Еssay on Heuristics and Bias

Often heuristics can lead to the development of various biases and prejudiced attitude. In fact, the case of the boss who is very disturbed by my intention to negotiate with Volvo perfectly proves the fact that heuristic judgments may be extremely biased. In this respect, it should be said that my boss relies on his empirical knowledge that his brother-in-law had a negative experience of buying Volvo since that car proved to be really unreliable and caused a lot of troubles. In such a way, the boss attempts to view the perspectives of the acquisition of Volvo on the basis of the concrete example taken from the real life. It should be pointed out that he actually take a very serious and complicated problem, the acquisition of the company and makes his judgment about the perspective of the deal only on the basis of his own unique and very specific experience.

Obviously, this negative experience produced a negative impact on his view on the company at large, though this attitude is apparently extremely biased because the particular example of the car of his brother-in-law does not actually prove the fact that all Volvo cars are bad. As the matter of fact, he narrows his view on the company dramatically because the car of his brother-in-law substitutes the concept of the entire company, which is much more complicated. Nevertheless, it is obvious that the boss can hardly overcome his bias based on the negative experience that makes him take decisions without a detailed analysis of the perspective of the acquisition of Volvo.

In such a situation, it is extremely important to convince the boss that his biased attitude to the company is unjust.

In fact, it is obvious that Volvo is a highly respectable and reliable company that is worthy of acquisition. At the same time, to convince the both to change his mind will not an easy think, because it will be necessary to debunk his bias.

In this respect, it is possible to several types of heuristics.

First of all, it is possible to follow his example and use the same type of heuristics and show him that the complex problem of the necessity of the acquisition of Volvo through a specific and simple example. For instance, it is possible to tell him about some person, preferably the one he knows well, who also bought a Volvo car and was absolutely satisfied and even admired with the quality of this car. However, this approach cannot be very effective because the personal experience of the boss will outweigh the positive example. This is why it is possible to act vice versa and convince the boss that the negative experience of his brother-in-law was just an exceptional, extraordinary example.

In this respect, it will be necessary to provide the boss with detailed information about Volvo and the public image of the company. To put it more precisely, Volvo is a producer of cars of the premium segment of the market and its cars are traditionally viewed as safest and very reliable cars. For instance, numerous tests in Europe proved that Volvo cars are among the safest cars in the market. Moreover, people buying these cars choose these cars primarily because of their safety and reliability, but not their dynamic or other characteristics. In such a way, it is necessary to shift his attention from the concrete example to the positive image of Volvo and its brand and great perspectives that the acquisition of Volvo opens for our company.