They exist more than 30 different types of psychological biases What condition the behavior and decisions of the human being. Below we will explain the most relevant of them all with examples:
1. Confirmation Bias
We are always looking for information outside of us that validates what we already think. Therefore, we interpret more positively those facts that support our opinions. For example, if we think that orange juice makes children who drink it during their childhood taller, we will look for that pattern anywhere. If it were to happen that an adult is tall and has drunk orange juice as a child, it can help us to reinforce that belief in an almost empirical way, so we fall into that kind of bias with ease.
2. Hyperbolic Discount Bias
Tendency to want immediate payments to larger future payments. This is a very common bias among today's young population or also called Millennials, where promptness is a highly valued asset among them.
Many people who suffer from obesity often fall into this bias because of that immediate enjoyment of that food, perhaps not so healthy and tasty, on the other hand, requires greater preparation and even greater price. On the other hand, this must be combined with recurrent exercise to stay healthy and fit. In the long term, the best investment is to be healthy., but because we fall into that bias, we prefer to enjoy the moment and try to compensate for it later.
3. Endogroup Bias
This is the best known of all. Suppose that if others do it you too because you fit into the social sphere. If playing video games in your group of friends is currently well-liked, the natural tendency of others is to follow in the footsteps of the majority. Out of fear of feeling excluded from the social group, we humans tend to do what others do and thus feel more integrated and reduce the fear of hypothetical loneliness. Hence, there are currently fashions such as eSports and watch more and more series online on platforms such as Netflix. In this way, we continue in that social dynamic and can “fit” better on a social level with the other people around us.
4. Anchor Bias
An anchor is, in essence, a starting point from which all other decisions will be affected. Prices are a very clear example. If, for example, we are going to buy a coffee maker with a large surface area but we don't know what its average price is, as a rule, what we do is compare it with the price of other coffee machines. If we see that one costs 200 euros and the one next door costs 60 euros, we have to think that it has a good price. Our brain works relatively, not absolutely. So you always buy information with your internal database. In this case, since it lacks that information, it obtains it from the adjacent prices.
5. Framing Bias
This is simple: the The same information is interpreted from two different depending on how you communicate. The most commonly used example is that a doctor tells his patient that he has a 90% chance of surviving an illness or a 10% chance of dying. In essence, it is the same information, only that depending on how it is presented, it will have a different psychological effect on people. This is a great marketing tool, since it allows the user to focus on the content that we are interested in highlighting, such as discounts or virtues of a product in the face of its weaknesses. We can focus the information in the way that may interest us the most in order to sell more.
6. Loss Aversion Bias
We attach more importance to losses than to gains. A few years ago, a study was carried out on what would be the best way to reduce fatal accidents on the roads. The researchers noticed that in Latin countries such as Spain, Italy or Portugal, the aversion to loss was greater than in other countries, so their solution was to incorporate the card by points. Running out of points seemed to have more effect than the financial fine alone. And during the first few years of its implementation, it was a great success.
7. Compensated Risk Bias
Tendency to drink a lot more risks when we perceive that security increases. During the first few years of the introduction of seat belts in conventional vehicles, traffic accidents increased dramatically. This is due to this bias: people have a greater perception of road safety and take more risks. The seat belt could protect you even from a car in front of another vehicle, so many people felt “invulnerable” inside their cars.
8. Overconfidence Bias
It is the tendency to think that we as individual users are smarter than the people around us or that we answer questions better than others. According to a social experiment, the 80% of the people surveyed believe that they are above the average intelligence of the population.