Entrepreneurs are susceptible to a range of cognitive biases, which cause them to make erroneous judgements and decisions when given feedback from our actions. The most common biases for early-stage entrepreneurs are optimism bias, planning fallacy, confirmation bias and the sunk cost fallacy. Drew Houston encountered these biases both directly and indirectly during the early stages of his Dropbox venture. Houston avoided some of these biases completely, like the sunk cost fallacy, from his own vision of how to manage an early-stage venture. However, Houston was victim of the planning fallacy when estimating the time it would take to launch the Dropbox beta test. Ultimately, the success of Dropbox was directly influenced on how Houston both …show more content…
It is the tendency to underestimate the time and efforts required to complete a task given the benefits that it would bring. When Drew Houston applied to Y Combinator, he had projected to release a commercial version of Dropbox within eight weeks. However, Houston greatly simplified the efforts that must go into public relations and business planning to ensure the success of the product post-launch. The first and most obvious strategy to mitigate this fallacy, is to be aware of its presence when making estimates for the amount of work/time a task would require. The second approach is to make an estimate based on a similar task that has been done in the past. For radically innovative ventures, it is impossible to get such a reference. As a result, the idea is to launch and test minimum viable tests constantly to provide estimates of the effort a task would require. Houston explicitly states that because Dropbox was a mission-critical product, it would not be beneficial for them to launch early and often. As a result, it is somewhat understandable that they underestimated the time required to launch a viable product because they only had one beta test as a reference point, and this was not enough to make an accurate
The hidden bias test by Project Implicit was interesting method of determining hidden biases. A hidden bias is, “Biases thought to be absent or extinguished remain as "mental residue" in most of us.”(Teaching Tolerance, 2014). Studies have shown a link between biases and behavior and biases can be revealed through an individual’s actions. If biases are revealed through actions then they must be learned. Teaching Tolerance indicates, “Bias is perpetuated by conformity with in-group attitudes and socialization by the culture at large.” (Teaching Tolerance, 2014). This perspective supports the belief which biases are learned and never forgotten and reestablished through behavior. My perception of biases is they are formed through experiences not group conformity. Culture is important influence in forming biases, yet biases can change. According to Teaching Tolerance, even if a bias still changes it lingers in the unconscious. An interesting perspective, biases continue to stay with each of us even if we think it is hidden.
In the articles “Implicit racial bias often begins as early as preschool, a study finds” and “Research suggests the gender gap in math starts as early as kindergarten”. The central idea in the two articles are that girls and black students are treated unfairly. There are similarities and in how they develop the idea of how some students are discriminated against. However there are many differences in how they develop the central idea. There are studies that back up both accusations of black students and girls being treated differently in the classroom.
Cognitive dissonance theory is the theory that we act to reduce the discomfort we feel when two of our thoughts are inconsistent. There are three methods that dissonance can be condensed. Individuals can modify one or more of the beliefs, attitude, behaviors, and more, this way the connection between the two elements are in agreement with one another. Another method is to gather new information that will compensate the dissonant beliefs. The third method is to decrease the importance of the beliefs, attitudes, behavior, and etc. Dissonance theory does not say that these methods will work; only people in the state of cognitive dissonance will use these methods to condense the degree of their dissonance. Cognitive dissonance theory
tereotypes can be useful and beneficial in certain scenarios. There are many benefits to embracing stereotypes they can help you to make safe or smart choices about people by observing them and weather they look dangerous. Why does almost every person in the world stereotype even though it can hurt people? There must be benefits that drive every human to embrace stereotypes.
Implicit and explicit biases are related mental constructs. For many years, even dating back to our great’s ancestor, people always have automatic judge people, places, and things. We were all given five senses, knowing how the brain works, we choose to use our conscious actions to judge. Without awareness, we usually act on those judgments. There are two types of judgments consciously and unconsciously.
Over seventy percent of Americans believe news is purposely biased(SPJ Code of Ethics). This shows that the people in America know their news is biased and are okay with it. Media bias is hurting the way people view races, religious groups, and certain jobs. Before investigating the situation wholly, people tend to believe what the media is saying which could be a stretch of the truth or even a lie. This essay is about Media Bias and all of the important information surrounding this controversial topic: journalism ethics, the “myth” of liberal media bias, and police department controversy.
Cause and Effect Essay - The Impact of Stereotypes In today's society, our natural reaction is to put people into a specific class that we feel they fit into upon our first impression. When we were in high school, they were called clicks. There were your jocks and your cheerleaders, who were usually the most popular students. Along with stoners, nerds, and then the people who really didn't fit into any crowd, they were just there.
