Biases that can cause us to make bad decisions

We all view the world through different lenses and think differently based upon our upbringing, our experiences and our thought patterns. In other words, our brains are all programmed differently.

Thinking biases can cause us to make bad decisions. This is clearly problematic if you are managing a business such as location-based entertainment and FECs.

Business Insider recently collected a long list of 57 behavior biases that make us think irrationally to, as they said, “bring these biases to light so we can disrupt our thinking and come to terms with reality.”

Here’s a listing of some of those biases that we think can have a negative impact on location-based entertainment and family entertainment center development and management:

  • Attention bias - When someone focuses on only one or two choices despite there being several possible outcomes.
  • Availability heuristic - Where people overestimate the importance of information that is available to them.
  • Backfire effect - When you reject evidence that contradicts your point of view or statement, even if you know it's true.
  • Belief bias - A bias where people make faulty conclusions based on what they already believe or know.
  • Bias blind spots - If you fail to realize your own cognitive biases, you have a bias blind spot. Everyone thinks they're not as biased as people may think, which is a cognitive bias itself.
  • Confirmation bias - A tendency people have to believe certain information that confirms what they think or believe in.
  • Illusion of validity - When weak but consistent data leads to confident predictions.
  • Planning fallacy - The tendency to underestimate how much time it will it will take to complete a task.
  • Status quo bias – The tendency to prefer for things to stay the same

Read more about the above biases and the additional ones at Business Insider.

Also check out our article The entrepreneurial trap of human biases.