Negotiations are a fundamental element of social life and business. The science of negotiation has developed especially in the last two decades. A lot of knowledge comes from social psychology and behavioral economics. These two areas allow us to better understand and better deal with a topic like cognitive biases/biases.

Psychologists use the metaphor of „elephant and rider” to refer to the two parts of the human mind.

• The elephant is intuition, that is, it is the irrational part.
• The rider is rationalism. Rational thinking and the cognitive model.

The problem is that a rational approach takes time. The information needs to be assimilated, analyzed and acted upon. These activities not only consume time, but also force us to make some effort. The intuitive system, on the other hand, is fast, simple and “painless”.

Cognitive biases are found in the irrational intuitive system. Whether we like it or not, they influence negotiation behavior.

The main cognitive biases are:

• Anchoring / Anchoring

In negotiation talks, the starting position becomes a very strong anchor. It is said that the first offer is always „sticky”. This means that the participants of the negotiations, even subconsciously, refer to this original offer. In an uncertain situation and with high complexity of processes, the importance of the anchor is even greater.

If we do not want to condemn ourselves to „swim around” our opponent’s anchor, it may be a good way to drop the anchor yourself.

• Framing

Framing means creating a context for the negotiation situation or the problem we are facing. Each situation can be presented in a different light (good and bad), as a potential gain or as a loss.

Framing depends on our experience, all baggage related to origin, upbringing or education.

Thanks to skillful framing, we are able to influence the decisions of our negotiating partners.

• Confirmation bias

It results from the need to confirm your decision. When we make a decision, we look for clues and information to prove it was right.

It is therefore good to receive signals (those showing that our behavior was correct) and … translate them into parameters. The data allows us to calculate and check whether our intuitive approach was correct.

• Availability bias

This bias is based on the information readily available in your memory. Such information usually carries some emotional charge. Stories that have happened recently can unduly strongly influence our decisions.

In order to protect against this, it is necessary to remember that the so-called causality should be confirmed on a large statistical sample. Our experiences, even fresh and even very instructive, are statistically irrelevant.

Prejudice is with us. Realizing them and then overcoming them is difficult. This is facilitated by a rational approach and relying on data (not emotions) as well as diversity in the negotiating team.

Source:https://poradniknegocjatora.pl/radowanie-sobie-z-bledami-poznawczymi/

Projekt otrzymał dofinansowanie z Norwegii poprzez Fundusze Norweskie 2014-2021, w ramach programu „Dialog społeczny – godna praca”.