A self-fulfilling prophecy is a belief about a future event that leads people to act a certain way, ultimately bringing about the expected outcome. In other words, we cause something to happen just because we expect it.
This suggests that beliefs have the power to alter people’s behaviour in such a way that they become a new reality in the end. Optimism bias can create a self-fulfilling prophecy: when we expect positive things, we are more likely to align our actions with this belief and try harder to influence the outcome.
The planning fallacy refers to people’s tendency to underestimate the resources needed to complete a future task, despite knowing that previous tasks have also taken longer than planned.
For example, people generally tend to underestimate the cost and time needed for construction projects. The planning fallacy occurs due to people’s tendency to overestimate the chances that positive events, such as a shortened timeline, will happen to them. This phenomenon is called optimism bias or positivity bias.
A positive illusion is a form of self-deception under which people have inflated, favorable attitudes about themselves or others close to them.
The most common positive illusions involve:
- Exaggerating one’s positive traits
- Overestimating one’s degree of control in life
- Harboring overly optimistic beliefs about future events (also called optimism bias or positivity bias).
The opposite of optimism bias is pessimism bias. Optimism bias occurs when we overestimate our chances of experiencing positive events in our lives, while pessimism bias occurs when we overestimate our chance of experiencing negative events.
For example, pessimism bias could cause someone to think they are going to fail an exam, even though they are well prepared and get good grades.
Because of the framing effect, the way information is presented to us influences how attractive a proposition is.
Suppose you are considering joining a gym. A membership at £500 per year sounds like a considerable investment and might prevent you from signing up immediately. However, if they tell you it costs just £1.37 per day and emphasize that this is less than the cost of a cup of coffee, you might think it’s a great offer, even though in reality both offers cost you the same.
The framing effect is often used in advertising to positively influence consumer choice.
One common type of frame is ‘gain framing‘. This shows consumers how they are going to benefit from a product or service. For example, dental care product advertisements use gain framing to display the benefits of using their product: white teeth, healthy gums, fresh breath, etc.
Apart from the obvious benefits, ads using the framing effect often imply other benefits, such as how a better-looking smile makes one more attractive to potential dating partners.
In survey research, such as political polling, the way questions are worded or the order in which answers are presented can influence how respondents answer the questions. This is called the framing effect.
For example, if voters are asked to select which of two candidates they plan to vote for, the order in which the candidates are listed affects the percentage of respondents selecting each candidate. Recognising the potential for research bias, researchers typically rotate which major candidate is listed first and which is listed second.
Although both are common types of cognitive bias, they refer to different ways of processing information.
- The availability bias (or availability heuristic) refers to the tendency people have to rely on information that is easier to recall when faced with a decision.
- Confirmation bias is the tendency to selectively search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one’s preconceived ideas.
In other words, the availability heuristic gives preference to information that is easy to recall, while confirmation bias gives preference to information that aligns with our existing beliefs. Even though they are different, they both cause us to focus on only a subset of information.
Heuristics are mental shortcuts or rules of thumb that help people reduce the time and effort required to make a decision. An example of a heuristic in psychology is the availability heuristic (or availability bias). It involves relying on information that comes to mind quickly, (i.e., information that is available to us).
The availability heuristic can influence our perception of risk in everyday life. One common example occurs when we are considering buying insurance. The sharp increase in purchases of flood insurance in the aftermath of flood events illustrates this phenomenon.
Witnessing such events, knowing someone who was personally affected, or extensive media coverage can make us more aware of floods (or make floods more ‘available’ to us). This can change our risk perception, even though statistically there may not be a change in the probabilities of future flooding.
