Hold My Pickle

 

Pickles (or gherkins to us brits), pure evil aren't they. There you are, just minding you own business and you bite down into that tasty burger and this green, limp foul smelling thing crunches between your teeth. It’s enough to ruin anyone's day.

Pickles are rank, they smell, they look funny, they taste even worse. So why for all that is good and holy would you put them inside a product like a burger? I hate them (yes I release that's a strong word). But they literally serve no purpose other than to make my life a living hell.

But for some strange reason my wife loves them. She can’t get enough of that green, gnarly, lumpy flesh between her teeth. Yep, she’s a weirdo I know (heck she married me, that tells you all you need to know right there).

This is why we compliant each other, she’ll happy snarf my pickles from my bun faster than you can say Ronald McDonald.

And that my friends is the trouble with bias. We assume (incorrectly) that just because we don’t like something, nobody else will.

And that goes for social media. Bias is the building block of social. It’s what polarises us and has people screaming at the top of their lungs about pineapple on pizza (I didn't realise how hungry I was until I wrote this).

But what if we could get out of the way of our bias and even better leverage it to give our content a bit more oomph!

Cognitive bias (the term was coined by Psychologists Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman) is the tendency to make decisions or take action in an illogical way, caused by our values, memory, socialization, and other personal attributes. There are numerous biases, affecting a wide range of behaviors including decision making, judgment, beliefs, and social interactions.

So lets discuss the common types of bias

10 Types of Cognitive Bias

Here are 10 cognitive biases that are common in business decision making. We'll then examine how they can affect your judgment and how to use these in your content!

1. Confirmation Bias

Confirmation bias happens when you look for information that supports your existing beliefs, and reject data that goes against what you believe. This can lead you to make biased decisions, because you don't factor in all of the relevant information.

2. Anchoring

This bias is the tendency to jump to conclusions – that is, to base your final judgment on information gained early on in the decision-making process.

Think of this as a "first impression" bias. Once you've heard "the anchor," you're likely to interpret it and make judgments based upon it.

3. Overconfidence Bias

This happens when you place too much faith in your own knowledge and opinions. You may also believe that your contribution to a decision is more valuable than it actually is.

You might combine this bias with anchoring, meaning that you act on hunches, because you have an unrealistic view of your own decision-making ability.

Researchers have found that entrepreneurs are more likely to display overconfidence bias than the general population. [2] They can fail to spot the limits to their knowledge, so they perceive less risk. Some succeed in their ventures, but many do not.

4. Halo Effect

This is the tendency for a person's positive traits to "spill over" from one area of their personality to another in others' perception of them. In other words, it's hard to believe that someone you like or trust in another context could be wrong now.

You may also come across the opposite: the Horn Effect. As you may have guessed, this is when someone's negative traits cloud your judgment of them or their abilities.

5. Gambler's Fallacy

With the gambler's fallacy, you expect past events to influence the future.

Often, the longer the run, the stronger your belief can be that things will change the next time. But in fact, outcomes are highly uncertain. The number of successes that you've had previously has little or no bearing on the future.

6. Fundamental Attribution Error

This is the tendency to blame others when things go wrong, instead of looking objectively at the situation. In particular, you may blame or judge someone based on a stereotype or a perceived personality flaw.

Fundamental attribution error is the tendency to place blame on external events.

7. Bandwagon Bias

Bandwagon bias is a form of groupthink. Here, the tendency is to form an opinion or take action because others have already done so. The probability of you "hopping on the bandwagon" increases as others adopt an idea.

8. Mere Exposure Effect

According to Robert Zajonc's 1968 study, the mere exposure effect, or "familiarity principle," occurs when "repeated exposure of the individual to a stimulus object enhances his attitude toward it." [3]

In decision making, this bias can manifest itself as a preference for opinions, people or information that you've already seen or heard before.

9. Hindsight Bias

Sometimes called the "I knew it all along" effect, hindsight bias is when someone believes that they accurately predicted the outcome of a decision before it was made, even if they didn't.

Researchers Neal Roese and Kathleen Vohs argue that hindsight bias occurs when people feel that a certain outcome was obvious and expected, but only after the event has taken place – put simply, when they look back on a decision, they feel that they "knew what would happen all along" – even though they didn't. [4]

Hindsight bias can be especially problematic when you want to understand why a decision went wrong, as it can be hard to look back objectively. It can also cause problems when you need to analyze or interpret results in business experiments, because you might view your findings as "predictable" once your tests are complete.

10. Dunning-Kruger Effect

The Dunning-Kruger effect refers to people's ability to accurately assess their own and others' competence. In general, low-skilled people tend to overestimate their own abilities, and highly skilled people tend to underestimate theirs.

SOCIAL MEDIA BIAS EXAMPLES

1. Confirmation Bias

Confirmation bias can affect the way that people interpret statistics. People have a tendency to infer information from statistics that support their existing beliefs, even when the data supports an opposing view. (Think polls). That makes confirmation bias a potentially serious problem to overcome when you need to make a statistics-based decision.

2. Anchoring

Anchors often affect decision making when it comes to purchasing a product. Think of them in terms of pricing. More often than not you'll pick the middle price for most things because it's been anchored by a cheaper price.

3. Overconfidence Bias

This happens a lot with people starting out on the platform. I mean how hard can content be? Now try doing it sustainably over a period of time. Not so easy is it.

4. Halo Effect

Also referred to as influence. Be wary of people spouting "facts" on social media platforms and always, always get them to back up what they are saying with hard data.

5. Gambler's Fallacy

Personal Brand X gets tons of tons of views on their content, they must be able to do it for me. Right? Wrong.

6. Fundamental Attribution Error

Oh the algorithm isn't favouring video content this month, that's why my views are down. Maybe. Or maybe your video content sucks. Ever think of that?

7. Bandwagon Bias

Easy to follow the group herd mentality on social media content isn't it. Why argue with it, they can't all be wrong can they? Agree?

8. Mere Exposure Effect

On average it takes 14 pieces of content before someone decides to make a purchase decision. So makes sure you're consuming the right kind. Does it answer your pain points and can that person genuinely solve your problem? Get them to show social proof.

9. Hindsight Bias

Buyer beware, not all social coaching generates revenue.

10. Dunning-Kruger Effect

Typically it's actually the introverts and the quiet ones that actually do the best as social media. Now they have a platform to air their voice. Those that shout the loudest most of the time sink on social (over compensating maybe).

Think about how our brains are hardwired for bias AND how by leveraging some of these types of bias we can A) spot them in other peoples content so we aren't subjected to them and B) leverage them for ours (in a positive way hopefully).

So keep a check on your bias and see how easy it is for people to be triggered by there's.

Heck I might even learn to start loving pickles… Then again nahhhhh.