Examples Of Cognitive Biases

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My wife was on Facebook one day in August when she saw someone selling a few old doors from a remodeled house in our town. My wife is a “DIY network-a-holic.” She loves to watch those types of shows. She saw one where they made a headboard for a bed out of an old door, so when she saw the old doors for sale she was extremely happy. The town we love in was built in the 1930’s during the construction of the Hoover Dam. The Six Companies conglomerate that built the dam also built the homes in town for the workers and management. The doors were from one of the original homes that the Six Companies built. The doors were made of solid Southern Yellow Pine. They don’t make normal doors like this anymore. My task was to secure two doors for my wife …show more content…

Our text defines cognitive biases as the “tendency to make systematic errors when they process information” (Lewicki & Saunders, 2010, p. 150). My first cognitive bias was issue framing and risk. I had already in my mind framed this negotiation from the stand point of man (knows everything) versus women (knows nothing) and therefore I was willing to take more risk because I believed I had the upper hand (Lewicki & Saunders, 2010, p. 153-154). The other cognitive bias I was guilty of was that of overconfidence. I was over confident because I believed I was matched up against someone that I believed was not as knowledgeable as I was, unfortunately I was wrong. When she told me that she had saved the doors from the landfill because she and her brother had bought her house as an investment property and renovated it and she had refinished all of her doors in her home. She also revealed that she had gotten a couple offers from a few antique store owners in town. I asked her how much they had offered her and she told me $100 per door. My wife and I peruse the antique stores in town a few times a year and have found some antique doors for sale for as much as $250 dollars. Some of the doors and in much worse shape than the ones she had for sale. At that point I knew I was in trouble. There was no way I was going to pay $100 per door. I asked her how much she wanted for the doors and she told me that …show more content…

Power is defined as “the capabilities negotiators can assemble to give themselves an advantage or increase the probability of achieving their objectives” (Lewicki & Saunders, 2010, p. 197). Power is used to try and alter the other sides view of our proposal. My opponent had expert power that I did not know she had and because of that I came in with a very low offer that initially caused her to become tense. If her fiancé had not showed up at the time he did I believe the negotiation would have taken a very bad turn for me and I would have either paid my resistance point of $75 per door or the negotiation would have broken down and ended with me leaving without the doors. However, her fiancé did show up and that allowed me to exert the referent power I had with him. Because he knew me and the relationship I had with him was positive the negotiation resulted in a positive outcome for

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