Workplace Bias
An American manager on a marketing team believes that a team member who is Japanese is not productive due to their limited input in team meetings.
What is Ethnocentrism?
A group of accountants is working on an audit for a large client. The partner expresses a strong opinion about how to handle a specific transaction. A few members of the team know the partner's opinion is incorrect, but to avoid disrupting the group consensus, they go along with the partner's plan.
What is Group Think bias?
A basketball team loses, and a commentator explains that the reason they lost is due to not shooting well.
What is Oversimplification bias?
You are part of a jury, and early in the case a few of the jurors are outspoken about what they believe. Not wanting to be seen as disagreeable, you and other softer-spoken jurors agree with the dominant viewpoint even though you do have a few doubts.
What is Groupthink bias?
A company blames a decrease in sales entirely on external factors, namely the recession and increased competition. They fail to recognize internal issues like poor product quality and inefficient marketing.
What is Attribution bias?
While working on the year-end financial statements for a business, a newly hired staff accountant is instructed by the Controller to hold off on recording liability accrual so that they can report a higher net income. The new staff does not think that is the correct way of handling it but assumes that the controller knows what they are doing due to more experience, so does as the controller instructed.
What is Authoritative bias?
After an underdog wins the Superbowl, a fan claims, “I always knew they were going to win, they had the best players and a great coach.” However, the fan never mentioned any of that during the regular season.
What is Hindsight bias?
People often say “Education is the key to success”.
What is Oversimplification bias?
While a manager assigns groups to tackle different company projects, one of the older seniors on the team lets out a big sigh as they see they are assigned a project with the recent college graduate. The Senior is frustrated because they assume all new graduates are lazy and unreliable.
What is Stereotypes?
After a company experiences a significant loss due to a risky investment, an accountant looks back at the decisions made and claims that they should have known better as the risks were obvious.
What is Hindsight bias?
A well-respected coach known for their defensive strategies often claims, “defense wins championships”. Fans and analysts accept the statement without question.
What is Authoritative bias?
A student does poorly on an exam, and the teacher immediately assumes that the student is lazy or just not very intelligent.
What is Attribution bias?
The help desk department at an insurance company has been receiving multiple complaints about the slow service being provided. The Manager claims that the reason the service is slow is because the help desk team doesn’t work hard enough. The Manager completely ignores that the computers the help desk team uses are over 20 years old.
A company uses straight line depreciation for all its assets, assuming a constant rate of decline in value. However, some assets might depreciate faster in their early years due to heavy use or technological obsolescence, while others have a longer useful life than initially estimated.
What is Deterministic bias?
A tennis player who is leading a match changes their strategy and becomes overly cautious and defensive to avoid making errors that could lead them to lose the match.
What is Loss Aversion bias?
While participating in a self-reflection after a group project, all four members of the group claim that they have done more than their fair share.
What is Superiority/Overconfidence bias?