Behavioral Heuristics

Assignment 1: Discussion—Behavioral Heuristics

Behavioral heuristics, such as availability, anchoring, vividness, storage, conjunction fallacy, and representativeness, all reflect behavioral traits, which if left unchecked may lead to systematic bias in the choices you make. For example, anchoring and availability can lead to disastrous decisions.

You may know how to recognize these heuristics, but consider how they may have influenced you in the past.

Find at least one example from your own career where you, or another manager, allowed one of these or another pitfall, to sway you from the mean.

Respond to the following:

• Why did you/they ignore the base rates?
• What other statistically relevant factors did you/they fail to incorporate?
• How could you have altered the framing of the situation to make a better decision?

Write your initial response in approximately 300 words. Apply APA standards to citation of sources.

By Saturday, January 18, 2014, post your response to the appropriate Discussion Area. Through Wednesday, January 22, 2014, review and comment on at least two peers’ responses. Consider the following points in your comments:

• What other traps may have influenced the situation in their posts?
• How would you have framed the problem differently?
• Are there any other creative solutions to reduce the systematic bias?