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Sway
The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behaviour
We will do anything to avoid a loss. Max Bazerman's "$20 auctions". Auction $20 bill but with 2 rules: each bid must be a dollar more than previous, and while the winner gets the note, the underbidder also has to pay his last bid, even tho gets nothing. The pattern is always same - fast bidding till get to about $14 or $15, then everyone except top 2 drop out. Up till this stage they are playing to win. But now, suddenly, they are playing not to lose. And of course everyone else roars with laughter when the bids go over $20. Rationally you should accept your losses and stop, but that's easier said than done. The record was $204.
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We have a mental shortcut called Value Attribution - we pay attention to what we (subjectively) decide is worth it. 2007 experiment organized by the Washington Post. Dressed a famous violinist in jeans and baseball cap, gave him a Stradivarius and sent him down to play in the subway. 1097 people walked past, and apart from one gobsmacked woman who recognized him, he was completely ignored.
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Basketball collects meticulous stats on a players measurable traits, but it turns out that the most impt is the order of draft pick. The lower the number, the more time the coach gives him on court (and the more time he has to shine). Getting drafted ninth instead of eighth decreased average game time by 23 minutes a season. And this ultimately affects length of career - a first round draft pick stayed in the league three years longer than a second round pick. It's as if each player carries a permanent price tag on his shirt
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Labels affect us deeply. Expt where students asked to rate a teacher they had for one lecture. They were given a fairly detailed half page biography of the guy, but with a slight difference. Half class got the bio which used phrase " a warm person" and the other half got bio which said "a somewhat cold person". Those two words made a huge difference - the students evaluations may as well have been describing two different people. One group described him as good-natured, considerate, sociable and popular. The other saw him as formal, self-centred, irritable and unpopular.
But even when aren't given a label, we create our own. We make up our mind quickly about someone we meet, and then we don't notice things that don't fit into that category.
Job interviews are like first dates. And how many times have you found that the impression you got of someone on first meeting gets modified by experience, and you later wonder 'What was I thinking?'"How cd I not see these things?'.
Interviewed college students in love. The participants were hopeless at predicting whether their relationship wd last (roommates and parents were much better at predicting that) but they were dead right in seeing the problem areas. The students weren't blind to the issues that were already putting strains on their relationship; they simply ignored them when it came to making predictions about the future.
Hiring managers just ask poor questions - usually the things that any sensible applicant wd have swatted up before hand. And they give too much weight to irrelevant factors, especially things such as how much they like the applicant
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