is to plan for and stick with an investment strategy and not get carried away with short-term market volatility.
For making big decisions, it’s wise to avoid using a single source of information. Consulting experts is better than believing what’s on BuzzFeed and the likes.
Sometimes, it also helps to consult someone who has an opposing view from yours. You’re in luck if you have a strong-headed teenager at home! Like me, you can always count on them for enlightening you on their opposing views in most situations 😉.
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