Over nearly 100 years ago the first IQ test was developed by French psychologist Alfred Binet. Since then people have always wondered if there were to be a way to use as test that could measure ones intelligence and not show any cultural bias. The truth is that creating one of these standardized tests can be quite difficult to accomplish with no cultural bias. One major reason for this is that language in itself is a cultural barrier for many. By doing some intelligence tests which make non-mainstream cultural assumptions, students can come to experience some of the difficulties and issues involved with culturally biased methods of testing intelligence.
For hundreds of years, racial discrimination has been occurring in our society affecting families and underprivileged kids. Therefore, the racial slurs and the actions towards one another is based off bias, where we grew up and how we were raised as a child individually. From past experiences, to our current lifestyle, there will always be a discriminate person or group protesting and starting new revolutions because of the hatred and undoing actions that have occurred in our past society. Racism and bias opinions are understandable because they derive from from a person’s cultural influences, exposure to dominant racial organizations, and the tendency to conform to expected stereotypes.
Stereotype is a wide topic that covers many aspects in the society. Stereotypes are harmful because it makes an impulsive judgment based on immediately observable characteristics such as race, gender, and religion. Stereotype can be defined as a common belief towards a certain group of people or an individual. There are many types of stereotype and the major ones are race, gender, religion, income and age and disability. There is negative and positive stereotype but many people ignore the negative side of it and they divert their attention on positive stereotype, this i causes many problems because many people suffer because of negative stereotype. Stereotype
Rationality and good judgement are typically affected by certain ways of thinking which are often studied within the psychological community. Within the community, these different ways of effected thinking are called cognitive biases. Breaking down the overall umbrella of the term cognitive bias yields subcategories of decision-making, social and memory biases, among others. Biases such as these affect all humans in one way or another. My personal experience with cognitive biases include confirmation bias, authority bias and egocentric bias. This list is definitely not complete, as I am sure there are many more biases I experience without even realizing what is happening. That being said, the first experience I would like to present is
In today’s generation there is no way to avoid prejudices. Anywhere you go there will always be someone that is looked at as a “lesser” individual. According to Parrillo, prejudice has been defined as “an attitudinal ‘system of negative beliefs, feelings, and action orientations regarding a certain group or groups of people.’” America says all men are created equal however; differences in people’s belief systems and cultural acceptance both play a role in this stereotyping. Prejudice is not limited to just one subject, there is an endless array of different kinds. Some of the most predominant types of prejudice in today’s society are gender, ethnicity, and religion. Personally, I believe that there is no reason to excommunicate somebody just
“Sometimes our brain is so good at finding patterns, it finds patterns that aren’t even really there.” Psychology research provided the reason that it’s all thanks to our cognitive makeup. Our brains are hardwired to recognize patterns, and it is so good at it that sometimes it finds randomness patterns. We take in the chaotic mess of information, and we try to find dots that seem to connect. Our active minds are able to find loopholes in every situation and we ask ourselves ‘why?’.
Prejudice and discrimination have both been prevalent throughout human history. Prejudice deals with the inflexible and irrational attitudes and opinions that are held by others of one group against those of another. Discrimination on the other hand refers to the behaviors directed against another group. Prejudiced individuals have preconceived beliefs about groups of people or cultural practices. There are both positive and negative forms of prejudice, however, the negative form of prejudice leads to discrimination. Individuals that practice discrimination do so to protect opportunities for themselves, by denying access to those whom they believe do not deserve the same treatment as everyone else. An example of discrimination based on prejudice involves the Jews. “Biased sentiments and negative stereotypes of Jews have been a part of Western tradition for centuries and, in fact, have been stronger and more vicious in Europe than in the United States. For nearly two millennia, European Jews have been chastised and persecuted as the “killers of Christ” and stereotyped as materialistic moneylenders and crafty business owners (Healey, p.65). The prejudice against these groups led to the discrimination against them.
We learned a lot of things in this course, but I think the most important lesson I learned is that it’s not easy to be an entrepreneur. I was surprised to hear in the first class that 80% of startups fail, but after reading The Art of Start and E-myth Revisited I understood why this happens more often than one might expects. Some people start their own businesses for the wrong reason and some start with wrong mindset. I’ve always thought that if someone has a brilliant business idea and hardworking they will succeed and grow their business. However, now I know that there are many things to consider before starting any business. In fact, there are many strategies that an entrepreneur could follow to achieve success, such as know your customers, work “on” the business, and how